This essay engages with recent scholarship on the epistemology of AI, data and automation, to assert how these practices are becoming increasingly central both to the projects of monitoring and of managing a global environment. We also review Jürgen Renn’s recent contribution The Evolution of Knowledge (2020) in relation to the history of environmental data. Using Renn as point of departure, we stake out a way for understanding the Anthropocene through the interaction between data and environment, taking into account the deeper political implications of datafication. We conclude with discussions about how historians of technology and environment could play an important role in assessing the opportunities and risks of AI for global environmental justice before their full-scale implementation is a fait accompli. In face of the Anthropocene, there is a general need today for integrative efforts of bridging knowledge from natural, technical, social and humanistic domains, and therefore a strong imperative for humanistic studies to transposetools, methodologies, and insights into the realms of policymaking, and legislation. Thus, assessments of AI and environment must account for these historical processes in the present as well as offer critical analysis of the full ontological spectrum from object to epistemology via data and mediation.

In this essay, we provide an outline of historical and contemporary examples to illustrate the theoretical concept of environing media. We first discuss how humans have environed their surroundings long before the advent of scientific modernity and the rapid evolution of media technologies that helped in making the planet governable. Against this background, we argue that a fundamental shift in the human–Earth relation happened after 1500 and that this shift is attributable to the development of environing media employed in the process of terrestrial globalisation. We see the present profound renegotiation of the human–Earth relation as a continuity, albeit with a different intensity as exemplified by the work in Earth system science. Finally, we invert Mike Hulme’s call for scientists to meet the humanities into an appeal to humanists to embrace the environmental sciences and pursue more integrative research. Recent developments in environmental history have seen an increased interest in the shaping of environments by means of technology. To this end, scholars have developed theoretical concepts like “environing technologies”, which are based on the premise that the environment is a historical formation by people and societies who form their surroundings as well as their sense of place. In the same vein, historical ecology has shown that premodern peoples also shaped the natural world to their purposes far more than what has generally been understood. The central premise is that what is understood as the environment is the result of human intervention and that environing technologies structure the way that it is used, perceived, and understood. These insights resonate with core notions in media theory, but they have never before been brought together. Given that all of our understanding of the environment today is the product of several processes of mediation, the theory of environing technology would benefit from stronger theorisation of the role of media. While the scale and intensity of information storage, processing, and transmission by media today are unprecedented, the logic of mediated data processing essentially remains the same as five centuries ago when agents of the Spanish Empire took part in shaping the understanding of the environment of the Americas and the globe. For these purposes, we propose the concept of environing media, as a means of both joining intellectual forces and pushing theoretical analysis of both branches further. The paper outlines the theory of environing media using examples from the Global South, in particular the shaping and sensing of landscapes in and around the Philippines. From early modern to late modern times, this region of the world has been influenced by environing media, most importantly circumnavigating ships and orbiting sensing satellites. The result is landscapes made and remade according to colonial and later capitalist priorities operating on a global, and eventually a planetary, scale.

The power of the distant perspective on the planet has been proven over and over again since the first photographs of the Earth from space were taken and spread across the globe. With the advent of satellite remote sensing the possibilities of layered and detailed information about the Earth increased, and nations and organizations strived to access both the technology and the subsequent data. These endeavours were in no way without interest in the resources, which in this way could be discovered and developed. On the contrary, some were explicitly aimed at making extraction possible. In other cases, the resource interest was more entangled, stressing the monitoring side of the practise in order to plan for crops or to avoid draughts or other catastrophes.

This chapter takes the remote sensing system SPOT – a French–Swedish–Belgian collaboration with the first launch in 1986 – to illustrate how resource interests were grouped and sorted through the means of this planetary technology.

This is a transcript from the witness seminar “Bildens behan-dling och utvecklingen av digital fjärranalys” (Processing the im-age and the development of digital remote sensing), held at the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology in Stock-holm, June 14, 2017, and was led by Håkan Olsson and Johan Gärdebo. The seminar participants, who were all pioneers from the early Swedish development of digital remote sensing, de-scribed their role in various initiatives and activities for devel-opment of remote sensing related image processing from the 1970s until the late 1990s. During this period, several university groups, government agencies and companies located all over Sweden took interest in remote sensing. The Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOA) developed the first digital image analy-sis system, Piccola, in the early 1970s. Piccola, hosted as a main frame computer at Stockholm’s computer centre QZ, became a central resource for the early development of digital remote sensing in Sweden. During this early period, Professor Gunnar Hoppe at Stockholm University took a leading role for technol-ogy- and method development by chairing the National Remote Sensing Committee, providing a forum for various initiatives to meet, grant funding, and build momentum for concerted efforts. In the end of the 1970s, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) became the central force for development of the remote sensing infrastructure in Sweden. Piccola was replaced by a more mod-ern interactive image analysis system at SSC, the IAS system. This was part of SSC efforts to make satellite remote sensing operational. Additional parts in this effort included establish-ment of a satellite data receiving station at Esrange and later in the 1980s the establishment of the SSC’s subsidiary Satellitbild AB in Kiruna, which processed SPOT satellite data for the world market. SSC also developed the EBBA series of image analysis systems, attached to a PC, which were used by several Swedish research groups. From the late 1970s and onwards, there were a number of spin-off companies from FOA, most notably Con-text Vision and Teragon, that developed image processing hard-ware and software for uses also beyond that of geographical in-formation. These companies also sold systems to the Swedish Land Survey and SSC. Swedish organisations had a large pres-ence internationally, for example as part of development projects by consultancy firms, which also led to more operational uses of image processing. As computer capacity increased, in particular the introduction of colour graphics on standard computers, im-age processing development moved from special hardware to standard work stations and eventually personal computers and the applications that have become operational, for example in the forest sector, has been integrated with GIS applications in tailor made production-oriented systems.

The interview is an audio recording made by Lennart Björn in a meeting with Hans Rasch. Björn and Rasch recalled various aspects ofworking with the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) as well as its subsidiary company, Satellitbild AB. Björn described how several employees had thoughts about the role of SSC and sought to find more commercial applications for its technology. This received limited interest from management or from the Swedish National Space Board who provided most of SSC’s funding. Instead, the strategy was to make use of funding from the Swedish Government and from the European Space Agency. But SSC’s management was also able to adapt and endorse commercial opportunities when these presented themselves, for example in exporting remote sensing to developing countries and for coast guard services. Rasch described how SSC and Satellitbild conducted several international remote sensing projects based on satellite data, mainly in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Baltic States (following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990-ies). In particular, Rasch described the mapping of the natural conditions of the entire Philippines 1987-1988. This project was later used as proof of concept for how to use satellite remote sensing technology as part of development aid. In acquiring and conducting international projects, Rasch worked closely with the Swedish Commission for Technical Co-Operation (BITS), personnel within ministries of foreign affairs, and with regional agents. Sometimes, meetings in overseas countries and in the Kiruna region in northern Sweden presented surprising experiences for both international and Swedish personnel, which Rasch provides some detail about. Rasch’s project on the coastal regions of the Baltic Sea during the late 1990s was financed by the European Union. The emphasis of the project was on environmental aspects in the Baltic states and Poland. Björn and Rasch also discussed aspects of working as professional consultants on the international market. Rasch pointed out the necessity of correlating the degree of detail in the satellite data, and in products derived from this data, with the degree of detail that clients requested.

The interview treats Jan Englund’s experiences of working at Esrange from the 1960s until 2001. Englund studied in Uppsala and worked during the summers with building roads in Norrbotten. Through this work, Englund eventually received offers to work at Esrange, which at the time was operated by the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO). In the 1970s, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) took over and nationalised Esrange, which meant that Esrange became a smaller working place for several years to come. Englund worked closely with the CEO Fredrik Engström to expand operations and facilities at Esrange, for example balloon activities, satellite data, rocket launches. Over time, Esrange became one of the sites in Sweden that received formal visits from politicians and royalty. SSC also based many of the expansions at Esrange on funding from theSwedish Government and regional financing from the County Board of Norrbotten. Kiruna in general attracted environmental research from all over the world, which increased the international profile of Esrange. Englund recalls negotiations from the early 1990s between the employees at Esrange and the SSC management in Solna. Esrange in turn had continuous negotiations with the Sami villages regarding reindeer herding on land around Esrange. By late 1990s, Esrange had received more international investments and also contracts with the Swedish Defence. This also changed the character of Esrange towardsmore security facilities.

The interview is a recording of a meeting between Klas Änggård and Lennart Björn regarding the importance of negotiations for expanding the activities of the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC). Among the European partners, Änggård considered the French CNES and Spot Image to have been very important allies to SSC forbuilding expertise in the areas of Remote Sensing and Earth Observation. Änggård emphasizes his own interest in mobilizing political support to allow SSC to promote and develop Swedish space activities in addition to yielding revenue and return on investment. When focus on revenue alone increased in the early 2000s, a process followed whereby considerable parts of SSC were divested.

The interview treats Leif Leif Wastenson’s experiences from working with research on remote sensing from the late 1960s until late 1990s. Wastenson describes how the Department of Physical Geography at Stockholm University were one of the pioneers in mapping land forms, and later land uses, using remote sensing techniques. Wastenson had been able to conduct some of this work during his military service and would also go on to produce educational material as part of promoting geography in Swedish schools. During the 1970s, Wastenson became increasingly involved in aerial photography as a means to conduct remote sensing research, which led to the CORINE-project during the 1980s and the “Sweden’s National Atlas”during the 1990s. Wastenson was part of building up a large research group at the Department of Physical Geography, as well as a national communityof remote sensing researchers. One of the major national collaborations was RESE during the 1990s. Wastenson collaborated with several developers of remote sensing, most importantly the Swedish Land Survey, the Swedish Research Institute (FOA), and the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC). Of these, it was primarily the SSC that sought to promote satellite remote sensing as a means to a host of applications. Wastenson and his colleagues conducted several evaluations to verify the validity of different types of remote sensing. Wastenson also noted that the Swedish Land Survey could have played a larger role than it did in developing remote sensing.