In Memoriam: Torvald Jacobsson

Abstract

There is a saying among Scandinavian environmentalists: “It is hopeless, and we never give up”. Torvald, however, was a constant hoper. His belief in future generations ignited the launching of the digital education Young Masters’ Programme (2014), part of the UN Decade of ESD. It brought together more than 50,000 upper secondary-school pupils in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Pakistan, UAE and other countries, to share solutions to local and global challenges. The education was free for users, technologically accessible and organically growing (Field, 2010). Tirelessly, Torvald traveled the world, spreading his enthusiasm for learning among students, teachers, and political leaders. Since his youth, Torvald had a Humboldtian capacity to process knowledge into Bildung. He studied biology and geology at Stockholm University and worked as an outdoor pedagogue. Experience and the “feeling for nature” were central in his engagement. At 24, he was elected chair of the Swedish organization Nature and Youth, and became member of the board of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation. Inspired by readings of Thoreau, Julian Huxley, Carson, Naess and Ghandi, Torvald energized environmental civil disobedience in Sweden. A good action, he claimed, should be based in solid science, nonviolent, conspicuous, and pedagogical. In the mid-eighties, Torvald worked with the European Youth Forest Action (2022) on issues of acid rain and predatory logging, and eloquently represented young environmentalism in media after the Chernobyl disaster. In 1987, he was appointed as the first environmental manager of the Swedish National Railroad Company and served in the Expert Advisory Committee of the Swedish Minister of Environmental Affairs. A young father in the 1990s, Torvald was a self-employed environmental strategist. In 1992, his engagement with boreal forests contributed to the establishment of the Taiga Rescue Network (2022). The collaboration took him on many journeys, one of which was a long and adventurous voyage to eastern Siberia in 1993. Once back home, in 1994, he participated in the birth of the Forest Stewardship Council, FSC (Moog et al., 2015). In the early 2000s, as a supervisor and senior advisor at the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University, he formed networks pivotal for the Young Masters’ Programme and the foundation of The Goals (see Chin & Jacobsson, 2016). Simultaneously, he was the researcher behind the award-winning documentary on global change, The Planet (Stenberg et al., 2006), and worked with public education projects on urban sustainability. Torvald embodied the personal as political, and vice versa. Albeit an epistemological positivist and self-proclaimed atheist, his knack for sublime civilisational critique broke through in private by the piano. “I just understood Jerusalem listen” (see Blake, 2022). Music and poetry fueled his zeal. As the UN launched the SDGs in 2015, Torvald celebrated with UNESCO and colleagues in New York in a moment of existential relief. For all the species, lyrics, and hope that he taught, the Lost Words Blessing (Fowlis et al., 2018) offers congenial valediction: “And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home.”