Alexander von Humboldt was renowned even during his lifetime. For Andrea Wulf, who has written two bestsellers on the naturalist, he was one of the first ecologists to recognize the impact of human activity on the climate.

But not all Humboldt experts share Andrea Wulf's portrayal of the great scholar. MPIWG Research Scholar Ursula Klein is quoted in this article for Deutschlandfunk, highlighting how Humboldt was not an ecologist in the modern sense, but nevertheless a great communicator of science and technology.