Sustainability in Sweden

Sara Jeswani
September 2, 2010

Green election

Environment spokespersons from all the parliament parties were being questioned by SSNC earlier this week.

Sweden’s general election is getting closer and closer, and the election campaigns are visible in almost every street. Earlier this week I attended an environment debate with representatives from the different political parties arranged by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC).

Earlier SSNC has made a review of the parties’ environmental work during these last four years, and delivered quite a lot of criticism. The government parties failed, according to SSNC, among other things because of having opened for a more aggressive exploitation of shores and beaches, having lifted the ban on new nuclear reactors and having abolished the tax on fertilizers (produced by fossil fuels and leading to eutrophication of the Baltic Sea).

But neither the red-green opposition parties were spared criticism. SNCC has stated that not even Miljöpartiet (which actually means the Environment Party) has really good environment politics.

During the debate I went to here in Stockholm, what caused the most fervent discussions were different subsidies for cars that emit less CO2, whether or not to raise the carbon tax (which will in its turn cause higher petrol prices) or which way is best to raise taxes on environmentally harmful things and lower them on more environmentally friendly ones.

The big debates have otherwise touched how to count emission reductions, or rather if all of Sweden’s national emission reduction goals have to be achieved within the country, or if we could instead pay for emission reductions in other parts of the world.

But it wouldn’t be fair to say that environmental issues are in the main spotlight right now. In a survey made by the publication MiljöRapporten representatives from all parties admit that they don’t think environmental issues will determine these elections, unless something acute, lika an environmental scandal or other kind of disaster, occurs in the coming weeks and makes the debate change focus.

What I miss most in the debates of this election, though, is the big perspective on the whole sustainability issue. How is Sweden going to be a good place to live in without fossil fuels? How do we deal with the planetary boundaries and construct a way of living that wouldn’t require three globes to be sustainable in the long term?

Tags: general election, politics, sustainability, Sweden | 2 Comments

Sara Jeswani
August 30, 2010

Oil vs muscle power

Matlinah Omiti (in the middle) demonstrates her "smoothie bicycle".

Kjel Aleklett talking about future energy challenges.

Yesterday Tällberg Foundation arranged something they called “A Day For the Future” at Skeppsholmen, which is one of the islands in central Stockholm.
Having spent the weekend trying to suck the last sweet nectar out of this wonderful summer at Möja, another island further out in the archipelago, I arrived just in time to hear the “peak oil guru” professor Kjell Aleklett and his colleagues from Uppsala University talk about our energy future.

The theories about exactly when peak oil will happen differs, but the fact that oil is a limited resource and that we won’t have cheap and easily accessible oil forever is something that humanity will have to deal with, whether we like it or not. The question is just how.
Right now more than 80 percent of the world’s energy mix comes from fossil fuels.
Kersti Johansson, a researcher at Aleklett’s institution held a very interesting talk about the possibility to replace the fossil fuels that now are used for transportation with bio energy coming from agricultural crops or spill. Her calculations show that it will be very difficult, unless we want to grow crops for energy production instead of for food.

Not far from the museum library where the Peak Oil seminar was held I found something that makes it even more obvious what a lot of energy we use in our daily life. Matlinah Omiti from the Royal Institute of Technology showed me the “Smoothie Bike” that she has constructed. By peddalling you power a blender and mix your own delicious fruit drink. I tried it, and actually it doesn’t take a lot of sweat. By increasing the resistance you could make other things work with your muscle power, Matlinah explained to me. You can for example light up one light bulb or a wall of LED lamps, and you could grind coffe. But when it comes to boiling the water for that coffee, you will fail, because boiling water requires so much energy!

Last year the BBC actually made a very funny show on this subject, connecting the energy grid of a house where a family was living their “ordinary” life to a hall with cyclist, powering the home with excercise bikes. 78 frantically pedalling cyclists were needed in order for the father of the house to take a shower…
Maybe we should start using gym bikes a bit more efficiently?

Tags: energy, Peak Oil, sustainability, Sweden | 7 Comments

Sara Jeswani
August 26, 2010

Confessions of a train addict

Photo: Stefan Nilsson.

Things have definitely gone back to normal after the holidays here in Sweden. People haft left their summer houses, unpacked their suitcases and returned to work. For me this only makes it even more tempting to get away. So in a few days I get on the train and go to France.

This year I have beaten my personal train travel record, travelling countless kilometres to London, Paris, Malmö in the south of Sweden and Kiruna in the upper north – not to mention all the places inbetween. Because travelling by train isn’t a transport from point A to point B. I’ve eaten dinner in Copenhagen, taken a stroll along the river Rhine in Cologne and seen the setting sun paint Boden in gold in Boden. And that was just bonuses, included in my tickets with no extra charge. Another wonderful bonus of travelling by train is the people that I get to meet, or just observe. Two enthustiastic Dutchmen, trying to make 20 kilos of reindeer horns fit into the tiny train beds. An elderly Swedish lady who had decided to learn English when she became a widow. I can’t imagine anyone telling me stories like theirs rushing through the check-in on an airport.

Considering all this I must admit that to me it’s a mystery how train companies are now drawing back their investments in train charters through Europe, because of a lacking interest. In 2007 the first train charter started going from Sweden to lake Garda in Italy and became a great success. Media talked about the new climate conscious train trend and the choice of holiday destinations grew. People went to Croatia, Slovenia and Austria.

But now travel companies say the interest hasn’t been what they had hoped for, and stop offering trips to almost all the destinations they recently had. They hope though, one travel company representant said in an article the other day, that increased cooperation between European train companies and more fast train lines will once again increase the travellers’ interest.

But charter trains isn’t the only way to get on a train going far away. Just ask me. At one of the European train companies’ phone booking offices they even recognize my name when I call. I guess that says something about my train addiction…

Tags: sustainability, trains, travel | 8 Comments

Sara Jeswani
August 23, 2010

Consuming the world’s capital

Photo: Juan Carlos Del Olmo/WWF.

Chart: Global Footprint Network.

This past Saturday was Overshoot day, an event established to describe how fast we humans consume Earth’s natural resources. This is the point of time every year when we have used up the stock of renewable assets. Or in economic terms: Now we have exceeded our budget, spent the whole year’s salary and start living on loans.

This means that everything humanity produces or consumes the rest of this year is above the limit of what Earth’s eco systems can take in the long run.
– In less than nine months we spend resources that it takes nature twelve months to recreate. If everyone lived as the Swedes we would need almost three globes, says Carina Borgström-Hansson from the World Wide Fund for Nature.

Until abour 30 years ago, humanity’s consumption and Earth’s annual production were in balance. But now we just seem to be speeding up the pace. Last year Overshoot day came on the 25:th of September. (There’s “normally” about four or five days of difference each year. The sudden jump this year isn’t due to any sudden change in human demand but rather to better calculation methods, says Global Footprint Network, the organisation behind the calculations)

But Carina Borgström-Hansson hasn’t given up.
– We have the knowledge as well as the technology to achieve smart solutions required for attractive and sustainable lifestyles that can fit into this planet’s frames. What’s needed is the will and political action, she says.

Right now the election campaigns are starting to reach their peaks, as we will have national elections here in Sweden the 19:th of September. I’m eagerly awaiting the different parties’ proposals for how we can get below the Overshoot limit again.

Tags: natural resources, Overshoot Day, sustainability, Sweden | 5 Comments

Sara Jeswani
August 19, 2010

Climate concert goes live on the web

Recently I heard the Swedish singer-songwriter Ane Brun tell the story about how she started to take climate change seriously. For long she hadn’t wanted to think about the issue, she said, avoiding films such as Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. But when a friend of hers suddenly started to show his personal and very emotional engagement in what will happen to the world if we continue to warm it up, the issue came closer.

After attending the Tällberg Forum summit a couple of years ago it all fell into place, she said. But it wasn’t a very harmonious feeling. Rather like wanting to run out on every street and city square, shouting about her worries and fears.

Some of the artists performing in the concert. Photo: Stadsteatern.

In a way, this is actually what she decided to do. At the international day of action for the “350 goal” last year she gathered an impressive crowd of Swedish top artists to give a marathon concert during 350 minutes.

The initiative “No more lullabies” has the goal to break through the mechanisms that make both individuals and societies close their eyes, and inspire conversations on climate change through music and poetry – beyond political rhetoric, defensive reactions and self-interest.
“It’s time to wake up. We need no more lullabies.”, they write.

And their work to make these messages come through with the help of culture continues. Yesterday and today Ane Brun and several other great Swedish artists give free concerts in one of Stockholm’s parks, as a part of the annual park theater arrangements.

But the concerts aren’t just for those of us who happen to be in Stockholm this evening – anyone can follow them on the Internet, live streamed on Tällberg Foundations home page.

The concert starts at seven o’clock tonight. Enjoy!

Tags: Ane Brun, climate change, music, No More Lullabies, sustainability, Sweden | 5 Comments

Sara Jeswani
August 18, 2010

Encouragement instead of complaints

The supermarket at Sveavägen in central Stockholm. The sign says: "Invite a homeless to lunch". Photo: Uppmuntra.nu

As I’ve pointed out before, persons who are trying to create societal change sometimes risk being perceived as pretty negative characters. To make up for this, a newly started group in Sweden has begun to encourage initiatives that they like instead of criticizing what they don’t like.

Every month Uppmuntra.nu (which means encourage.now) picks out a company in Stockholm that does something good, “from an environmental, economical, social or human perspective”.

The first company to be appointed is a supermarket in the centre of Stockholm, which has put up a refrigerator outside their checkout counters with a printed request to “Invite a homeless to lunch”. There the supermarket puts food items that have a short best-before date and risk not getting sold, but costumers can also buy some extra food and donate it to the fridge.
The food is then collected by a local shelter, which every day gives food to about 200 homeless persons.

Uppmuntra.nu (the page has an autotranslation into English) has taken its inspiration from the Carrotmob movement, an “anti-boycott” organisation that started in USA in 2008. The idea behind it is that consumers can have an influence through their choices, and by supporting good activities consumers invest in a better development for society.

Tags: carrotmob, consumption, Stockholm, sustainability, Sweden | 8 Comments

Sara Jeswani
August 16, 2010

Bringing women’s perspective on climate change

Rebecka Hagman (in the middle) talking about gender and climate change at Stockholm's Culture Festival. Photo: Helene Mårtenson.

This past week I have fully enjoyed Stockhom’s Culture Festival. Somehow I think that the mere fact of so many people getting together, enjoying free concerts and theatre, dancing and discussing, is an important ingredient in a truly sustainable society. But this year’s festival also had a lot of items specifically about sustainability and climate change on the programme.

For example I heard the feminist climate debator Rebecka Hagman talk about her experiences in the work to bring women’s perspective into the global negotiations about climate change in Copenhagen last year.
As an intern with the Swedish Mission to the UN in New York, she was asked to formulate a proposal for a gender paragraph to be included in the resolution.

So in what sense is climate change an issue that touches gender roles? Well, explained Rebecka Hagman, until now climate change has often been discussed in a technocratic and scientific sense. But it’s also important to see that men and women – as groups – actually have different climate impacts (according to studies men drive more, eat more meat and consume more energy intensive things, while women for example are more likely to use public transport).

Furthermore men and women are affected by a warmer climate in different ways. For example women in many parts of the world bear the main responsibility to provide the family with water and food. In times of more serious droughts this can mean that women all of a sudden have to spend much more hours fetching water and firewood than before. This in turn means less time for studying, participating in democratic and political processes or getting a paid job.

Because of all this, Rebecka Hagman concluded, it’s enormously important to bring all aspects into the climate change work.
– It’s not a gender neutral issue. We need different solutions, and we need voices from south and north, east and west, women and men – all groups in society, she said.

And what happened to the paragraph she wrote? Making more than 190 countries agree is a tough job, Rebecka Hagman admitted. After political horse-trading and struggles about commas and full stops, a watered down version finally made its way into the document. But a document that did not take strong action on emission reductions, which is after all its main purpose, said Rebecka Hagman. So: there is still a lot of work to be done.

Read Rebecka Hagman’s full master thesis “On a gendered road to Copenhagen”.

Tags: climate change, culture, gender, Stockholm, sustainability | 6 Comments

Sara Jeswani
August 12, 2010

A resilient university campus

One of the ideas of what a sustainable campus could look like. Image: KIT-arkitektur and Hanna Erixon

Sweden might be the first country in the world with a university campus built according to resilience principles. When Stockholm university realised that it will need more space for their activities, they asked researchers from Stockholm Environment Institute and the Royal Institute of Technology to lay their heads together with a group of architects to create a vision of a campus that can serve as a model for sustainable urban development.

In a world where about five billion people are believed to be city dwellers by 2030, city planners face enormous challenges. Somehow they must try to balance the urban development and people’s wellbeing with the stress that a city puts on ecosystem services such as water, storm protection, flood mitigation and biodiversity.
– We need new models and perspectives in order to face these challenges, where the cities interact better with crucial ecosystems, says Stephan Barth, who is researcher at Stockholm Environment Institute.
He also says that this area, which is called Albano, can become an important piece in a social-ecological system, where animals and ecosystems have the space and accessibility equal to that of humans.

I’d be most eager to visit this campus right away. But a quick phone call to one of the architects involved in the work reveals that actual building plans are still about five or ten years away. The visionary images give a nice idea, though, of mixing different activities (I love the idea of community gardens in the middle of everything) and types of nature. More images can be seen at KIT-architecture’s web page.

Tags: architecture, city planning, resilience, Stockholm university, sustainability, Sweden | 5 Comments

Sara Jeswani
August 9, 2010

Music against gas drilling

Preparing for the music gala. Photo: Heaven or sHell.

Protesters outside one of the test drilling sites in December last year. Photo: Göran Gustafson.

The Urkult festival wasn’t the only big music event this past weekend. In the old alum works area of the Christinehof Ecopark in Skåne in the south of Sweden artists filled the whole Saturday with music, in a manifestation against the planned extraction of fossil gas in Skåne.
Ever since the energy company Shell started their test drillings in three of the county’s municipalities, protests have been growing.
According to the protest network “Heaven or sHell”, drilling for gas would mean great risks for the groundwater, but also affect air quality, the landscape and its inhabitants.

Recently European statistics showed that Sweden is leading the European

: One of the drilling sites, before the drillings started. Photo: Lotta Nordstedt.

league when it comes to our share of renewable energy compared to total energy consumption. This is much thanks to our big rivers providing us with hydropower enough to cover about half of the country’s electricity needs. But “to invest in fossil energy in 2010 instead of in environmentally friendly and sustainable alternatives is grave”, the anti-gas drilling network writes on its web site.

One of the big discussions about this project has circled around the choice of words. While the drilling company talks about “natural gas” and claims that this gas leads to less emissions than burning coal and oil. Activists, on their hand, underscore that the gas is still a fossil fuel, contributing to global warming, and point out that few people actually know that natural gas and fossil gas is the same thing.

Another thing largely discussed is the current mineral law in Sweden, which does not give the local municipality a veto right when it comes to gas or oil extraction, which is the case with new wind power plants or uranium extraction. This is expected to be an issue for the coming elections.

At the moment Shell is waiting for the result of the test drillings before deciding whether or not to apply for a permit to extract gas. That decision will probably be taken around the end of this year.

Tags: energy, gas, Skåne, sustainability | 2 Comments

Sara Jeswani
August 5, 2010

Music festivals with a green conscience

The Urkult festival takes place in Nämforsen in the north of Sweden. Photo: Mattias Lundblad.

Summer time is festival time, and during this summer an enormous amount of music festivals have been lining up in different parts of Sweden.

While festivals didn’t always use to give much thought to sustainability, leaving behind parks and other festival sites in different states of devastation, it’s now more and more becoming standard to have an environment policy.

This weekend it’s time for the Urkult festival , in Nämforsen http://kartor.eniro.se/m/IpJeF in the north of Sweden. For the 16:th time visitors gather close to the ancient carvings at Nämforsen rapids to listen to musicians from many parts of the world. The festival has environmental thinking as one of its basic elements. Most of the waste is composted at the spot, as much of the food that is served at the festival is locally and ecologically produced and toilets that separates the urine are used.

Another festival claiming their “green-ness” is Way out West , taking place in my old home town Gothenburg on the 12-14 of August. This year Way out West wants to look specifically at etical production.

Some festivals also charter trains and fill them with activities like live bands and dj:s playing music, making the way to the festival an experience in itself.

There are also lots of artists taking an interest in these issues. One of the most ambitious projects is the environmental artist collective Foot (“Friends of Old Trees”) This collective wants to make the artists environmental role models, and thereby inspire their fans to lower their own environmental impact.

Foot also helps to adapt festivals to a greener “thinking” and once a year they award the best adapted musicfestival in Sweden with The golden Foot prize.

Tags: festivals, music, sustainability | 3 Comments