Final Seminar in PhD Training: Planetary Timemakeing
Paleoclimatology and the Temporalities of Environmental Knowledge, 1945-1990
Doctoral student: Erik Isberg
Supervisors: Sverker Sörlin, Sabine Höhler and Adam Wickberg
Opponent: Dania Acherman, Senior Scientist Ambizione, University of Bern
Time: Mon 2023-03-13 13.15 - 15.00
Location: Big seminar room, Teknikringen 74D (floor 5), Division of History of Science
Language: English
Participating: Erik Isberg, Doctoral Student, Division of History of Science, technology and Environment
Erik Isberg is a doctoral student in the SPHERE project. His work concerns the scientific construction of a global environment and how planetary timescales were increasingly incorporated into human history and global environmental governance between 1950-1980. As human impact on the environment began to be understood in planetary terms, practices aimed at tracking environmental changes over vast periods of time, such as ice core drilling and pollen analysis, were drawn into the political spotlight. They spoke to more than just the deep past, as they gradually became immersed in the work to predict, visualize and alter the trajectories of the living conditions on the planet. Over the course of a few decades, long planetary timescales had moved into the realm of the governable.