Artists Samuel Jarrick and Shiva Anoushirvani measuring out the “Civilization line 2050″ outside the government chancellery in Stockholm.
Last week I wrote about how decisions of how to use revenues from congestion charges have been debated here in Sweden. Should the money go to investments that will reduce car traffic or to new road projects?
Yesterday one of the projects which has been most criticized in Stockholm – a traffic bypass that will cost around 27 billion kronor ($3.75 billion) to construct – got the government’s approval.
The road will touch some very beatiful and delicate nature areas including world heritage Drottningholm, and the decision has caused an intense discussion, dividing the population into those who think that new roads is the only way to solve today’s traffic congestions and those who claim that investing in new roads will only sustain more car traffic.
Yesterday after a press conference at the government chancellery Rosenbad, journalists were met by protesters outside the building. Two of them, Shiva Anoushirvani and Samuel Jarrick, were making an art performance called ”Civilization line 2050?”, where they symbolically measured out a future sea level.
”According to the Nasa scientist James Hansen sea level rises will be much bigger than what the UN panel on climate change, IPCCC has predicted. But there is also a more philosophical message in this, which has to do with how long you can call yourself a cilivized society if your way of living is making it impossible for people in other parts of the world to prosper”, Samuel Jarrick told me.
Radio Sweden did a feature in English about the ”Förbifart Stockholm”.
The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and other institutions have been criticizing the traffic bypass for increasing CO2 emissions in the Stockholm region by 80 percent by 2030. Sweden’s environment minister Andreas Carlgren argues that this road will be built for a future generation of vehicles, that won’t emit as much as those we have today.
