Events in the collective environmental memory of humanity

What are the most important events in the collective
environmental memory of humanity? In the spring of 2013 a group
of environmental historians from around the globe was confronted
with this very question. They were asked to nominate one event
that, in their opinion, should be part of this collective memory.
This was part of a survey for a special issue of the journal
Global Environment on environment and memory. The twenty-two
entries that were returned provide an interesting window in what
professional environmental historians regard as world changing
environmental events that should be remembered by all of us. The
events suggested are a colorful mix including animals and bombs,
dust and climate, organic and mineral resources, the old
conservation movement and the new post-1970 environmental
movement. In spatial terms, events were scattered over all five
continents as well as the entire globe.


The guest on this episode of the podcast is Frank Uekotter, the
organiser of the collective environmental memory survey. He
discusses what the spatial and temporal distribution of the
entries as well as the obvious silences and omissions tells us
about our historical imagination and the present direction and
focus of the discipline of environmental history.


Music credits: Where You Are Now by Zapac, 1973 by Doxent
Zsigmond, nervoso con las guitarras by norelpref. All available
from ccMixter