Chaper 6 and 7

During the last few weeks, I have sort of gotten started on writing the sixth chapter in my second book. It’s about how an organized Swedish environmental movement started to emerge during the years around 1970. My point of entry into this theme is the youth organization Nature and Youth Sweden (Fältbiologerna), which I wrote about together with Anna Kaijser. Our article serves as a point of departure for the chapter, albeit supplemented by press material and other studies. 

The structure of the chapter is quite clear. I start by highlighting how a couple of hundred members gathered at Sergels Torg in Stockholm in March 1969 to protest against the expansion of hydro electric power in northern Sweden. This demonstration aroused a fair amount of media attention at the time. These young people were “no ordinary demonstrators.” The organization was associated with bird watching and outdoor life – not political manifestations. However, this would change in the years around 1970. Nature and Youth Sweden became an active and highly visible part of the new environmental movement. 

In order to show the effects of this transformation, I carry out a chronological review of the history of Nature and Youth Sweden from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. At the beginning of this period, the association is firmly rooted in an older tradition of nature conservation. The key aspects here include experiencing, studying and preserving wild nature. When a member of Nature and Youth Sweden talks about “environmental degradation” in 1961, it means that esthetic values are under threat. They are concerned that a highly productive cultural landscape with cultivated fields and pine and spruce trees will expand at the expense of the untouched expanses. 

A couple of years later, in the wake of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), they start to discuss toxic substances and birds dying. But there is hardly any talk of a global environmental crisis threatening the survival of humankind. However, this theme will become important in the late 1960s. That is to say, after environmental issues have achieved their major breakthrough in Sweden in the fall of 1967. Initially, this is an incipient environmental movement taking shape. By the beginning of the 1970s, a radicalization has occurred. Nature and Youth Sweden makes a name for itself in the form of demonstrations and direct actions. A particular target is the environmental policy establishment in the form of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. 

I expect the above to result in about 15 pages of text. That’s not enough for a chapter. That is why I plan to spend another 5 to 7 pages on, based on other research, adopting a broader approach to the emerging environmental movement. This includes Carl Holmberg’s study of the Centre Party’s Youth Organization, Jonas Anshelm’s analyses of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and Per Lundin’s unpublished study on the activist scientist Björn Gillberg and the establishment of Miljöcentrum (Environmental Center). I have also collected some press material that may supplement my presentation. 

The end of the chapter is to focus on the media controversies surrounding Björn Gillberg. This serves as somewhat of a bridge to the seventh and final empirical chapter in my book, which will concern open conflicts and conflicting claims of knowledge. This is something characterizing how environmental knowledge and knowledge regarding the future circulated in Swedish society in the early 1970s. During the breakthrough phase in 1967–1968, there was a strong consensus regarding the gravity of environmental issues, and Hans Palmstierna served as somewhat of a unifying figure in this regard. In 1971, when this knowledge had started to be translated into politics and law, it was no longer the case that everyone agreed with each other. In 1971, for example, Hans Palmstierna ended up in an open conflict with representatives of the industrial sector. In the spring of 1972, a polarized debate on the future raged between two professors, the “prophet of doom” Gösta Ehrensvärd and the “techno-scientific optimist” Tor Ragnar Gerholm. 

However, actually writing chapter 7 will be a task for 2020. Before I can start working on that, there is a lot more I need to finish. To begin with, writing chapter 6 has turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. I’m not really sure why. It’s not that it has completely ground to a halt, but writing two pages a day is certainly not doable. Perhaps this is due to the lack of sunlight in November? Perhaps I have too many things going at the same time? Or perhaps it’s simply due to a long book project and a long semester starting to take their toll.

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