Background

Welcome.

Thank you very much.

Where were you born and raised?

In Stockholm. My parents are from Stockholm and their parents are from Stockholm, and that is today rather unusual, to have such a long bindings back to Stockholm.

Looking back, how did your parents shape your thinking about the world?

I think especially my mother -- she was extremely engaged in what's happening. I remember very much '56 when the Soviet Union entered Hungary, and so on. She was very much engaged -- in fact, much more than my father -- even in what was happening in Africa, and so on. So, yes, both myself and my sisters, I think we have got a lot of impact from especially our mother.

So, thinking about the world, what was going on, and so on?

Yeah.

What about nature and the environment?

We were out for mushroom picnics and such things, but then I started, in the beginning of the sixties, I became interested in bird watching, so that became my great interest. In fact, if I'm looking back, I think that was the starting point where I selected to study biology at the university, and so on.

And that's what you majored in, biology?

Yeah. In high school I was thinking to be an engineer because I had a lot of interest in such things, too, in radio and such things. But my first study at the university was botany, and then it was zoology and chemistry and limnology.

What did you do your dissertation on?

In fact, I made my dissertation on succession of plant communities. I studied different plant communities of different age or successional stage and compared them.

At a certain point in your career you decided to go into government full time. Why was that?

It's a good question! I made my Ph.D., I got my own students, and then, I was asked -- as acidification became a big issues in the beginning of the eighties, I was asked by the Swedish EPA's research department, "Can you be project leader for acidification research?" I took free from the university one year, and then I found that it was really fun to use scientific knowledge in policy making, so I started my career in environmental bureaucracy.

Explain to us the word "acidification." What exactly is that?

It's the deposition and load of sulfur mainly, coming from emissions, and at that time it was heavily deposition of sulfur in Sweden which gets the lakes acidified. The fish die; the soil and the forests were not in good condition at all. And so, I was responsible for the research of the effects of this acidification. And then there was other research about combating the emissions, the mitigation part.

So, it's a logical evolution, that what you had been studying in the university became of real concern to the government, and then the question became, "Well, how do we stop it?"

I like to ask my guests about what they see as the skills and character required to do the work that they do, and since you bring to your career two roles, one a scientist and one a government official, I'll ask you that question with regard to both spheres. First of all, what does it take, in terms of skills and character and temperament, to be a biological scientist?

That is not an easy question to answer! Especially in studying biology and working with organisms of different kinds -- also, in my own area of ecology where you have much of field studies, and such -- you must be calm. It takes time. It needs some years for doing your studies. I spent a lot of years with my own studies for my Ph.D., but after that I shifted. I don't know of these reasons, but I shifted to more population ecology, where you can do experiments and such things, and my own students, they started doing that type of studies. Of course, you must be very keen to try to answer questions, try to find answers to questions.

And I guess posing the right questions.

Yeah, posing the right questions. I think that all scientists would like to get the simple but very difficult questions answered. And in fact, we're working with that, too.

Let's then talk about this other career, because they seem to be so very different -- that is, initially a scientific advisor to the government but then a government official. Is it a different temperament and skills to be in public service as a government official?

Yeah, I think especially since you are working fairly close to political persons and they are trying to force you [to find solutions]. There are some other skills, yes: don't get angry, and keep calm, as in biology -- to be calm and listen to what they are saying, and try to give them the answers and advice they would like to have.

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