Peat deposits are important archives that can be used to reconstruct continental paleoenvironmental histories. Although they cover only 3% of the global land area, they store 30% of global soil organic carbon. They constitute an accumulation of the remains of mosses and vascular plants that have lived and died in marshy settings. The moist environments encourage growth of the plants and retard decomposition of their remains to produce thick accumulations of organic-rich material that can be studied for high resolution paleoenvironmental reconstructions. The plant remains are deposited where the plants lived and hence provide location-specific evidence of past environmental conditions. Today’s presentation will summarize the climate sensitivity of peat deposition, illustrate applications of a few organic geochemical proxies to peat paleoclimate reconstructions, and ponder the place of peatlands in glacial-interglacial changes in the global carbon cycle.