The renewable energy revolution!

For quite some time now, a renewable energy revolution has been growing, first silently, but recently it has rightfully gotten more attention. With the international political climate we are operating in at the moment, all good climate news are sorely welcome, and these news are actually quite extraordinary. 

In May Blackrock, one of the worlds biggest coal investment companies, declared that: ’Coal is dead. That's not to say all the coal plants are going to shut tomorrow. But anyone who's looking to take beyond a 10-year view on coal is gambling very significantly’. 

The coal industry emits enormous amounts of CO2 and is therefor considered one of the worst contributors to climate change. 

There is a broad agreement that in order to reach the targets set in the Paris agreement, emission must be cut, and especially from coal. ‘Fossil fuels are dead. But this is in the long term. It won’t happen over night, or in two to three years. But it will disappear’ said the US biggest railway transporter recently to Financial Times. 

Blackrock also announced that they are seing a change in attitudes towards renewable energy; earlier they were heavily subsides. whereas now we see that they are even financially good investments without subsides. 

‘What has fundamentally changed the picture is that renewables has become so cheap!’ head of Blackrock says. The EU saved 16 billion euro in energy import, due to its own renewable production, and these savings are estimated to increase to 58 billions by 2030, according to the EU commission. 

The headlines about either falling coal demand and the rise in renewables in India  and China are really changing the global energy situation for the better. 

The future for renewables are looking bright, and we can expect more good news to come soon. 

Second quarter of 2017 on shopstop

June is nearing its end, and so is the first half of this years non-shopping policy. To be honest, it only gets easier the more time that passes. 

At first, I figured the main challenges could be changes of the seasons, but now that I have 'mastered' ice cold winter, mild spring, and warm summer temperatures, I know it will be easy to last the rest of the year without breaking it. 

The key to any habit building activities, at least to what I have found, is reminding yourself every so often, why you are doing this in the first place. Until the new habit becomes an integrated part of your daily routine, then it can be good to remind yourself why you first set out on this journey. To me, I am luckily beyond that point, which makes it easier to focus on the idea behind this. 

One cool thing that has happened since the last update, is that I have had several really good conversations with friends about how they too has started questioning themselves more about their consumer habits. Which I think is great! A higher awareness of how much we consume is the first step towards decreasing the amount that goes in to what the advertisement industry wants us to think is a 'normal' or 'standard' amount of clothes, shoes etc to consume in a year. 

Another good thing that has come out of this project so far, which was one of my intentions, was to free up spare time, in order to use it how I know I actually would, in stead of ending up in a store. I can definitely say that I have been able to go on hikes both in the weekdays and also in the weekend a lot more frequently (while living in cities) after starting this project. 

If you have a similar idea that you want to test out for a years time, that you think will bring you closer to the kind of life you want to lead; I would say go for it! I am happy about doing shopstop 2017. Maybe you would like to do shopstop for the second half of this year, starting on 1st of July? :) 

The exciting and fragile Arctic

This week I attended a seminar by the Norwegian Environment Agency and the AMAP (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme) about the dangers facing the Arctic region, and let me tell you, there are many! To me this fact only emphasises the importance for us to protect it. Even if most of us actually doesn't live in the Arctic, the Arctic serves as a barometer for the rest of the world on how climate change will impact us all. 

Here are a few of the findings that is worth knowing about the Arctic: 

- There are a lot of chemicals that ends up in the Arctic, and now that the ice is melting, we are discovering occurrences of PCB, one of the most dangerous environmental toxins, that was banned in 2005 due to its acute poisoning both for humans and animals. PCB is now resurfacing, most likely due to the ocean currents. 

- The temperature in the Arctic has more than doubled in the Arctic during the last 100 years, which is why you might often hear that the climate change is happening twice as rapidly at the poles. 

- 1/3 of all sea level rice will come from the Arctic region, due to melting of the polar ice caps.

- Between 1961 and 2015, scientist have discovered that the Arctic is getting warmer, wetter, with less and thinner sea ice and less snow. This is affecting the albedo effect; how much sun is reflected back - with a white surface, a lot of the sun is reflected back, but with darker surfaces, as an ocean, the heat is adopted. To illustrate this, look at the drawing underneath. 

- Earlier, there used to be a higher percentage of many year old ice. Now, that percentage has gone down, and one year old ice is more common. This affects life on a molecular level, because there are life living within the ice. This may have grave implications for the ecosystems, that we yet don't know. 

- Introduced species is another threat to the biodiversity. Due to warmed temperature in the water, new species are making its way up in the Arctic. Some of these are taking over the territories to species that have spent a long time adapting to that particular climate. One example is that Atlantic cod has gone up in population, and Polar cod has decreased. 

So, what can be done about this? 

The advice that was given at the conference were these: The Paris agreement is important, but more needs to be done. 

- Marine surveillance needs to be strengthened and we need to be prepared for the unknown.

In the former IPCC reports, the Arctic region has been under-communicated. This needs to change, because the Arctic is a very sensitive region, and as someone said at the seminar - the Arctic is everybody's business. 

I hope this has provided you with some new and interesting input, although this blog post was a more science based one. A lot of exciting things will take place in the Arctic region this summer, so stay tuned for more updates on how to protect the Arctic. 

3 tips on how to be eco friendly this summer

Hi everyone, June is here, and so is the start of summer holiday for a lot of you. With summer comes a lot of well deserved spare time, and with that, here are some handy tips on how to not let the good habits slip over the holiday: 

1. Slow travels: If possible, chose a train/ferry/bikes/kayak in stead of a flying. Slow travel is all the rage, and for a good reason. By making the travel part of your journey, you can find a necessary slowing of the pace, that might be the reason why you wanted to go on holiday in the first place. For more inspiration, you can follow this link to a couple who are committed to slow travels. 

2. Be a local hero: If you do decide to stay at home, be a local hero in your community! What I mean by this is - if you see that someone has thrown a disposable grill out in the water right next to a beach or any place that children or animals might get stuck in it - be a local hero and pick it up! I have seen this happen numerous times; its polluting, and the grill has no reason to be there. 

3. Pick up the plastic: Following up on being a local hero, I am assuming that a lot of people associate summer with spending time near the ocean, or at least waters, at least, that's summer to me. Whenever you see a plastic bag, or a bottle that have lost its way out of some owners hands, please be the climate hero they failed to be, and carry it with you until you can throw it away in a designated place. Last summer, I did a kayak hike, which turned into a picking up plastic bags from the sea hike. 

Also, obviously, great to pick up the plastic before it enters into the ocean as well, because as we know, almost all the plastic that ends up in nature find its way to the ocean. 

There might be more tips over the summer, but if we all try to follow up on these, you are really making a difference. Have an eco friendly start to your summer. 

The world without us - by Alan Weisman

I started this book without knowing too much about its content, except that it would describe what will happen to our world if we were all to disappear tomorrow. With this seemingly bleak outlook I started reading, and was instantly surprised by, given the premises for the book, how little troublesome it was to read. 

First of all, the language is beautiful. With sentences like:

‘Unless humankind’s Faustian affair with carbon fuels ends up tipping the atmosphere past the point of no return, and runaway global warming transfigures Earth into Venus, at some unknown date glaciers will do so again.’  

Weisman does a good job at describing what will remain after us, mostly underground cities. But with chapters with names like ‘Polymers Are Forever’ and ‘The Petro Patch’ it’s easy to see where we are headed. It is an environmentalist book through and through. Weisman has gone to some great lengths and apparently traveled the world in the attempt to cover all our misdeeds towards the climate. 

What is most distressing however is not that the concrete will break up and New York will once again be a green canopy, but how long after the toxins we have engineered are staying in our environment. One example is PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) that we stopped using in the 70’s due to how animals who came in contact with it started mutating and changing gender. After remains of PCB were dug deep into the earth, that again found it’s way back into the water (spoiler: Everything finds it’s way back into the water), these toxins have now reappeared in the Arctic, where they are found in breastmilk in Innuit women, and in the fat tissues in seals and fish. 

Weisman leaves us with a thought on the choice ahead — if we as a species will bring the rest of Life with us, or tear it down, with a friendly reminder that we can't really do it alone if nature isn't with us. This is, to my belief, perhaps the core of this book, how closely we are linked with nature. 

If you are into in-debt explanations and a more naturalistic approach to climate change, this could well be the book for you. 

Marine littering

It is almost funny how I have not written about this topic sooner, as it is something that is very close to my heart, and that I have been concerned about for years. 

Marine litter is a global problem, so even though (for my Norwegian readers) we live in a country with fairly good recycling methods for plastic, it is something we need to be very considerate about.

To start with the facts; 

- Each year 300 million tonnes of plastic is produced

- Of these 300 million tonnes - 8 million ends up in the ocean

- That equals 5 lorry-trucks dumping plastic in the sea, every minute all year around

- If this continues, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050, according to World Economic Forum

- We also know that 80% of all the plastic that ends up in the ocean originates from land-based sources

So, what can we do about it? :) 

Luckily, there are several things we can do to help aid the problem, and specially if you live in a high consumption society, like Norway, your contribution will really make a difference. 

First; this is how long plastic products keep on lasting in the sea:

To combat this, here is a handy trick you can remember - Refuse, Reuse, Reduce. 

Refuse - plastic that will only be used once, like a plastic straw

Reuse - plastic bottles and fill them with tap water, in stead of buying a new one every time

Reduce - the amount of plastic you consume. 

There is an even longer list of 10 good steps you can take if you follow this link. 

I will write a new post soon on what happens when the plastic is broken down to micro plastic/micro beads, and also how we can prevent that from spreading as well :)

Is the clothing industry getting any better?

I was recently at a meeting that discussed how the clothing industry is progressing, now 4 years after more than 1110 people died in the collapsing clothing factory Rana Plaza in Bangladesh. 

Status quo today 

The project lead for the Sweatshop (which I encourage you to see, if you haven't) said that the salaries they are making, is still not enough to cover daily costs. On the topic of security, we learned that there is still a lot of uncertainty in the job market. After the Rana Plaza accident, two work agreement was drawn up, the 'Accord on Fire and Building Safety' in Bangladesh and 'The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety'. If the new standards are not met, western companies must end their relationship with the factories. They have until the end of 2018 to meet the targets. However, as per today, the majority of the factories are still far from reaching these targets. There is still a lack in rights at the workplace, wages are low, and the workers are treated badly and without respect, and is sometimes beaten with plastic bottles. 

After the Rana Plaza, the industry wanted an overview of who had produced their clothes there. It turned out that none of the companies that used Rana Plaza had operated with open lists. In order to tell a customer where their garments are made, a company should always operate with an open list. That is why asking for open lists in the clothing industry is one of the ways you can help alter the system. This is because if an accident where to occur, the responsible would be easier to target, to prevent it happening again. 

Still, progress is being made, but a lot remains to be done. The term 'when best is not good enough' was used about the 'best' factories. In the meantime, we as consumers can look at these lists to see what companies operate with open lists. The other thing we can do is to keep paying attention to the working conditions, and keep asking questions. 

No DAPL

I have been so incredibly fortunate this week that I got to know and become friends with a group of strong indigenous women , coming to Norway to tell us about the fight for clean drinking water at Standing Rock, North Dakota, US. 

The delegation has been here this entire week, and told their story to a live audience twice, in addition to the news station NRK, on the radio, in the newspapers, to politicians and most importantly to the Ethical Council, who are the ones that advices the Oil Fund where to put their money. The delegation also had a meeting with DNB, the last Norwegian bank to withdraw from the project. This happened the day after the delegation came here. A coincident? I think not.

All the Norwegian banks are now out, but the Norwegian Oilfund is still invested with 6,7 billion NOK in the project. This is a substantial amount of money, and the withdrawal of these would create waves to other banks and funds financing the project. With the current administration in US, the hope relies heavily on European banks. 

The testimonials I have heard this week is just gruesome. I followed the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at the end of last year, and was one of the more than a million supporters who checked in on Facebook to show that my location was also at Standing Rock, as police was using Facebook sign ins as a way to see who was there, in order to arrest people. It is one thing to read about these atrocities towards humanity in the news. It is a complete different story to have that same living breathing person telling you about how their sacred places were intentionally destroyed, how they were jailed and treated in the most inhumane ways, how the police officers abused their power in the worst ways - all because a group of strong people are standing up for the right to clean drinking water.

The status quo on the 1,172 mile pipeline is that there is currently oil in the pipeline. This isn't only going to affect the indigenous communities, it is going to affect everyone who gets their drinking water from the river it is crossing (see illustration below) This goes for the local police officers arresting the Water protectors, as well as the indigenous. 

If it was only one message that was left with people who got to hear the stories of the women fighting for Standing Rock - I hope it is this; we have just about everything in common. You wouldn't want a big massive oil pipeline to run directly across your drinking water. Especially not an oil company which are known for their many spills. When we know that drinking oil causes cancer, and you think about where you get your drinking water coming out of your tap. You wouldn't want that. You wouldn't want it on your friends and family either. And you wouldn't want it on your enemy. The people at Standing Rock are just that - they are people, they are a community and they are our friends. 

Spending time with delegation today just made me even more aware of how incredibly similar we are, how much our joint humour unites us, and the vital importance that we feel and know what is going on in the US right now. The fight isn't won. The project is intended to go on. For us here in Norway, we can keep reminding the Ethical council that it is highly unethical what they are so heavily invested in. If they choose to wait an entire year to draw their money out, then that will be too late. There are also other European banks that needs to be made aware. A full list here. 

The movement around Standing Rock is very much alive, and happening right now. The momentum is stronger than ever, and it is vital to keep the momentum high. Everything is at stake for the Water protectors fighting for their right to have clean drinking water. I would encourage everyone to watch this livestream we recorded on Thursday this week, so you can hear the stories directly yourself. 

I am very glad that you read this. The more people who knows, the better. The power of this movement is the way people are coming together for this cause. We are with you, dear Water protectors, you are not standing alone. #StandWithStandingRock. 

First quarter of 2017 on ShopStop

As March is soon coming to an end, so is my first quarter of the shopstop, hence I thought it suitable with an update on how it is going. 

So, these are the ‘lessons’ that I’ve learned so far, and bear in mind that this is highly subjective: 

1. You don't necessarily need to wear everything you find pretty. 

I know I have an affinity for burgundy as a colour, and I can not remember what it was that I saw in that colour, but I think it was a pair of trousers, and they might have also been corduroy (another favourite of mine), that in combination was tempting. However, this is not something I am lacking, so I simply reminded myself of this fact, and walked away. 

This lesson is also true about other things, for example if you come across a particular pattern you might like, or a colour, it still doesn't mean that you have to wear it. This part of the project is more about changing how one view what you own and not. Say for example, when you look out on a lovely sunset, you can not own it, but you can still carry the feeling of it with you. In that way you do own it, or at least you own the feeling or sensation it created. And in a lot of ways, that is what the fashion and advertising industry wants us to experience, some sort of feeling that we are buying (along with their garment) 

For me, I have had this thing about dark blue lately, but as I am committed to this project, I rather got an outlet for this with painting with dark blue. Also, I found a dark blue sweater that I’ve had for a few years and started wearing that again, in stead of following a quick and easy impulse, which would have been to purchase a new one right ahead. I should probably point out that I am not saying you can paint yourself out of any temptation; if you actually do lack something, then you do lack it. But the case for most of us with easy access to stores like H&M, is that we actually don’t lack items, we are just bored and easily affected by advertises. Therefore I am trying to create a higher awareness in the decision making process regarding what you actually do chose to buy. 

My quick check list would therefore be: 

1. Do I actually need it? 
2. Do I have something from before that could do the job? 
3. Am I buying this piece because I answered ‘yes’ to the two prior questions, or am I trying to fill some gap in another part of my life with this purchase? 

The first of these I have been asking myself for years, the latter two are new, but I will adopt them, as these are some of the things I want to be more conscious about as a consumer. 

It is actually already becoming easier. 

I hope this can inspire some of you who is reading this, because at least to me, this feels like a relief, not like giving something up. 

For further inspiration, I can recommend this series by Australian blogger and youtuber Muchelle B of how to simplify your life, that I was quite inspired by in January.

Thank you for reading, and remember that it's not just the grand efforts that makes a difference <3

Norway just about to start its Arctic oil drilling

Yesterday marked a new step in race against Arctic oil drilling. As a long term reader of this blog, you might have followed the blog updates on how Arctic oil drilling, more specifically in the South-East Barents Sea, is extremely destructive for all life that lives there. We know both that seismic activity can be hazardous for marine life, and we definitely know that all oil and gass found in the Arctic must stay in the ground if we are to reach the 2 degree target. 

That is why it was particularly devastating yesterday, when Statoil, regardless of all climate recommendations, still went ahead and sent up its first oil rig, Songa Enabler, to drill for oil from now and all throughout the summer. This is part of what is called the 23rd concession round, where oil licences where handed out in the South-East Barents Sea. 

In Norway, we are so fortunate to have a constitution that speaks in quite strong language about how we want our climate to be. The wording of §112 sounds like this: 

'Every person has a right to an environment that is conducive to health and to a natural environment whose productivity and diversity are maintained. Natural resources should be managed on the basis of comprehensive long-term considerations whereby this right will be safeguarded for future generations as well. 

In order to safeguard their right in accordance with the foregoing paragraph, citizens are entitled to information on the state of the natural environment and on the effects of any encroachment on nature that is planned or carried out. 

The authorities of the State shall issue specific provisions for the implementation of these principles.' 

Because of the inconsistency between these words in our constitution and what our government is actually doing, and also the fact that our chosen politicians were just as quick to sign the Paris agreement as they were to hand out new oil licences, that is the reason why several Norwegian environmental organisations, lead by Greenpeace and Nature and Youth, are now suing the Norwegian state over Arctic oil drilling. The lawsuit agains the Norwegian state now has a court date, and it is set to the 13th of November. 

These are exciting times to be an environmentalist, even though Big Oil still hasn't realised its era is coming to a close. It is neither financially nor environmentally sound to invest in fossile fuels compared to renewable. 

Luckily, there are forces both within and outside of Norway that sees this, and hopefully this will win through in the court case against Arctic oil drilling. If you want to do more, please feel free to add your name to the lawsuit, as one of the over 8 million who supports this. 

As always, thank you for reading. <3

Remember, sharing is caring, and we collectively really need to care about the Arctic, because what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic. 

This changes everything

I have finally gotten around to read Naomi Kleins 'This Changes Everything" (2014) (yes, I know, a little late to the game) However, even if you read it now, you will still get some really good insights as to where we are currently in the climate discourse.

Klein is a Canadian journalist, author and political activist, and 'This Changes Everything' draws most of its example from the current day US climate policies. The main idea of the book is that its the current economical system, capitalism, that is ruling how we make all other decisions, including those for the climate. If you are either interested in climate, as I sort of assume you are if you've found your way to this blog, but also if you are interested in how economy influence all aspects of society, then this might be the book for you.

One of my most 'aha!' moments when reading the book, was when she discusses how the fossile fuel industry per definition neither can't stop nor won't stop before they have literally searched every inch of our common Earth. This has to do with how it is financed; oil companies gets new investments based on what they estimate that they will be able to produce. So with this cycle, they can never stop searching. Klein gives some devastating examples in the book about small island communities that perished because of this extractive industry. For a more thorough explanation of this and a lot more, I can really recommend this book. It is also a good road map if you have just gotten into the climate debate, but want to get a bit more back history on how the movement came to be. 

ShopStop 2017

It's been a while, its a new year, and a new greener you, if you'd like to. 

I've decided to introduce a new element to this blog, which is more about green living and how you can do lifestyle choices that is helping us taking care of our common earth. 

For me, one of my contributions this year is that I will not buy any new clothing in 2017. This is because of the awareness I have gained over the past few years about how the textile industry works and the enormous effects this has on our climate. For a more in debt about this, see my last blog post: http://theclimateschool.com/news/2016/11/30/black-friday-and-over-consume-of-clothes

I do believe this is going to become a challenge, even thought I do know I have what I need in order to physically manage it. The biggest challenge, the way I see it now, is to overcome the constant offers that the advertising world is constantly imprinting in you that you need. I read somewhere that earlier we used to talk about the four different seasons. Now, clothing advertises the year like every new week is a new season, which is insane. However, these things are effective, and just the other day when I was walking down the street, I saw a long warm looking black skirt, and immediately thought ‘that was nice’, then I remembered the vow I had given myself and thought about alternatives to buying this new skirt, and straight ahead I recalled a long black skirt I had from four years back that could do the job! So solution number one: See what I already have that can be used. 

The second challenge that I think can become a fall mine is that sometimes one buys stuff out of boredom. Although, now that I am aware of this, I will rather used the time and money spent on something more lasting; like spending time in nature! The nature is of course free, but sometimes it can cost a bit to travel to the more remote areas. This is where the saving aspect of not buying any new clothes come in. I went over my online receipts for 2016 and found out how much I used on clothes that year, and it came to the sum of 4480 NOK. From my perspective, who is someone who considers oneself as not that materialistic, I was quite shocked. It is tempting to come with three explanations as to why the number was this high: 

1. In 2016 I gave away half of the clothes I owned in the first half of the year. If anyone else is getting inspired by a minimalist lifestyle, as I am currently, I will write another blog post on how minimalism can help you to become more green in your choices. However I would also state that if you do decide to get rid of a lot of clothing, do not throw it away in the bin, donate it to somewhere you know the items will be taken care of, as too much textiles in the garbage is another severe environmental problem. 
2. There was a holiday in 2016 that I was on where I arrived to the final destination, whereas my suitcase did not. This was in January, and it was rather cold, so I had to buy a new outfit from top to bottom. 
3. After having given away half my wardrobe in the first half of 2016, I came to realise that a few essential things, like trousers, where now currently missing from what I had left, so that needed to be bough in order to cope with the cold winter of Norway. 

After having reflected on the clothes that I did need to buy, I am still thinking that I must have bought things I did not necessarily need. This is one of the insights I am hoping to get this coming year, what you really need. When you limit your purchase of new resources, you become more creative with what is already available to you. At least that’s my theory. On the bright side, the amount of money I spent on clothes in 2016 could buy me a trip I am planning with a good friend travelling from Oslo to Lofoten, even in an environmentally friendly way. If you come to look at your spendings that way, I am sure you would end up with better memories from an experience like that, instead of yet another pair of black jeans. 

A third challenge I have thought of is this - but what about presents? Will I not be able to give gifts that are textiles this year? There will come a Christmas towards the end of this year as well. For the time being, I am thinking no to soft gifts this year. 

Something constructive I have thought of that can come out of this years experiment is that I want to learn how to knit after a pattern. I haven't tried it yet, and when I manage it, I will be able to produce things myself out of wool this year. 

These are the premisses for my shopstop 2017. So far these are the challenges I see as most likely. Other solutions during the year will of course be to for example borrow say, tour equipment should I need that. On the top of my head I rememberer that I don't own a sleeping bag, but I know someone who does. I am exited about this project, and when I have something to report along the way I will, and then when the year is finished give a full review of how it turned out. 

Black Friday and over-consume of clothes

Last Friday was the so called 'Black Friday', the day after Thanksgiving that Americans, and slowly also Norwegians, have come to embrace as a shopping day without any sensible limits. The day encourages you to buy items, just because they are so cheap you can not afford not to. This goes especially for clothes. 

However, there are major reasons to be concerned about the current situation of how our clothes are being produced and the lifecycle of the cheap clothes we buy. I was glad to see that organisations like Greenpeace wrote this excellent piece on the day (in Norwegian) https://www.nrk.no/ytring/buy-nothing-day-1.13243458 because November 25th was also Buy Nothing Day. The equivalent of Black Friday that is so sorely needed. They also published this factsheet (in English) http://www.greenpeace.org/norway/Global/norway/Miljøgifter/Dokumenter/2016/Fact-Sheet-Timeout-for-fast-fashion.pdf which I highly recommend you check out. 

The current way our clothes are being produced are severely bad for the environment. Composting a fabric that is made out of several different types of textiles, which is also coloured can take up to 1000 years to break down. In this process it is also likely that toxic waste will either leak from the compost area into potential drinking water or if burned, turn into the climate warming gass methane. 

Worst of all is still the conditions that the clothes are being produced under. The Norwegian environmental organisation Framtiden i våre hender (The future in our hands) teamed up with the newspapers Aftenposten and sent Norwegian youths to the factories where the clothes we buy are being produced. They made the short series Sweatshop http://sweatshop.no to show a Scandinavian speaking audience how horrible the conditions are for the workers in these literal sweatshops, and how little they earn. I strongly recommend seeing the series. Both seasons are 5 episodes lasting 10 minutes each. When you think more consciously about the cheap clothes we buy; from it is made to when we dispose of it, you start seeing that this is not a sustainable solution.

The best alternatives are to: 

-Buy less

-Buy used

-Buy only what you need

-Buy higher quality when you first buy

Living Planet Report 2016

Every second year, WWF publishes a Living Plantet Report to inform us about the current state of our common Earth and the species that lives here. 

They recently published this years report, and the results are worrying. The scientist behind the report have developed their results based on 14.000 populations of 3.700 different species. Here are some of the findings: 

- From 1970 to 2012 the populations decreased with approximately 58 percent.

- This means that the worlds animal population is more than halved in just over 40 years. 

- If the development continues like today, we will face a world in 2020 where 2/3 of all the animals on Earth will be extinct.  

These are gruesome prospects, and we don't even know the full impact this would have on the biodiversity as a whole, only that it will have an significant impact to the worse. 

Sir David Attenborough spoke at the WWF launch of the report, you could see the speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAqSeVY0mH4&feature=youtu.be

To read the full report, you can visit this site: http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/lpr_2016/  and if you want to read the summary you can follow this link http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/lpr_living_planet_report_2016_summary.pdf

The COP22 is finished, and this is what we got out of it

COP22 finished in the early hours this morning, and what we have as a result from it is this document http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/marrakech_nov_2016/application/pdf/marrakech_action_proclamation.pdf It is a fairly short read, but to summarise it for you, the main points are these: 

- The Parties acknowledges the importance of the Paris agreements earlier commitment

- They have set themselves a 2 year time frame to come up with all the technical measurement mechanisms from the Paris agreement. 

Besides from this, the COP22 set out to promise to be an ActionCOP, but turned out to be more of an in-actionCOP. However, the climate minister of Norway are pleased with the outcome, and this framework gives the parties clear ground rules on how to work ahead, so COP24 should promise to be an action filled on yet again! 

Divestment!

Todays blog post regards one of the solutions to global warming; namely divestment. You might have come by the term before, the definition of 'divestment' according to Wikipedia is 'In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment.' Still unsure what divestment means? The Guardian states it like this: 'Divestment is the opposite of investment – it is the removal of your investment capital from stocks, bonds or funds. The global movement for fossil fuel divestment (sometimes also called disinvestment) is asking institutions to move their money out of oil, coal and gas companies for both moral and financial reasons. These institutions include '  at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/23/a-beginners-guide-to-fossil-fuel-divestment

The divestment that is relevant in terms of global warming is the divestment from the fossile fuels industry. This excellent video by European Greens illustrate how divestment works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOkGdXuhKLo  (2,49 min) 

It has previously been a massive problem at COP that the fossile fuel industry have such a strong hold over so many nations, and even at the COP itself. But by divesting, the industry does not get to dictate the terms to such a degree that they have done in the past over the future of the climate.

There are several organisation that works on the divestment part of the climate solutions. If you are interested in learning more, I can recommend the following sites: 

Go Fossile Free http://gofossilfree.org/what-is-fossil-fuel-divestment/ 

Divest Invest http://divestinvest.org 

350 Org https://350.org/category/topic/divestment/

Thank you for reading. 

COP22!

It is once again COP season and I am following the updates with Argus eyes. There is a lot happening at the same time, and the best way to illustrate this is both through words but also infographics as this http://climatetracker.org/week1cop22overview/ on what happened during the first week at COP. 

If you are new to the UN language I can recommend this site http://cop22.ma/en/#whatscop/post/161 for some of the useful the acronyms.

And to be fully in on the process, this is the official website where the UN releases the text proposals that are being discussed: http://unfccc.int/meetings/marrakech_nov_2016/meeting/9567.php  

As you can see, this is a slightly different blog post, but with all the encouragement to keep yourself updated on what is happening to the future of our climate. There is a strong need for all of us to keep ourself informed, saying this in regards of the US election this week, the need for information is more pressing than ever. This article http://sciencecommunicationmedia.com/science-and-politics-where-do-we-go-carl-sagan/ discusses exactly this, that we need to keep the scientific community within the political debates. Also, we as voters, and global citizens needs to keep ourself informed in order to not drop out of the bigger conversation; where our Earth is headed. 

There is a lot of hope, and a lot to be optimistic about. Overall we are making progress. It might not seem like it all the time, but overall we are. I am including this video "Some Good News: 16 Ways 2015 Is Not A Total Dumpster Fire by online educators The Vlogbrothers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wei8M9IuqPc , and with this ending this blog post. 

As always, thank you for reading and taking the time. 

Final results and conclusions!

3.12 Current oil spill recovery systems for oil in ice

A study done in Canada by Look North named ‘Oil Spill Detection and Modelling in Hudson and Davis Straits’ (2014) summarizes how in most oil spill models available, sea ice is not a factor, and for the studies where it is added, the risks are down-played and over-simplified. There is a good body of knowledge on how to retrieve oil in tempered water, but limited on how oil behaves in cold water. The field research on Arctic oil spill is also limited, and a knowledge gap remains connected to the challenges surrounding ice.

3.13 Oil spill surveillance in Arctic waters

The SINTEF report ‘The Utilization of Satellite Images for the Oil in Ice Experiment in the Barents Sea, May 2009’, funded by the 6 oil companies; Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni Agip Kco, Statoil, Shell and Total, describe how a combination of aerial and satellite surveillance has become the preferred method for monitoring off shore areas where an oil spill could occur in open waters. The aim was to test if the same conditions applied for the Barents Sea. This report was the outcome of a joint industry program with the aim to learn more about how oil behaves in ice covered waters. After several tests where oil was spilt under controlled conditions it was found that if the ice density was higher than 40%, it was impossible to trace an oil spill that had occurred under the ice with the current satellite monitoring. This caused concern as this means that it is not only no oil spill recovery system that is currently available that would be able to collect spilled oil, but an oil spill will neither be possible to spot, as the concentration of ice in the Barents Sea can be over 40% all year around, and with most of the year it is a certainty that it will be frozen near the Polar Front and the Ice Edge. 

4.0 Results and Analysis

This chapter aims at drawing conclusions from the main body of data and analyzes the findings from the case study in light of the literature review. 

4.1 Implications of Research Findings

In question 5 of the case study when I asked ‘Has anyone informed specifically about the risks of an oil spill for you who live close to the South-East Barents Sea?’ and the unanimous answer was ‘No’ could be an indicator towards that the Coastal Sámi I interviewed could have received such information from the Sámi Parliament, but this dissertation claims that even the Sámi Parliament can not have been given adequate information on this, as there are no scientific solutions on how to treat an oil spill in ice covered waters. This breaks with The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that Norway has signed on the ‘Principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent’. 

4.2 Conclusions

When treating land and sea resources where indigenous communities are involved it is necessary to meet the indigenous on their terms. The ocean holds a great value to the Coastal Sámi inhabitants, both as the primary source of food, but with a strong sense of identity being connected to the continuous living near the ocean. The planned oil activity in the South-East Barents Sea will pose a threat already under safe practice, as the seismic shooting the Norwegian oil industry uses in order to locate oil wells have a negative effect on larvae and fry that are to spend the first part of their lives in these areas. Among a limited amount of research on the effects on other fish species than cod and larger sea mammals from seismic shooting, there is still not a finished mapping of the sea bottom, which makes it impossible to predict further consequences of the marine life before 2020 when the sea bottom report is estimated to be finished. Large scale oil spill recovery test were made in the Barents Sea on a joint program by 6 oil companies that own oil concessions in the Arctic to test if the methods they had developed could be used in cleaning oil from ice covered waters. The results concluded that they had learnt a great deal from the experiments, but there are still many insecurities, both regarding how the oil changes and behaves in such cold waters, but the greatest gap in knowledge remains on how to extract oil that is trapped under or between the ice. The part of the oil spill program that regarded monitoring of oil under ice concluded that a higher ice density than 40% makes it impossible to spot the oil from under the ice when satellite monitoring is used, which is the preferred method for detecting oil spills in open waters. 

4.2.1 Recommendations based on key findings

Based on the key findings from both the case study and the literature review this dissertation recommends to decision makers, in this case the state of Norway: 

1. An Arctic Legal Treaty should be drawn up specifically regarding the topic of how natural resources in and around the sea should be distributed between the Sámi population and the non-indigenous population of Norway. 
2. As the sea bottom of the Barents Sea is currently being mapped by Mareano, and this report is estimated to be finalized in 2020, this dissertation recommends that no oil license allocations are made before this process is finalized so marine habitat can be preserved and important natural values will be saved.
3. The IPCC estimates that the climate emissions needs to decrease 85% within 2050, and 40% within 2020 in order to avoid a temperature increase on more than 2 degrees celsius, and in order for Norway to achieve this, who has set out to reduced their national emissions with 20% within 2020, even Statoil's manager Helge Lund has said that it is a necessary to leave some of the oil reservoirs unexplored. This dissertation recommend that these areas are the South-East Barents Sea areas. 

4.3 Literature and methodological discussion

The literature of this dissertation was gathered in the request of highlighting as broadly as possible how Arctic oil drilling is a new policy step for Norway as an oil nation, and how prior knowledge from more southern latitudes will not be sufficient to safely drill for oil in the Arctic regions of Norway. The aim was to highlight the Coastal Sámi’s perspective on the consequences of an oil spill in their close environment. My chosen method was to contact Coastal Sámis as individual persons, not the organizations that represent them. The organizations were contacted, but only to ask if members were willing to participate. This might have been a flaw of the study, and more politically engaged members of the Sámi community could maybe have been a part of the study if they spoke on behalf of their organizations. Another methodological concern is the decision to not consult ‘experts’ from outside the Sámi community. The study could have been broadened by adding a closer perspective from academics working on issues concerning Sámi rights. Additional depth could have been gained if glaciologists and biologists who specialize in how oil affects the nature were consulted directly, and not only through academic sources. However, from the case study that was executed the answers served a great purpose of highlighting the same concerns that the scientific community raises. 

Recommendations to the Norwegian Parliament on petroleum business in the Barents Sea and Sámi conditions

3.10 Recommendations to the Norwegian Parliament on petroleum business in the Barents Sea and Sámi conditions

Einar Eythórsson’s report ‘Petroleumvirksomhet i Lofoten - Barentshavet og samisk forhold’ (‘Petroleum business in Lofoten - Barents Sea and Sámi conditions’) (2003) was one of two official recommendation reports produced on demand for the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy to consider how Sámi interests would be affected with an all-year petroleum activity in these areas. The lead author of this report Einar Eythórsson points out, both within the report but also on an independent science news website for Norwegian science, how he felt the time the research group was given was not sufficient to give a wholesome and representative recommendation report. He demanded at one point that as they had only been given less than 2 months to state all the risks involved for the Sámi with letting the petroleum industry near their coast, this could hardly be adequate to give justice to all the multiple effects that could come of this. The researchers demanded that they should either be allowed to print this clause in the finished document, or they would refuse to publish what they had gathered of information at all. The report ended up being printed with the clause, but regardless it was considered to hold enough information to form an official opinion on petroleum activity in the Barents Sea. 

The report is based on what is considered the six Sámi regions, in total 17 municipalities in the Northern Norway. Except inner Finnmark, all the Coastal Sámi communities experience depopulation and shortage in traditional ways to make a livelihood. When planning where an eventual onshore land base for the petroleum could be located, it is important to localize where the Sámi have their settlements. The Sámi’s traditional fishing includes not only coastal and fjord fishing, but fishing in ice covered waters and in boats that can manage deep seas far from the shore. This needs to be taken into consideration when drawing the lines for what are Sámi interest areas at sea. 

3.11 Oil spills under ice and health effects on Arctic humans

The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) concludes in its final report ‘Arctic Oil and Gas 2007’ that oil activity can never fully be risk free, due to how tankers can spill transported oil, pipelines can start leaking, as well as accidents, even under the strictest of regulations. The social and economic effects oil activity will have for Arctic people, among them indigenous, are dependent on how involved the Arctic people is on decision making. The report recommends that prior to opening new areas for oil and gas exploration, or building the infrastructure to make these types of industries possible, the indigenous communities must be consulted so the negative effects can be held at a minimum and that the indigenous communities receive the maximum of the benefits from developing a new infrastructure. Their traditional knowledge can be used both for planning what areas to avoid building in, as these could be significant to the indigenous communities. How environmental monitoring has previously been done can provide a double security when what is available of modern technology equipment is combined with how the environment has used to change. When regarding how the indigenous might want employment in the oil industry, it is worth considering the effect it would have for a small indigenous community if the majority of the adult generation stops doing traditional activities as fishing due to a better salary in the oil industry. Generation gaps like this can have unforeseen effects on smaller communities. 

On the effects oil will have on the environment and ecosystems of the Arctic, the report states how the Arctic surface environments are one of places on Earth that will show clearest evidence of alteration, and for the marine environment the main cause of change comes from oil spills. How oil behaves in Arctic waters is so unknown that a high sensitivity towards what the species already living there can manage must be the ultimate goal for any oil exploration. The Exxon Valdez oil spill continues to affect the environment for decades, and as there has currently been no major oil spill in the Arctic we can not know the long term effects. 

Humans can be affected by exposure to petroleum hydrocarbons and this is mainly caused by an oil spill. The food security can also experience a risk of being altered either in quality, quantity or availability, this is directly linked to the state of the marine animals, as the main food source for most indigenous people living in the Arctic comes from the ocean, as the soil is too cold for agriculture. The overall picture of how petroleum hydrocarbons affect human health in the Arctic is complex at best. 

Oil spill response programs where ice is present hold a major challenge for all Arctic states exploring the option of oil activity. Most of the equipment suggested for use today were not designed to be used in an Arctic environment, and will therefore be inadequate when combating spills. This illustration shows the bio network of the Barents Sea (see figure 2). The whales in this area have needed a long time to grow in population size after centuries of hunting. It is only recently starting to pick itself up. Oil drilling and gas activity are the new threats facing the Barents Sea, and with such an abundant marine life the consequences of an oil spill could be hazardous. 

A key finding of the AMAP report is how there are no effective means of gathering or rinsing up an oil spill in broken sea ice (See figure 3). Oil spill responding in the winter adds to the impossibility as there will be no light between November and January (Arktisk system) and the darkness coincides with the harsh weather predictions of winter storms. If an oil spill were to happen in the winter on land or on the top of the unbroken sea ice, this would be easier to retrieve, as long as it can be finalized before spring time, when oil would sink under the ice. So far with the current technology the best recommendation from the AMAP study is to prevent an oil spill, rather than being dependent on an oil spill recovery system. The report suggests that this is still an area where new technology is needed, particularly for oil under ice and in broken ice, which might easily be the case if oil exploration takes place in the South-East Barents Sea, where the Ice Edge and Polar Front pose both of these challenges. 

Figure 2: Simplified Barent Sea food-web The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) ‘Arctic Oil and Gas 2007’

Figure 3: The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) ‘Arctic Oil and Gas 2007’

The added factor of climate change

3.9 The added factor of climate change

The IPCC has concluded that climate change is happening twice as rapidly on and near the poles, as the rest of the globe. This makes climate change unavoidable to mention when considering how the Sámi population will be affected by a possible oil spill in their immediate nature. The ACIA report (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment 2004) concludes that the consequences for societies living in the Arctic of climate change will include: 

• Loss of hunter culture: Because of the melting all year long ice several species that are reliable on this ice for resting are likely to become extinct, causing difficulties for the Sámis dependance on these animals. The loss of their hunter culture will not only take away a traditional source of nutrition, it is highly intertwined with their sense of cultural identity and what it means to be Sámi. 
• Reduced food security: Access to traditional food as seal, polar bear, reindeer and some fish and bird species are likely to diminish as a consequence of the heating. Reduced quality and illness among the fish and in the berries that the reindeers eat are already being observed. With the shift to a more ‘Western’ nutrition comes an increased chance for diabetes, obesity and heart diseases. 
• Health concerns for the inhabitants: Thinner ice caps is a direct cause of the changing climate. This can be dangerous if the Sámi continue to use their traditional paths leading over ice covered-shores that used to be safe. The melting of the permafrost can also lead to poorer sanitation facilities. 
• Consequences for the herds: As changes in what routes are possible for the reindeer, where they can give birth and access food will be altered, the likely scenario is that this added stress will have a negative effect on the reindeer herds, leading to thinner reindeers with a decreased estimated life span, which again will affect the Sámi in a negative way. 
• Increase in ship traffic: As the year long ice will melt, new sailing routes will be possible. The North-West passage has already seen an up-rise the last couple of years and within the end of the century this is estimated to be the preferred shipping route of goods. The positive consequences this will bring are more tourism to the Arctic countries, with a possibility that the Sámi will get more attention and a possible market for their livestock. The environmental aspect of more ships going through the Arctic waters is the increased likeliness of introduced species that are highly likely to come along with the ballast water being emptied in the Arctic with water from more southern areas. The introduced species are likely to compete with the ones who are already accustom to the environment, and the consequences on the ecosystem as a whole are hard to predict when introduced species enter an already complete ecosystem. 
• Increased access to resources: With the melting of the ice in certain areas, former impossible places to search for and extract oil and gas will be possible. The moving ice will also cause an added danger for the petroleum searches in these areas, as the ice is no longer stabilized. 
• Extended fishing opportunities: Key farming fish species in the Arctic, as herring and cod are likely to thrive in a warmer environment, but it is also very likely that the traveling patterns and prevalence areas of many fish species will change. 
• Difficulties of transportation on shore: Transportation across the land and pipelines are already being affected by the melting ground. This is likely to increase. Settlements that are dependent on ice covered or frozen roads in order to be accessed for supplies will suffer. 
• Reduced freshwater fishing: By the end of this century it is estimated that a number of species that have adapted to life in Arctic waters will become extinct both locally and globally. 
• Better terms for agriculture and forestry: The opportunities for agriculture and forestry are likely to increase, as the warmer weather will open for growing food and trees that former only could live further South.