Christer Nordlund

Attitudes on intensive forestry : an investigation into perceptions of increased production requirements in Swedish forestry

Abstract In 2008, the Swedish government launched an inquiry into the possibilities, benefits and requirements for conducting intensive forestry in part of the Swedish countryside, including fertilization, genetically improved plant material and fast-growing species beyond what is currently allowed in Swedish legislation. Drawing upon part of that governmental investigation, this paper analyzes attitudes toward intensive forestry over time. The study draws upon studies of points of conflict written in the 1970s and 1980s, attitudes among different stakeholder groups, and interviews with forest owners and stakeholder groups potentially affected by intensive forestry. The study concludes that the diverging opinions as to what constitutes acceptable forest use have remained largely the same over the years. Radical landscape change is generally not seen as desirable, but views diverge over the use of novel tree species and the use of fertilization.

Energizing technology: expectations of fuel cells and the hydrogen economy, 1990–2005

Abstract Although fuel cells have been considered promising technology since the nineteenth century, fresh expectations – expressed by engineers, company leaders, politicians and journalists – began to flourish in the 1990s later on associated with the vision of a ‘hydrogen economy.’ Inspired by research in the history and sociology of expectations, the present paper analyzes this recent history of global fuel cells and hydrogen potentials as played out in the USA, EU, and especially Sweden. It is demonstrated that automotive shows, the mass media, and forecast projects were significant arenas in promoting and circulating the idea that fuel cells represented energy efficient and clean technology that almost by necessity would be utilized in the ‘vehicles of the future.’ This paper also highlights the framing of water both as a potential source of energy and as a symbolic purifying bath that would restore an environmentally friendly society, interpreted as an ecomodern utopia.

'On going up in the World' : Nation, region and the land elevation debate in Sweden

The aim of the article is to analyse the relationship between Quaternary geology, the idea of land elevation, nationalism and regionalism in Scandinavia, with special regard to the contribution of Swedish geologists at the end of the nineteenth century. From a scientific point of view, the idea of land elevation was connected to the acceptance of the glaciation theory and the elevation theory of Thomas F. Jamieson, but analysed in a wider cultural context it is possible to understand both the professionalization of Quaternary geology and the new theory of shore-line displacement as expressions of Swedish cultural nationalism. As a complement to the specific cultural history, the Quaternary geology enterprise was a way of constituting a unique natural history of the nation. One of the new theories that developed in this process was that of the Highest Marine Border, a complex concept established by the distinguished geologist Gerard De Geer at the end of the 1880s in order to defend the theory of land elevation, which was threatened by the work of Eduard Suess. The line was considered to be a geographical border that both expressed the elevation pattern and sharply divided Sweden into one part that had been covered by water during the post-glacial period and another part that had not. The study continues by looking more closely at the construction of the border in the north of Sweden. Through an account of a subsequent scientific dispute between De Geer and the geologist Arvid Gustaf Hogbom it is clear that the concept of the Highest Marine Border was shaped not only by nationalism but also by regionalism.

Four points on Lennart von Post and the invention of “Pollen Statistics”

This essay is a contribution to the historiography of Lennart von Post and the early development of quantitative pollen analysis. Based on von Post’s own publications and source material from the archives of Stockholm University College, where he was appointed professor in 1929, the essay offers four points on von Post’s scientific identity and the collective work through which quantitative pollen analysis, or “pollen statistics”, came into being. The four points are, first, that von Post made his career as a geologist; second, that he framed pollen analysis as a means to tackle Quaternary geological issues; third, that his work benefitted from collective work, both in the field and in the laboratory; and fourth, that quantitative pollen analysis was not accepted without criticism, taking some years to break through beyond the Geological Survey, where von Post worked before he became professor.

How the Coast Became High : an Historical Introduction to the High Coast (Höga Kusten) World Heritage Site in Sweden

How the Coast Became High : an Historical Introduction to the High Coast (Hoga Kusten) World Heritage Site in Sweden

Modernising the cultural landscape

In the end, landscape turned out to be a concept almost entirely devoid of content. At worst a bad painting, at best a settled area, a stretch of native soil, in which the cooperative farmers’ movement could mobilise support, or which it could protect, using arguments drawn from the cultural history of land cultivation. And then, gradually, but also instantaneously, the term passed through a developing tank, and out came a landscape that both unified and signified. At the end of the twentieth century the notion of landscape checked the divides that had deepened between tradition and modernity, among scientific specialities and among spatial practices. But it did so without the anti-modernism that in earlier periods had restrained the passion for landscape.

Married for Science, Divorced for Love: Success and Failure in the Collaboration Between Astrid Cleve and Hans von Euler-Chelpin

Hans von Euler-Chelpin (1873–1964) and Astrid Cleve (1875–1968) are two colorful personalities in the modern history of Swedish science who comprised a productive and yet volatile marital collaboration. Hans von Euler-Chelpin is internationally recognized primarily for his research in organic chemistry; for his studies on fermentation he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1929. Astrid Cleve, on the other hand, earned her place in the annals of history as the first woman in Sweden to defend a doctoral thesis in a scientific field, botany. They were both highly dedicated researchers pursuing scientific careers, and for a while their interests successfully converged. However, their scientific and marital partnership effectively ended within a decade. In this essay, we analyze their collaboration and its impact in relationship to the gendering of private and public spheres, and highlight how gender structures were created and reproduced within von Euler-Chelpin’s and Cleve’s scientific context.

Æemula Lauri: The Royal Norwegian Society of Science and Letters, 1760–2010

Rec. av Hakon Witt Andersen et al., Aemula Lauri: The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, 1760–2010