Reply To: Joachim Radkau – The Era of Ecology

Response to Anna by Morag

I was intrigued by your response as it corresponded rather well with some of my own musings. And you provide quite a few difficult questions to ponder. ☺ Just today I was going over my assumptions when it comes to nature conservation issues and whether they predefine the way I see an issue. While not entirely the same problem, you wrote about “people being mislead and acting on misinformation because of an unquestioned allegiance to the movement.” While writing about environmental and environmental history topics does not require allegiance to a movement, it still provides us with certain ways of thinking which shape our academic contributions.

Apparently we will never escape the endless spiral of problematic definitions. Interdisciplinary efforts do not seem to ease this up, and I have thought about the confusion of social sciences and humanities focusing on topics such as ecology before as well.

Oh! I missed the lecture, but apparently Radkau did indeed cover issue to do with time. Although just knowing he puts forward a uni-dimensional scale does not say much to me on its own. Worth looking into though.