“War itself, is of course, a form of madness. It’s hardly a civilized pursuit. It’s amazing how we spend so much time inventing devices to kill each other and so little time working on how to achieve peace” Walter Cronkite.
Despite earlier centuries of a reputation for Viking brutality, the Scandinavian countries today enjoy a reputation for being peace zones, and also, having high levels of sustainable technology. So, are they models to follow? That question ran through my mind on a recent driving tour of Iceland and Norway, with a visit to Copenhagen and train through Denmark. I’ll talk about the peace thing and social systems first and then the sustainability aspect.
Looking through the sociological and ethnological research, it is general noted that in Scandinavian countries, they are all relatively stable democratic systems. Secondly, they have exceptional levels of gender equality with many female politicians, and lastly, they have excellent conflict resolution policies that they resort to as the only way to manage conflict within and outside their countries. So, are they modern utopia’s? Well, for starters, despite the branding of themselves as peaceful nations, let’s not forget that Sweden for one, is a strangely one-party system, and a primary weapons supplier to the world.
This group of countries in the European north score high on the annual Happiness index, so they must be doing something ‘better’ than most other industrialized countries in the world. During my travels, I was surprised not to see locals everywhere. Hordes of tourists, even in September, and most of the service staff and small shop servers I encountered came from all over the world! This seemed true in Denmark and Norway as well. In Iceland, I did meet several locals by traveling off the standard Route 1 beaten track at times. I didn’t get a sense of ecstasy emanating from them any more than visiting a store in Colorado. I couldn’t do any observations of family life so I was trying to gauge what I sensed empathically as I travelled around.
One aspect that I noted in Iceland was that when you travelled outside Reykjavik and the busy touristy Golden Circle region of SW Iceland, it got quite remote with small communities every so often (usually less than 1000 people). Even Iceland’s northern capital city of Akureyri is only 18,000 people. Looking through the literature, I conclude that the high social cohesiveness that I mentioned at the end of the past post is a result of sparsely populated communities in remote situations. I talked about this from a Scottish perspective in a couple of earlier posts (A New Beginning – Part 6: Being Connected {February 2021} and Becoming different – Part 9: Living Better Together – Part 1 {August 2022}).
Considering the long cold winters experienced in these areas, I believe that people outside the main cities have a lot of neighborly support where they rely on each other (maybe some of the Roseto effect – see recent post). Scandinavian countries also have comprehensive welfare programs for everyone, especially those in need. People are happier when they feel secure and they can benefit from having a community that they can count on. The standard of living is high in these countries, but I did see many ‘homeless beggars (?)’ on the streets of Copenhagen, indicating the touted social balance is a little out of Wack. I conclude that social cohesiveness exists, even a little in the cities, but mostly in the more remote towns and villages.
Looking through the literature reveals the utopian Scandinavian model portrayed is far from ideal. They have high personal debt, take a staggering number of anti-depression pills per capita, and the social equality that is apparently part of their success story is waning. My observations concluded that they are doing a lot of social things quite well, but the greatest problem is that they are still doing it from a Materialistic-Consumer worldview platform. One big difference I noted in Iceland was that nearly everything was an Icelandic brand. Yes, they had some car rental agencies (like Hertz and Europcar) but no other international brands I saw during my travels.
Before I move to my observations on sustainability, I was surprised that while I wanted to taste lots of Icelandic cuisine, the cafes had mostly burgers, fish & chips, and pizza – especially pizza! I did find Icelandic food but had to hunt for it or pay high prices in nice restaurants (where I will add, there was also lots of pizza options). I did ask an Icelander about this and they told me it was to appeal to the large tourist population. I find it sad that any country would yield its identity to keep tourists placated about cuisine. Not everyone shares my desire to immerse themselves in local cuisine and customs. One of my U.S. friends visited Iceland in June and told me how grateful she was that there was so much American style fast food available. I was surprised to see a muted yellow M (McDonalds) sign in the harbor area of Bergen. I was happy to see the thriving street vendors with sea and Nordic food across the street.
Notwithstanding the social cohesion of rural areas, talk of sustainability in the Scandinavian countries mainly revolves around renewable energy and touted high-quality recycling systems. Some basic numbers about renewable energy in Scandinavia reveal that is not as wonderful as they would make it sound.
Iceland generates 99% electrical energy from Hydro and geothermal power for a total of 85% energy with 15% coming from oil, natural gas and other sources. Once you travel around Iceland and see all the massive rivers flowing from the icefields and endless rain runoff that isn’t surprising. Then add that it is a highly active volcanic island with a population of only 370,000 people (maybe double that during any week for 3 months during the summer with tourists) and you have a huge renewable energy resource system with relatively minor local drain. Despite being so isolated in the far north Atlantic, Iceland is talking about laying a large submarine electrical connection to Scotland to export its ‘green’ energy to there and onwards to Europe.
Norway gets 88% of its electricity from Hydro and 10% from wind. That sounds impressive, until you realize that while touting its green energy locally, it is one of worlds major fossil fuel exporters. Sweden has 41% hydro power and 29% nuclear power with the rest from solar, wave and biomass). Finland has a mix across the board with some hydro and wind, but a mix of everything. Denmark has mostly wind and wave energy with some biomass and solar. While in Copenhagen I saw a large trash burning electrical plant. Online they claim it burns hot enough to remove the toxics while filtering the remaining emissions. What they do with all the filtered emissions crap was not mentioned. What made it even more notable was the 170-meter-high rooftop ski hill (Copenhill). An interesting use of trash energy generation to freeze a ski slope (in winter) while powering a city. But that then opens me up to the next topic – recycling!
Iceland, despite its green energy generation, also generates a lot of trash (and not just from tourists) that mostly gets exported, with a lot used as building filler, or to produce heavy plastic sheeting to wrap up and protect the immense amount of animal fodder needed for the long winters. I’m assuming that this plastic once used gets recycled again, but I couldn’t find anything about that. Depending on the source the average recycling rates of Scandinavian countries are Denmark 54%, Norway 40% overall but 97% bottles/cans (they have bottle/can deposit), Denmark 49%, Finland 30%, and Sweden 32%. They rank some of the better programs globally, but far from what would be needed for a sustainable system. In Denmark and Norway I saw a big emphasis on waste separation with copious recycling receptables. But like most countries, trash might be separated but a much less amount is actually upcycled or even reused in any way, still going to the landfill.
As I have found elsewhere, like The Netherlands, despite a good trash/recycling effort, the amount of trash generated is still overwhelming. Well, after that whistlestop tour of Scandinavia in a single post, I am still of the opinion that simply going with green energy and trash management is not going to get us to a sustainable future. Countries with abundant natural resources like hydro and geothermal can go with green electrical energy for themselves and export it even. But that is but one piece in a complex systems puzzle. There is a lot more that needs to happen. The affluence countries do a lot of green technology but still haven’t resolved the social-sustainability aspect. Many poorer countries still have good social cohesion, but little green technology or any way to build it. These countries do not have the massive trash problems simply because they cannot afford to buy much to throw away – yet.
To Be Continued ………………
0 Comments