In times of climate crisis, where we source our information and what we do with it can be critical. In this lecture-style workshop, part of a programme of events and masterclasses marking the 200th anniversary of The Guardian, two experts invite you to explore how historical research into the changing environment has influenced today’s reporting of the climate crisis.

With professor of environmental history Sverker Sörlin, you will discover how the concept of the environment was first introduced after the Second World War, when the threat of conflict and toxic substances reframed the way we saw the world around us. You will explore the key players in the development of our emerging understanding of the limitations of the earth and humanity’s effect on it, and be taken through the fascinating evolution of semantics developed to filter ideas about ‘climate’ and ‘resources’ down to the general population.

Following Sverker’s lecture about our historical relationship with the environment, Fiona Harvey will discuss the implications of our understanding on how we live now. An award-winning journalist who has covered the environment for nearly two decades, she will take you through where our understanding of the climate currently is, as well as offering fascinating insights into her own climate reporting.

Crucial for anyone with an interest in how the past not only shapes but critically informs our future, this two-part lecture with two leading voices in climate research and reporting will lay the foundations for you to continue discovering more about what has shaped how we think now.

Course Content

Sverker Sörlin on a History of the Environment
Fiona Harvey on the climate crisis today
Audience Q&A

This course is for ...

Anyone interested in learning more about the history of science, policy and ideas in relation to the environment and climate change
Anyone who wants to deepen their understanding of the climate crisis and human’s relationship with the Earth

Explore the radical ideas that have upturned history and shaped the way we think now - and learn how we can use these progressive ideas to build a better future - in our interactive lecture series, Ideas in Progress, taught by leading Guardian writers and academics making waves in the intellectual world. Each event will also include a suggested set text selected by our speakers for you to continue your learning journey to be purchased as a ticket add-on. This session’s book is The Environment: A History of the Idea by Libby Robin, Paul Warde, and Sverker Sörlin. Please note, books can only be dispatched to UK addresses.

Tutor Profiles

Sverker Sörlin is Professor of Environmental History at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, an award winning non-fiction author and a regular contributor to Sweden’s leading daily Dagens Nyheter. Sörlin’s ongoing research includes the historical and contemporary science politics of climate change, the cryosphere, and the Anthropocene. He currently directs the European Research Council Advanced Grant project SPHERE – Study of the Planetary Human Earth Relationship: The Rise of Global Environmental Governance (2018-2023). Among his recent books are The Environment – a History of the Idea (Johns Hopkins University Press 2018), Grounding Urban Natures: Histories and Futures of Urban Ecologies (MIT Press 2019), and Ice Humanities: Materiality, Ontology, Representation (forthcoming on Manchester University Press 2021). Sverker Sörlin is also a long standing government advisor on science policy, innovation and environment and one of the eight members of Sweden’s Climate Policy Council which makes an annual evaluation of how the government works across all policy areas to reach Sweden’s net zero emission goal.

Fiona Harvey is an award-winning journalist who has covered the environment since 2004, at the Financial Times and subsequently for the Guardian newspaper. She has written extensively on every environmental issue, from air pollution and biodiversity to ocean plastic and climate change. Her assignments have taken her as far afield as the Arctic and the Amazon, and she has attended almost every UNFCCC Cop since 2004, including reporting live from the 2015 Paris conference. The long list of major world figures she has interviewed includes Antonio Guterres, Ban Ki-moon, Tony Blair, Jose Manuel Barroso, Noam Chomsky, Mikhail Gorbachev and Sir David Attenborough. Among numerous awards and recognitions, she has twice won the Foreign Press Association award for Environment Story of the Year, the British Environment and Media Awards journalist of the year, and in 2020 she was named in the Woman’s Hour Power List of 30 top UK women, focusing on Our Planet.

Course Details

Wednesday: 12 May 2021
Time: 6.00pm-8.30pm (BST)

6.00pm BST | 7.00pm CEST | 10.00am PDT | 1.00pm EDT

If you are ordering a book with your ticket, you should receive your book in 10 working days. If the book is on pre-sale you will receive your book 3-5 working days after the release date. We are currently only able to deliver books within the UK.

This masterclass is available globally. If you are joining us from outside the United Kingdom, please use this time zone converter to check your local live streaming time.

You will be sent a link to the webinar two hrs before the start time. Please email masterclasses@theguardian.com if you have not received the access link within one hour of the scheduled start time.

All Guardian Masterclasses are fully accessible but please contact us at masterclasses@theguardian.com if you have any queries or concerns.

Full course and returns information on the Masterclasses website

The Guardian at 200: A history of the environment