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Monthly archives: January 2010

Changing climate changes maps

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Kebnekaise
Sweden’s highest mountain Kebnekaise used to be five meters higher. Photo: Wikimedia commons.

The white weather continues in Sweden, which is wonderful. The trees outside my window look like someone has covered them in cake icing and the waters around Stockholm are full of people ice-skating.
The cold has started a few debates about if climate change has suddenly ceased being a problem, but as many have pointed out: There is a big difference between weather, which is a local phenomenon and can vary from year to year, day to day or even hour to hour, and climate, which is something measured in a bigger area and for a longer period of time. So there is no contradiction: cold spells can still come in spite of a warming climate.

Already here

In many parts of the world there is little doubt that we can already see the effects of climate change. At the Copenhagen climate meeting in December I heard inhabitants of small island states, such as Tuvalu and the Maldives, give terrible testimonies about how the places where they have grown up are beginning to be uninhabitable because of rising sea levels. First salt water will trickle up into the ground water, leaving drinking water wells unusable and converting farm land into infertile deserts. And eventually the sea water will cover many of these islands totally, wiping them from the very map.

Shrinking mountains

I still remember how the maps we used in my school as a child suddenly became inaccurate when Germany was reunited. This change won’t be as abrupt, but it will come. And maps already have to be altered, even here in Sweden. One example of that is how the Swedish mapping, cadastral and land registration authority Lantmäteriet now has to change the maps of Lappland. Glaciers have receded, sometimes as much as 500 meters.
The height of Sweden’s highest mountain Kebnekaise has been lowered five meters, from 2111 till 2106 , because of melting ices.
– If you look a couple of hundreds of years ahead they say the glaciers will be entirely gone, the map-drawer Niklas Hedberg recently told the national radio news.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

January 14, 2010

Meat-free Mondays — a good start

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Photo: Jan-Erik Andersson/www.imagebank.sweden.se.

A few weeks into the new year it seems many already have forgotten their New Year resolutions. Most of those who swore to stop smoking, working out five times a week or never ever say a bad word again probably already have given up. I think those who set a bit more modest goals might have had better luck.
That is why the campaign Meat Free Mondays, or Köttfria måndagar in Swedish, could work quite well. Now people are signing up for its Facebook group, sharing recipes and starting to think about how they consume meat.

UN inspired

The origin of this campaign is a statement from Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC. In an interview he said that people should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, and from there decrease their meat consumption even more.

Rising meat consumption

Some people seem to find it difficult to give up their steak, but there are good reasons to try. Meat consumption stands for around one fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. But we can’t seem to get enough of meat. According to a report from the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology, Swedes ate 50 percent more meat in 2005 than 15 years earlier.
Recently the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency came with a new report which shows that Swedish women are more willing than their male fellow-countrymen to eat less meat in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – 69 percent, compared to just 40 percent of the men. Somehow it seems meat eating still has quite a symbolic value.

A lot to do

In the first report I mentioned, the researchers have made calculations on a scenario where every person in the world would have the right to emit two tons of CO2-equivalents per year. They then come to the conclusion that unless something is changed, Sweden’s current emissions from meat, milk and egg consumption would make up more than half of the world’s total emissions from all consumption of goods and services.
So, meat free Mondays could be a good start.

 

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

January 11, 2010

Wolf hunting stirs feelings

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wolf
Photo: Staffan Widstrand / WWF

For the first time in 45 years, Sweden has had a legalised wolf hunt, causing this years’ first big controversy. In a daily morning discussion show on the radio I have been hearing people calling in and quarrelling about this all week, and ministers get heaps of protest letters from upset voters.

Inbreeding

Wolves have always been a controversial topic, parting nature conservationists and cattle farmers who fear that their animals will be killed.
The reason why wolf hunting was permitted is that there has been inbreeding in the wolf population, which descend from the same group of wolves that were reintroduced after the 1970s, when wolves had almost disappeared from Sweden. Now the wolves should be kept at a number of 210 individuals, it is decided, and new wolves from other parts of the world will be released to improve the “genetic quality” of the population.

Fast hunt

The whole quota of 27 wolves were killed in just four days by the 12 000 hunters who went out in the woods, and in some parts the hunt was so fast that too many wolves were actually shot. This has upset many ecologists, and the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation has filed a complaint against Sweden with the European Commission.

Our space and others

The issue of how we humans interact with the rest of nature and what space we think we and other species are entitled to is interesting, and not always easily solved. Since humans prevent these animals from living as they used to, there has been inbreeding. Some mean that we need to shoot wolves in order to restore the population, others mean this is the wrong way, because how do we know that the wolves with the worst genetic problems are the ones who are killed?
I suspect this discussion will continue, especially as Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren says he counts on a new hunt next year.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

January 8, 2010

Lighting up my winter

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skiing
Skiing over a field.

Living in the North means cold winters. It is not the cold, though, that I sometimes find difficult, but the darkness. Days can seem very short and sleepy when the sun rises at around 9 am to set only six hours later (here in Stockholm, that is. Further up north, in Kiruna, the sun rises at 11 am and sets at 12.30 am today. Watch the wecam here).
This means we have to take advantage of the light that we actually have, especially if one has decided to avoid flying, which is my case. And for that purpose there is nothing like the light coming from a snowy landscape.

Back on the skis

The last few weeks most of Sweden has been covered in snow, reflecting the sun’s light in every direction. I am not particularly sporty, in fact it has been more than two years since I last stood on a pair of skis. But when we finally got some snow here in Stockholm you just have to take the opportunity. So I borrowed a pair of skis and took the bus to a nearby open-air recreation area together with some friends.

Frozen lakes 

Just 15 minutes away from the central city skiing tracks extend as smooth ribbons through forests, over fields and frozen lakes. The whispering sound from our skis against the snow is only interrupted by a few birds, and the light is flowing in through my eyes from all directions although it is a cloudy day.

Important breaks

But enough of nature poetry. To be honest, one of the best things about going skiing is actually the brakes. Sitting down in a snowdrift having a sandwich, a cup of hot chocolate or blueberry soup and an orange suddenly makes every bruise from falling in a slope or swearing trying to get up a steep hill (well, my skiing skills are still rather basic…) totally worthwhile.
And though my legs are stiffer than two flag poles today, I’m in a wonderful mood, and not nearly as sleepy anymore.  I hope this snow stays for a little bit longer.

break
And perhaps most important of all… the break.

Sara Jeswani - Sustainability

January 5, 2010