When you think of Norway, do you expect a well-regulated society taking care of its unique resources? Think again. The national broadcaster has created a very scrollable analysis of how areas determined as "important" for ecology have been destroyed anyway.

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Forsaken_Pirate3658@reddit

Norway Top Export: Mineral fuels including oil: US$213.3 billion (78.9% of total exports) Whoever think norway cares about the environment should rethink their position

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PandaBoyWonder@reddit

they are in a small, lucky geographic and political position, in an isolated area with a monoculture.

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BloodWorried7446@reddit

at least the media has been keeping track of it over there. here we don’t even have a clue.

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Burn83781@reddit

For me the most telling is how harshly they still persecute their wolf population. They’re worse than the U.S.

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Sad_Bookkeeper_8228@reddit

Not only the Wolfes unfortunately, Wolverine and Lynx is also being hunted.

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whichkey45@reddit

They are simply exporting their emissions. They are - in this regard - a filthy nation. It most certainly does make them responsible.

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Swede here, it's the exact same thing on our side of the border. Especially the forestry and the mining business are destroying big natural values and biodiversity. The reindeer herding Sami population is also taking a big hit, as well as the rural Swedes that traditionally lives close to nature (like myself) all while the industry and our politicians fool the majority of the population that we are better than anyone else.

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dumnezero@reddit

The Sami are going to lose to climate most of all. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jan/20/norway-arctic-circle-trees-sami-reindeer-global-heating https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/17/new-snow-no-name-sami-reindeer-herders-climate-disaster https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/science/2021/12/26/unprecedented-die-offs-melting-ice-climate-change-is-wreaking-havoc-in-the-arctic-and-beyond/ and reindeer herding isn't as traditional as you think: [Reindeer Herding in Norway](https://www.laits.utexas.edu/sami/diehtu/siida/herding/herding-nr.htm) > The reindeer have been a valuable resource for the Sami and it is difficult to imagine the Sami surviving without the reindeer. In traditional herding, reindeer were used for food, clothing, trade (reindeer as a form of money), and for labor. Even before reindeer herding began the Sami lived on wild reindeer. > > Before the 17th century the Sami were able to live on wild reindeer for clothing and meat. They would have a few tame reindeer as draft animals. The Sami’s needs were simple and they only took what they needed from nature. They would complete their diet with hunting of birds and fish and with gathering of berries during the summer. They were a small group and they had a very minimal impact on the environment. > > The Sami’s way of life underwent major changes during the 17th century as a result of nation building among the four regions they occupied (today Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola peninsula of Russia). Each nation was fighting for territory and wanted to include the Sami as part of their population to help build the nation. As a result the Sami were taxed by at least one nation and in some cases by several governments. The Sami did not have monetary money and so they paid the taxes in the form of reindeer hides and meat. The Sami needed additional reindeer to pay taxes. This was the beginning of reindeer herding.

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birgor@reddit

I know more about Samis and Scandinavian anthropology and history than you could ever imagine. Don't make ideas of what other's know and not based on a few lines in a post. Samis are a living, culturally evolving group like any other, and just because they haven't done something since the dawn of time doesn't mean industrialists have the right to destroy the herders basis of economy. Note that I specified the herding Samis, not Samis. really unnecessary behaviour.

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dumnezero@reddit

Sure. Maybe you can help to guide them how to adapt to an ice-free North.

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birgor@reddit

Why are you being a dick? We are all doomed. But that doesn't make it right to destroy fjäll to dig lithium. It will not be a wasteland just because you can't have reindeers there. It is no controversial standpoint that nature has a value in itself, even if it will be a victim to climate change. A open pit mine is worse than a biome destroyed by unnatural weather. Sounds a lot like you started to argue just to show of how much you know about something without reflecting about what you actually are saying.

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dumnezero@reddit

>We are all doomed. Nope, the poorest and most vulnerable are going first. That's what I'm trying to explain to you. Make sure that you have well thought out adaptation goals. If your plan is "herding Business As Usual", well, they're going to suffer more as their herds will die from hunger and new diseases.

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birgor@reddit

You are not even trying co comprehend what I write, How could you ever get that out of my posts? And I don't think you know much of life, economic status and possible ways to survive in the fjäll with that statement. Where did I want business as ususal? Both Scandis and Samis living in and near the fjäll will make it far longer than most people on earth. It's a modern, not poor, educated people that still knows a lot about nature, hunting and fishing. Many are small scale farmers as well. Like you said yourself, herding hasn't been any big business in the Sami community until modern times, humans are adaptable. But less so if you mountain is replaced by an open pit mine. Which actually seems like the option you like to see since it's the only thing I have argued against.

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dumnezero@reddit

I'm just saying that conservation efforts and adaptation efforts aren't necessarily compatible. If you're defending herding, you're conserving the herding aspect of economy and related culture. Another term for that is "sunk costs".

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birgor@reddit

I am not defending the herdeng per se, I have just noted that industrial activity threatens people in northern Scandinavia, especially the herders. To point out a problem is far from arguing for conservation. One of the problems is that in the coldest areas, where this economy has the biggest chances to prevail, at least for a while is the areas most interesting for mining, posing another separate threat. My personal opinion is that it is good to keep herding as long as it is possible without too much conservation efforts, the reindeers is key to maintain that biome, and their presence also keeps some industry at bay. Without them all natural values would be gone from that area. it is very sparsely populated with huge natural resources that would be impossible to defend without other large scale human activities there.

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dumnezero@reddit

If you want to see the future, look at the US: https://alaskapublic.org/2023/03/03/biden-faces-dilemma-in-fight-over-large-alaska-oil-project/ https://www.asrc.com/press/asrc-reacts-to-defense-of-willow-project/ My main ethical concern is actually with the indigenization of poverty, the dilemma. And I guess that is solved by consent. I.e. the desire to conserve certain traditional economic activities produces an opportunity cost of people sacrificing to live shittier lives - and they should be consent clearly to that. The North American case shows that indigenous people can actually go for the industrial way of life which is commonly deemed as nicer.

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birgor@reddit

Yeah, those situations is not very comparable. The ethnic Scandinavians and the Samis have lived side by side since ever, and the Samis have laways been economcially integrated in the European economy. This is even the reson for some of the groups to engage in large scale herding. It is also practiced more like modern day ranching and is not a left over artificially uphold ancieny lifestyle. They are compeeting on the market and use modern technollogy (good or bad) Scandinavia is not America. This is not even close to comparable situations.

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SjalabaisWoWS@reddit (OP)

If anything, it shows the value of good marketing. The result is a willed complacency and lack of willingness to act. Norway's aquaculture industry is just another prime example: Such a *massive* destruction of habitats, producing unhealthy food and raising bottomless concerns about animal cruelty...and nobody cares. Because the industry itself says "we're clean" and "we're new" - a 50 year old industry - so whatever is shown as detrimental facts gets blown off. Ugh.

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birgor@reddit

Yes, i think this is so successful because we really want to believe it, first that we are a bit better than anybody else, and that we really want our nature and companies to be good. I have heard many times around Christmas now how good the fjordlax farms are, to save the oceans. When I tell them you trawl the sea for any available fish and ground it to meal to feed those salmons, people just kind of deflects it. Same when one talk about the issues with the spruce bugs, people tend to think it's a disease we should fight when it is our use of the forest that creates the problem.

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SjalabaisWoWS@reddit (OP)

That’s exactly right. The issue with getting a more objective understanding of our surroundings is that, as long as a majority accepts this understanding of reality, the ones pointing out that there are challenges are kind of...traitors? I have talked about some of these topics at work and even though some colleagues agree, a few of them 100%, it is still...wrong to go against the grain. Scandinavian homogeneity at its worst.

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joemangle@reddit

The Scandinavians are more like the salmon than they realise

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birgor@reddit

Yes, this is a very special side to Scandinavian culture. I have heard foreigners think of us as one big sect impossible to penetrate. In some aspects, this is right.

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SjalabaisWoWS@reddit (OP)

Haha, I can only imagine! I am an immigrant to Norway, but, luckily, pretty much align with Norwegian A4 culture and, otherwise, dgaf mich about that. But so many people I have met along the way say much the same thing.

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accountaccumulator@reddit

Exactly. It's shocking. Somewhere around 10% of all the forest in Sweden remains old growth, and it is rapidly shrinking. Good interview with two activists https://news.mongabay.com/2022/06/how-unsustainable-is-swedens-forestry-very-qa-with-marcus-westberg-and-staffan-widstrand/

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Dyslexic_youth@reddit

Because all the "green" shit the government does is for optics in the short term, not effect over the long its all just hand waves and marketing.

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Wave_of_Anal_Fury@reddit

When I think of Norway, I think of a country that's lauded for its adoption of EVs, but at the same time is western Europe's largest producer of oil and gas. Extracting oil and selling it to someone else to burn doesn't make you responsible, it makes you a hypocrite.

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theclitsacaper@reddit

Actually, it does make you responsible bc you know virtually 100% that it will be burned. If a mass murderer asked me to get him a weapon in order to commit his mass murder, and I went out and laboriously retrieved that weapon to give to him, how responsible would I be?

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True-West-8258@reddit

Dropped in here from Norway to tell you that our oil and gas is cleaner than that of other countries so we are actually doing everyone a favor by keeping up the drilling. /s if it wasn't obvious.

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atascon@reddit

Funnily enough that is exactly what a lot of oil & gas companies and their financiers say all the time. "If we don't do it, someone else with lower (environmental) standards will and that will be even worse..."

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joemangle@reddit

"If I don't rape you, someone else will, and they won't be as polite about it as me" - Norway to Earth

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ontrack@reddit

Norway should volunteer to hold a COP soon and appoint its oil minister to be the chairperson. It appears to be the trend these days (COP next year is in Azerbaijan and they've appointed an oil executive to be the chairman).

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True-West-8258@reddit

Our oil lobby would be very honored to organize COP for the benefit of all humanity and future generations.

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SjalabaisWoWS@reddit (OP)

> /s if it wasn't obvious. That’s needed because this bullshit argument is actually used by the industry itself. They sure have numbers for it, too.

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SpongederpSquarefap@reddit

The only thing they're doing right is it funds their sovereign wealth fund And more I think about it, the more ironic it is

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Gibbygurbi@reddit

Dont get high on your own supply

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Taqueria_Style@reddit

Also makes you very rich. ... and the unfortunate possible future target of a good heaping helping of "freedom".

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WorldsLargestAmoeba@reddit

No to take anything away from the hard work destroying the world the Norwegians (and swedes) are doing, but Denmark is also a catastrophe of ridiculous pretend-greenness. We have totally destroyed our ocean, there is basically no original flora or fauna left and the so called original forests are about as original as a McDonald menu is close to a natural healthy meal.

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dumnezero@reddit

Norway is a petrostate with more welfare than usual. They have no incentives to aim for a sustainable society. The obsession with electric cars should've made that clear (that was the wasteful and unwise option).

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HomoColossusHumbled@reddit

Ecosystems don't need our management. The only "management" we seem capable of here is slowing down the destruction a bit. The best thing we could do is to leave things alone entirely, but we can't seem to help ourselves. It's not within our human nature, as we are always fighting to survive and thrive. Once we found magic in the ground (fossil fuels) which gave us the power of gods, is it any wonder that we'd lean into our instincts and consume as much as we possibly could? Our populations have gotten too large, our civilization too ravenous, such that our efforts at continued existence are not compatible with preserving what's left of the biosphere. We won't stop until we are stopped by Nature itself.

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accountaccumulator@reddit

Every time I travel in Norway I think that everyone and they grandma has their own summer cottage either somewhere by the sea or in the mountains, or both. Often, these houses are built into nature.

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SjalabaisWoWS@reddit (OP)

70% of Norwegian households have access to two houses; one to live in and - crucial point - at least one cabin. Among our friends, most have access to their parent's cabin, maybe mom and dad each because of divorce, maybe grandparents, then they buy their own and this is how it spirals. The destruction of wilderness continues at a dizzying pace.

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cassowary_245@reddit

It’s the Norwegian way. Along with profiting off of fossil fuels.

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CRTsdidnothingwrong@reddit

Isn't that the dream.

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Somebody37721@reddit

I don't think so. Environmental protection is more of a luxury. In times of scarcity protection measures are lifted and societies cannibalize whatever natural capital can be converted into energy, no matter how short sighted and inefficient it is. Norway will eventually run out of its oil and it can only go so far with hydropower which has its own detrimental effect on ecosystems. Wind and solar are also quite unreliable in nordic climates as recent events here in Finland have shown. A northern society cannot rely on those two alone.

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SjalabaisWoWS@reddit (OP)

Yeah, there's no simple solution here. We cannot sustain living standards that we have become accustomed to by getting off the capitalist growth train, but we need to, if we want to - you know - continue existence on a habitable space rock.

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AspiringStarPlucker@reddit

Human problems know no borders.

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FightingIbex@reddit

How different it would be if humans could occasionally just be satisfied with having needs met.

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FillThisEmptyCup@reddit

No way!

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StatementBot@reddit

The following submission statement was provided by /u/SjalabaisWoWS: --- Submission statement: Norway has policies that are supposed to protect ecosystems like old forests and wetlands, or its fjords and highlands. These are bureaucratic, expert run systems. Unfortunately, they are often set aside. Forest administrators watch themselves, creating terrible incentives, and municipalities want to create growth and be open for business. In this way, even areas considered as "vitally important" and noted as protection worthy keep being destroyed. Sometimes, undemocratic processes and nepotism play a role, too. However you get there, though, the result seems the same: Unrestorable, irreparable damage and just a bit more of nature being destroyed. The link shows sat images of areas defined as valuable that have been turned into industrial parks, roads, wind parks, private lodge areas and more. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/18zvbqb/when_you_think_of_norway_do_you_expect_a/kgk6u1h/

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SjalabaisWoWS@reddit (OP)

Submission statement: Norway has policies that are supposed to protect ecosystems like old forests and wetlands, or its fjords and highlands. These are bureaucratic, expert run systems. Unfortunately, they are often set aside. Forest administrators watch themselves, creating terrible incentives, and municipalities want to create growth and be open for business. In this way, even areas considered as "vitally important" and noted as protection worthy keep being destroyed. Sometimes, undemocratic processes and nepotism play a role, too. However you get there, though, the result seems the same: Unrestorable, irreparable damage and just a bit more of nature being destroyed. The link shows sat images of areas defined as valuable that have been turned into industrial parks, roads, wind parks, private lodge areas and more.

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SjalabaisWoWS@reddit (OP)

Other projects like the Fosen windmill farm, where the Norwegian government's actions were deemed to breach human rights, or Engebøfjellet, a mining project that is supposed to sacrifice a whole fjord as a dumping ground, are further evidence of even countries renowned for good governance falling face first into collapse.

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