Monday, 18th March 2013 - 12:30-14:30

The Emergence of 'Relevant Knowledge' in Environmental Predictions and Global Change

• Sverker Sörlin (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

• Paul Warde (University of East Anglia)

  Paul N. Edwards will introduce the discussion

Sciences Po - Room J211 - 13, rue de l'Université - 75007 Paris

registration: pauline.prat@sciences-po.org

Sverker Sörlin is Professor of Environmental History in the Division of History of Science and Technology at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. His current research projects encompass the role of models in climate science and policy; historical images of Arctic futures; the role of industrial research institutes in changing Swedish and European research- and innovation landscapes. Another interest is in the history of landscapes. Among his books are Sustainability – the Challenge (1998) and Narrating the Arctic (2002, with M. T. Bravo). He co-edited with Paul Warde Nature’s End. History and the Environment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Paul Warde is reader of Environmental and Economic history at the University of East Anglia. He works on the environmental, economic and social history of early modern and modern Europe. His interests focus in particular upon the use of wood as a fundamental resource in pre-industrial society; the long-term history of energy use and its relationship with economic development, and environmental and social change; the history of prediction and modeling in thinking about the environment; and the development of institutions for regulating resources and welfare support. He will soon publish The Future of Nature. Documents of Global Change (Yale University Press, In Press).

Paul N. Edwards is Professor in the School of Information and the Department of History at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on the history, politics, and cultural aspects of computers, information infrastructures, and global climate science. He published A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010).