In this inaugural episode of the SPHERE podcast, Prof. Sverker Sörlin explains how the idea of “the environment” emerged at the outset of a radical reconfiguration of the human-environment relationship precipitated by an unprecedented post-war economic expansion that put enormous pressure on ecosystems and the Earth. The point of departure for this discussion on the rise of global environmental governance is The Environment: A History of the Idea (Johns Hopkins UP 2018), a foundational work for the ERC-funded research project SPHERE—Study of the Planetary Human-Environment Relationship.