Why Does My Cat Pee On My Luggage

The Anthropocene at the Museum of Natural History

by Reinhold Leinfelder

The book "people time. destroy it? The crucial period of our planet "was introduced in late September 2010 at the Museum of Natural History for the first time. The Name of the book is based on the proposal of a group of scientists to Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen to chemicals, to describe the human character through certain age of the earth as a geological time of the Anthropocene.

Science writer Christian Schwägerl wrote a book that can be viewed not only as a very special contribution to the relationship between biological and cultural evolution, but which, after the surprise of many success for the UN Summit on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan as a visionary book can serve the future "handling" of our planet to the book reviews are in today's article " people - time. Humboldt . Reloaded "of the Diversity blog of the Leibniz Association presented, here are my greeting and a movie review for the book launch at the Museum of Natural History

After reading the visionary book and the idea in our home, I immediately had his own vision: a trans-disciplinary exhibition Anthropocene - nature and culture in the new people time "work closely together to the museums of Natural History, technology, art and cultural history with other institutions, but also with academia, the media and society to make visions viewable and tangible . A bit of human life up to a realization, however, will still have to pass. At UN Earth Summit in Rio in 2012 or the start of a Humboldt-Forum, in the collections and the scientific community would find, that would be a particularly suitable form: Humboldt reloaded.

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Address by Reinhold Leinfelder the book launch on 09.27.2010 at the Museum of Natural History (slightly abridged)

as the General Manager of the Museum of Natural History, but also me personally I am very pleased that so many have come to today's book launch and would like to do this very much welcome in our dinosaur hall.

I am extremely, almost all important for the topic social groups are represented high-profile, including:

• The UN, represented by the UNEP Executive Secretary Achim Steiner, yes even as the protagonist tonight occurs
• representatives from embassies, ministries , parliaments, political parties,
• representatives from environmental and conservation organizations and foundations,
• colleagues from the WBGU, one of the advisory bodies of the Federal Government
• particularly important for the topic is, however, that some representatives of science and scientific organizations howsoever caused. And
• as multipliers for the science we have dieVertreter the text, picture and television media and publishing particularly dear. .....

Links: Christian Schwägerl right Achim Steiner

includes, in particular our author, Mr Christian Schwägerl who will, of course, a renowned and dedicated science journalist well known. He is so modest that he saw no lights his past and current activities at the most. A little bit, so incomplete, it must be though: He started at the local newspaper, was rapidly Winner of a history competition of the President could do with this grant, a research trip to New Zealand, went to the German School of Journalism in Munich, then was freelance for GEO and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, parallel yet studied in Berlin and England and completed a Masters degree Biodiversity . In the FAZ, he was then responsible, in particular for the focus on science, bio-politics and policy research, since 2008, now at the mirror for the themes of science, environment and energy. Various prizes, including a very early stage, the Herbert Weichmann Medal for journalistic talent or the Georg Holtzbrinck Prize for Science Journalism continue to draw him out.

But I probably should not answer a question. Because it fits to conduct a book presentation at a future topic here at the Museum of Natural History?

• are the dinosaurs of long ago as not a bad fit?
  
• Or they are not just a warning, so we do not become extinct as well?

No, bold and populist, we do not see the connections. More important to us were the following (without prejudice to the book launch very want to):

• The book of Christian Schwägerl treatment time, time dimensions, acceleration, deceleration, right and wrong Time points. This dovetails nicely with us. For timings and their dynamics feel especially museums as we charge:
  
  
• We our collections see with their more than 30 million items as part of the memory of the life and earth, without a memory can not be thought, not think ahead, also comes out clearly in the book.
  
  
• But memory is not enough, you also need a brain. And the brain of our planet, the processes of the earth, and of course of life. And how does this brain as the neurons and synapses are networked to respond to new training and work, which also explore precisely how such houses ours, and even that is a very important theme in the book.
  
  
• And perhaps the most important creed of Christian Schwägerl. His aversion to dualism in the classical sense also made me think that he favors but not Monism a la Haeckel, but a Humboldt holism, form in which the worlds of culture and nature, between mind and body merge with each other a whole. And of course, is again the order of houses like ours to generate natural sciences, not just to implement highlight connections to touch on ways to connect with society. The fact that we are currently a research field Knowledge transfer and communication to build more professional and it probably also masterminds like Christian Schwägerl blame.

precisely because of our dialogue with society and politics is so important, I am very that Achim Steiner, now the second time this year with us at the Museum of Natural History. First, in January at the opening of the UN Year of biological diversity with the Chancellor, and now just now at the presentation of "people time".

Achim Steiner, of course, does not really presented, so only very briefly a few flash lights:

• born and raised in Brazil
• study philosophy, politics, economics and regional planning in Oxford and London
• activities in cities including Berlin soe at the German Institute for Development Policy at the Harvard Business School
• then worked among others for the world's largest conservation organization, IUCN in Washington DC and Asia,
• 1998 General the World Commission on Dams, then from 2001, Director General of IUCN.
• Since 2006, the Executive Director of UNEP, to replace Klaus Toepfer. Especially chosen for the second time by the UN General Assembly.

Christian Schwägerl way it has also been characterized, such as in an article at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. He called there the "Sisyphus from Nairobi." That might sound like small small, to futile, where we work but all the more to the great visions and their direct reactions (- but I was there Schwägerl incidentally caught when he saw me once in an article called " Humboldt Ambulance " described, ie one that is also probably only exists to repair the worst incrementally -). But it says
Schwägerl different. It is in fact the only way - vision and hard daily work must come together in this vision to its implementation.

today certainly will be an evening of visions, but it is also a night when Christian Schwägerl also not at all it is above the question of how we can implement these visions.

I wish us all an exciting evening.
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from left to right: Tissy Bruns, Christian Schwägerl,
Achim Steiner, Reinhold Leinfelder

Additional Program:

• Laudation by Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Secretary
  
• aspects of the book by the author Christian Schwägerl
  
• joint panel discussion: Christian Schwägerl, Achim Steiner, Reinhold Leinfelder, Director Tissy Bruns, Daily Mirror
  
• tour of the collection of alcohol as part of the "memory of life" in the rebuilt east wing.
  
  
  

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film documentary of the book launch at the Museum of Natural History

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Christian Schwägerl: human time. Create or destroy? The crucial period of our planet. Riemann, Munich 2010th 320 pages, 19,95 €.


notes in the museum context:

• The Museum of Natural History in the book is also available. The author sees it as one of the last bastions of the science of taxonomy. According to EO Wilson, there are about 6,000 taxonomists in the world, would be 60,000 or even 600,000 according Schwägerl necessary. He criticized the "Manager of Taxonomy" still too little contradicted noticeable.
  
  
• Schwägerl is quite a fan of the reconstruction of the Berlin City Palace, but not as a museum but as a trans-disciplinary research institute Anthropocene. That would be something!
  
  
• Schwägerl has completed his book by another essay, which he provides on its website. It is called the Orient. On 22/04/2025 to present top officials from Saudi Arabia in the Berlin Museum of Natural History, a master plan for the new, sustainable human time "" Our civilization is no longer on earth resources but easy to be like this spring. We give you and our families to begin the first bionic caliphate. "

> to the article acres

> to the book reviews, including from RL, gathered on the Diversity blog

> to the "people time" - Website of the Christian Schwägerl