He viewed nature as a web of life, and, in a conclusion stunning in its prescience, he named deforestation and “the great masses of steam and gas produced by industry”
as the causes of climate change. Yet the name of the 19th-century Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt has remained largely unknown in the English-speaking world in the modern era. Historian Andrea Wulf, in her best-selling book The Invention of Nature, aims to return Humboldt to his rightful place as, in her words, “the father of environmentalism.” In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Wulf explains how Humboldt originated an entirely new genre of writing that made science accessible to the masses, combining empirical observations with soaring language. Today’s environmentalists, she says, can find inspiration in Humboldt’s work. “When I look at today’s environmental debate in the political arena, I’m really missing this sense of awe for nature, this recognition that we are only going to protect what we love.”
Read the interview.
Andrea Wulf
Read the interview.