Acknowledgments

This book grew out of debates I have had with students, friends, and colleagues, both in Oslo and in New York, who share my sense of helplessness in facing our global environmental crisis. Is it possible for a single, unheard-of scholar or for a tiny group of middle-of-the-road researchers at non-prestigious universities to reach an international audience? Is it feasible for students speaking an odd, non-academic language or for unknown thinkers from the world’s periphery to raise global environmental debates? Judging from the story I am about to tell, the answer is yes. And that above all is what motivates this book. In revisiting Norwegian environmental debates from the 1970s, I have been awed, amused, bewildered, appalled – and have even burst out laughing – at the various ways in which activists and scholars of the period managed to reach an audience with their environmental concerns. Yet I have never stopped being impressed by the various ways in which they took Karl Marx’s famous thesis to heart: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point however is to change it.”Footnote ¹

My first round of thanks therefore goes to all the people I write about in this book, most of whom I have met, and many of whom I have had the pleasure of sharing my thoughts with over the years. As a child I came to witness one of Helge Ingstad’s stunning lectures. Then as a young environmental activist (and faithful ecophilosopher), subsequently as a critic, and finally as a historian of science, I have benefited from conversing with Per Ariansen, Ottar Brox, Nils Faarlund, Dagfinn Føllesdal, Harold Glasser, Ola Glesne, Hjalmar Hegge, Thor Heyerdahl, Paul Hofseth, Helge Høibraaten, David R. Klein, Ivar Mysterud, Arne Næss, Kit-Fai Næss, Siri Næss, Jørgen Randers, Nils Roll-Hansen, David Rothenberg, Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng, Gunnar Skirbekk, Nils Christian Stenseth, Randi Veiberg, Lars Walløe, and Jon Wetlesen. I owe a warm shout-out to Høibraaten from whom I have borrowed the title.Footnote ² A special thanks to Hofseth for access to his personal archive, to Hans Eirik Aarek who gave me some impossible-to-get-hold-of books, and to Hegge for giving me his press archive and hard-to-find articles. I have never met Oddvar Skre and Erik Steineger, but I have had the opportunity to communicate with them in writing. These people do not necessarily agree with my reading of the events. Indeed, it should be stated, this book is not “their” story, though I have benefited enormously from their various accounts and pointed to them in the footnotes.

My previous colleagues at the Forum for University History, University of Oslo, offered their time for intellectual discussions. I am particularly grateful to its former leader John Peter Collett, and to fellow Norwegian historians Edgeir Benum, Vidar Enebakk, Robert Marc Friedman, Jorunn Sem Fure, Magnus Gulbrandsen, Kim Helsvig, Eirinn Larsen, Johannes Løvhaug, Jon Røyne Kyllingstad, Jan Eivind Myhre, Fredrik W. Thue, and Bent Sofus Tranøy for their support. They helped ensure the publication of a much abbreviated Norwegian account of this book, as well as two articles on the topic for an English-speaking audience.Footnote ³ Fellow Norwegians Kristin Asdal, Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Erling Kagge, Thorgeir Kolshus, Yngve Nilsen, Hallvard Notaker, Tarjei Rønnow, Lars Fr. H. Svendsen, Karen Victoria Lykke Syse, Terje Tvedt, Nina Witoszek, and Knut Olav Åmås have also inspired me in various ways to move on with the project.

I am also grateful to The Department of Archeology, Conservation, and History at the University of Oslo who generously included me institutionally, and to the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association for funding. Frøydis Brekken Elvik assisted me with initial archival searches in Norway, and Kjetil Korslund, Rachel Stern, and Barbara Wilson have done invaluable editorial work. I am also thankful for two generous anonymous reviews and the fine work of Cambridge University Press’s editorial team Rachel Blaifeder, John McNeill, and Ling Zhang.

Over the years I have had the pleasure of discussing aspects of this book with Ken Alder, Nina Edwards Anker, Stephen Bocking, Andrew Brennan, Graham Burnett, Jimena Canales, Deborah Coen, Eugene Cittadino, Stephen Duncombe, Paul Forman, Peter Galison, Jeanne Haffner, Myles Jackson, Mitchell Joachim, James Lovelock, Gregg Mitman, Daniel Kevles, Rachel Rothschild, Hashim Sarkis, James C. Scott, Sverker Sörlin, Alistair Sponsel, Matthew Stanley, and Jennifer Telesca. Generous colleagues at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University have also provided invaluable help and support, including our amazing Dean Susanne Wofford. My gratitude also goes to the munificent students of my History of Ecology and Environmentalism course at New York University who endured the process of me turning research into a book. It is my sincere hope that it will empower them to think that it is indeed possible to reach a global audience and perhaps even change the course of our unfolding environmental crisis for the better.

Finally, there is an element of self-reflection in this book, as I grew up in Oslo where I also attended environmental study and philosophy seminars at the University of Oslo. I spent much of my spare time at many of the peripheral sites discussed, including going cross-country skiing and hiking at Hemsedal, Hardangervidda, Finnmark, Finse, and Ustaoset. I have climbed the Hallingskarvet peak, visited Budalen, sailed at Vesterålen, admired the Vøringsfossen waterfall, and spent my life’s happiest moments in the beautiful Larvik fjord and at Tjøme. More recently I have brought my two incredible boys, Lukas and Theo, to these places so that they too, perhaps, may be inspired to care for the natural world. It is in that spirit that I dedicate the book to them.