Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. Today
Speaker 1: we are bringing you the fourth and final episode of
Speaker 1: the miniseries The Black Thread, about Norway's complicated relationship with
Speaker 1: its identity as both a progressive leader and an oil state.
Speaker 1: This mini series comes to you from the host of
Speaker 1: the Communicating climate change podcast, Dick and von vick Stone,
Speaker 1: and was created in collaboration with Norwegian nonprofit Climate Culture.
Speaker 1: In today's episode, we look at Norway beyond Oil because
Speaker 1: despite the limits that Norway's oil industry imposes on its citizens'
Speaker 1: ability to imagine a future without fossil fuels, people all
Speaker 1: over the country are starting to speak up, take action,
Speaker 1: and begin the work to free themselves from the industry's influence.
Speaker 1: We're excited to bring you this fourth and final episode
Speaker 1: of The Black Thread.
Speaker 2: Enjoy Welcome back to The Black Thread, a podcast unraveling
Speaker 2: Norway's complex relationship with prosperity, identity, and responsibility in a
Speaker 2: warming world. I'm Dickon, a climate communications expert based in Oslo,
Speaker 2: the Norwegian capital, tracing the Black Thread oil through Norway's
Speaker 2: society and culture. Last time, we picked at the needlework,
Speaker 2: uncovering dropped stitches in the stories and rhetoric of the
Speaker 2: Norwegian fossil fuel industry and the logic championed by Norway's
Speaker 2: major political parties to extend the country's oil age long
Speaker 2: into the future. Reflecting back to the first episode of
Speaker 2: this series, and sociologists carry nor Guards claim that when
Speaker 2: you study something that's a threat to society, you start
Speaker 2: to see how things work. I think it's fair to
Speaker 2: say that through this journey of discovery drilling into Norway's
Speaker 2: oil story, we've begun to do exactly that. But where
Speaker 2: do we go from here? In this closing episode of
Speaker 2: The Black Thread, we'll look forwards imagining Norway's future with
Speaker 2: help from leading experts. We'll explore how Norway might begin
Speaker 2: to loosen oil's grip on its politics and identity, and
Speaker 2: hear how different voices envision aligning the country's actions with
Speaker 2: its values, its reputation, and the realities of a change
Speaker 2: in climate. In short, how Norwegian society might free itself
Speaker 2: from the influence of oil. Along the way, we'll hear
Speaker 2: a range of perspectives on what it could take to
Speaker 2: unpick the Black Thread from strengthening journalism and civic debate
Speaker 2: to reducing the influence of fossil fuels across culture, sports
Speaker 2: and public life, and drawing on Norway's long traditions of care,
Speaker 2: courage and collaboration to shape what comes next. To get
Speaker 2: us started, let's hear from Carrie Norgard, a sociologist are
Speaker 2: referenced earlier who studied how societies grapple with climate change,
Speaker 2: including here in Norway. Her work looks at the cultural
Speaker 2: and emotional dimensions of denial and inaction, and how our
Speaker 2: shared values, traditions, and sense of belonging shape what feels
Speaker 2: possible in a country where as we've learned in previous episodes,
Speaker 2: oil is bound up with the national identity. This lens
Speaker 2: is crucial for understanding not only why Norway struggles to
Speaker 2: imagine the end of its oil age, but also where
Speaker 2: change might come from.
Speaker 3: For all of us, Imagining the future is difficult in
Speaker 3: different kinds of ways, and for sure in Norway there's
Speaker 3: just this wonderful grounding in sensive history in the past
Speaker 3: as a way of understanding the present. At the same time,
Speaker 3: we have to be able to imagine the future. Norwegians,
Speaker 3: like most of us, should be doing more of that.
Speaker 3: And understanding the ways that our imaginers of the future
Speaker 3: may be shaped by assumptions about the present that may
Speaker 3: or may not be accurate. I think we need to
Speaker 3: understand the reasons that we are where we are in
Speaker 3: order to get somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Carry emphasizes that our ability to imagine the future is
Speaker 2: often shaped and sometimes limited by assumptions we carry about
Speaker 2: the present, and across this series, it has become clear
Speaker 2: that many of the barriers to imagining a future beyond
Speaker 2: oil in Norway aren't accidental. Critics argue that petroganda doesn't
Speaker 2: just defend the industry, it helps shape what people see
Speaker 2: as possible, influencing both thought and feeling. Building on that,
Speaker 2: Carrie's research suggests that fear, guilt, and a sense of
Speaker 2: helplessness have played a central role in shaping Norwegian's responses
Speaker 2: to climate change. I asked her which emotions, in contrast,
Speaker 2: might help societies like Norway engage differently, and what they
Speaker 2: might reveal about the country's capacity for change.
Speaker 3: Recognizing that this whole system is operating and that it's
Speaker 3: not just a matter of that people don't care or
Speaker 3: that people don't know. I think that's really important, and
Speaker 3: so trying to paint a understanding of the world where
Speaker 3: it takes courage to and so what are the conditions
Speaker 3: under which we can find that courage And I think
Speaker 3: community is one. I think traditions that point us to
Speaker 3: a sense of responsibility where we don't have a choice
Speaker 3: to care or not are very, very valuable. And so
Speaker 3: political social movements can create a larger feeling of capacity
Speaker 3: where there's common purpose and more power felt in that.
Speaker 3: And I think we can circle around to Yantolovin in
Speaker 3: a way there and think about ways that there can
Speaker 3: be created subcultures of engagement building off of existing social traditions,
Speaker 3: existing points of pride. I have an article with a
Speaker 3: colleague on donod.
Speaker 2: Remember the Norwegian concept of dougnod from episode one, This
Speaker 2: idea of volunteering to a collective purpose and contributing to
Speaker 2: the greater good.
Speaker 3: There's a possible springboard for climate action. And the idea
Speaker 3: of climate dougnod is an antidote to individualism.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: We're made to believe that we should think of action
Speaker 3: at the individual scale, but ultimately we are much more
Speaker 3: powerful when we work collectively, and so it's a cultural
Speaker 3: tool that allows collective action to take place.
Speaker 2: So according to Carry, simply recognizing these limits to imagination
Speaker 2: and to action is an important first step. But then
Speaker 2: what In a society that prizes consensus, Stepping outside the
Speaker 2: norm can feel almost impossible. Several of our experts contend
Speaker 2: that this is part of how oil interests maintain their
Speaker 2: hold in Norway. By presenting oil as common sense, as
Speaker 2: the responsible and pragmatic choice, it makes oppositions seem unseerious
Speaker 2: or even extreme. Carry reminds us that courage doesn't have
Speaker 2: to come from lone individuals. It can grow from community.
Speaker 2: From the same values, Norwegians already live by consensus, collective responsibility,
Speaker 2: and a love of nature. Those values once helped protect
Speaker 2: the oil story. Consensus silenced opposition, collective responsibility made oil
Speaker 2: feel like a shared national project, and love of nature
Speaker 2: became a story where money and technology could protect the
Speaker 2: environment even as the damaging forces of extraction and consumption escalated.
Speaker 2: But Carry suggests those same cultural instincts can also guide
Speaker 2: Norway in a new direction. Consensus can open space for
Speaker 2: honest debate, collective responsibility can mean holding leaders and companies
Speaker 2: to account, and a love of nature can grow from
Speaker 2: reverence into stewardship, and yet even when society will courage
Speaker 2: and debate grow, their impact depends on how these pressures
Speaker 2: interact with politics. Understanding how change unfolds inside institutions can
Speaker 2: reveal opportunities for influence, which is precisely where bord Lane,
Speaker 2: from the University of Oslo's Oil and Society Research Network
Speaker 2: comes in. With a storied background in both activism and advocacy,
Speaker 2: Board offers a window into how change actually happens within
Speaker 2: Norway's political system and what's possible when people come together
Speaker 2: to make their priorities known.
Speaker 5: One thing that's easy to miss when you see policy
Speaker 5: making from the outside the institutions is how dynamic things
Speaker 5: really are. So this is some reason for hope and
Speaker 5: for hoping that change might actually be more achievable than
Speaker 5: it might sometimes seem, because from the outside it's very
Speaker 5: easy to see the government or the political system as
Speaker 5: a kind of a monolithic thing, right, But the role
Speaker 5: of civil servants and the role of the different ministries
Speaker 5: and so on, it kind of cuts both ways, because
Speaker 5: in one way it serves to conserve to some extent
Speaker 5: and to make changes difficult, but it also makes sure
Speaker 5: that there are lots of viewpoints represented in policy processes,
Speaker 5: even if it might not look like that from the outside.
Speaker 5: I have this one vivid memory from the process when
Speaker 5: I was helping to write this government commission report on
Speaker 5: a new climate policy or Norway towards twenty fifty were
Speaker 5: I and a group of people were sitting inside the
Speaker 5: Ministry of Climate and Environment writing this new report, and
Speaker 5: then suddenly all of the entrances to the ministry were
Speaker 5: blocked by activists, including Great Tatunberg, And it was such
Speaker 5: an absurd feeling sitting inside this ministry actually writing a
Speaker 5: report that tried to make many of the same points
Speaker 5: that the protesters were making. Right, The point is not
Speaker 5: to say that, you know, protesters should go more easy
Speaker 5: on the institutions or anything like that to the country.
Speaker 5: I think a strong voice outside these buildings really help
Speaker 5: build momentum for change inside them. But I would say,
Speaker 5: at least for these activists, it should be a reason
Speaker 5: for hope that most of the times you could count
Speaker 5: on the fact that at least someone within these institutions
Speaker 5: are actually echoing some of your points, and so by
Speaker 5: making a strong case outside, you're actually strengthening some voices inside,
Speaker 5: and you should be maybe looking for allies within these institutions.
Speaker 2: This example reinforces carry Norga's point the collective action is vital.
Speaker 2: Strong visible activism outside government can reinforce voices working for
Speaker 2: change inside. Public pressure strengthens the internal advocates who are
Speaker 2: shaping policy behind the scenes. And this isn't just theory.
Speaker 2: Public pressure recently pushed the Norwegian government to divest the
Speaker 2: oil fund from Israeli companies tied to the genocide in Gaza.
Speaker 2: It also influenced the moratorium on seabed mining and shaped
Speaker 2: responses to indigenous Sami rights violations too. So Norwegians aren't
Speaker 2: powerless in the face of oil industry rhetoric.
Speaker 6: Far from it.
Speaker 2: Public opinion plays an important role in shaping the political landscape,
Speaker 2: providing it's loud and clear. What we think of as
Speaker 2: normal shapes what we do and say. But normal isn't fixed.
Speaker 2: It shifts over time as people see what others are
Speaker 2: doing and saying. In Norway, as we discussed in the
Speaker 2: first episode of this series, the tendency towards self censorship
Speaker 2: and not rocking the boat can high how much attitudes
Speaker 2: are changing. When polling makes that visible. What once seemed
Speaker 2: fringe starts to feel mainstream, giving people confidence to speak up,
Speaker 2: act and push their leaders to respond. And for those
Speaker 2: who can't or don't wish to protest publicly, there's another
Speaker 2: powerful way to drive change, the right to vote. Sillia
Speaker 2: ask Lundberg, head of north Sea Campaigning at Oil Change International,
Speaker 2: shares insight on how Norwegians might align their votes with
Speaker 2: their values.
Speaker 4: In terms of oil and gas policy. Fifty percent ish
Speaker 4: of the general public wants to stop exploring for new
Speaker 4: oil and gas or to slow down exploration, so they
Speaker 4: want some kind of reduction, and the parties that support
Speaker 4: that and have party manifestos that are in line with that,
Speaker 4: that would be m the gear. So the Green Party
Speaker 4: es the Socialist Left Party, then slid the Liberal Party
Speaker 4: and wret the Red Party.
Speaker 2: In the recent national election, several of the parties stillia
Speaker 2: mentioned those advocating to slow or stop new oil exploration
Speaker 2: made significant gains. These outcomes point to an appetite for change.
Speaker 2: But even in a relatively open political system like Norway's,
Speaker 2: where citizens often have direct access to decision makers, policy
Speaker 2: shifts don't happen automatically. They depend on debates carried out
Speaker 2: in good faith with credible information at the center. Our
Speaker 2: experts suggest that for people to support or critique climate policy,
Speaker 2: they need to understand how ambitious or timid government proposals
Speaker 2: really are, and they need tools to hold politicians accountable
Speaker 2: for following through on their promises. That requires journalism to
Speaker 2: play its part to moderate the debate, fact check the claims,
Speaker 2: and make complex issues accessible, as well as to cover
Speaker 2: major protests or actions when they happen. Too Yet, in Norway,
Speaker 2: especially when it comes to oil, gas and climate politics,
Speaker 2: we've heard in previous episodes how the press often struggles
Speaker 2: to provide the level of scrutiny required as journalists. Writer
Speaker 2: and project leader at the Norwegian Climate Foundation, Anakarr and
Speaker 2: Sather explains the gap in critical climate literate journalism leaves
Speaker 2: citizens without the reliable information they need to make informed choices.
Speaker 7: Well, there's two few journalists that write about oil and
Speaker 7: gas in a way. Back in the nineties we had
Speaker 7: lots of oil journalists in a way, but now we
Speaker 7: have too few experts in media and a lot of
Speaker 7: people think that climate and energy politics in general are
Speaker 7: complicated and they're afraid of doing something wrong. So among
Speaker 7: the political journalists and commentators, there is hardly anything about
Speaker 7: oil and gas. Perhaps that's also because there is normally
Speaker 7: not conflict lines through the big parties, like between the
Speaker 7: Conservatives and the Social Democrats. They agree on the oil
Speaker 7: and gas politics, so that's part of the reason as well.
Speaker 7: But I think the media should step up their game.
Speaker 7: They just need to learn more about it and to
Speaker 7: be more eager to learn. I think they have an
Speaker 7: important role in shaping our minds and their hearts in
Speaker 7: this area.
Speaker 2: A recent PhD thesis on climate journalism confirms what Anna
Speaker 2: Karen observes. Coverage of oil in Norway is minimal and
Speaker 2: often shallow. The study concluded that quote journalism's ability to
Speaker 2: highlight the climate oil connection in Norway is limited due
Speaker 2: to oil industry hegemony and journalistic norms and routines end
Speaker 2: quote in practice. As we've heard in previous episodes, this
Speaker 2: means that much of the public discourse about oil is
Speaker 2: untethered from the real environmental and social stakes of burning
Speaker 2: fossil fuels. Considering the idea we've heard floated about the
Speaker 2: social costs of acting outside perceived social norms, I asked
Speaker 2: Ana Karen whether her outspokenness on oil and climate had
Speaker 2: ever drawn pushback or professional consequences.
Speaker 7: Not at all. And talk to everyone in oil and
Speaker 7: everyone in politics. I haven't had any problems at all.
Speaker 7: In social media, you can get criticism. You will be
Speaker 7: portrayed as someone who is not smart enough to understand
Speaker 7: how things really are, not smart enough to understand how
Speaker 7: the economy is, or things like that. Scientists say that
Speaker 7: it is the extremes that are most active in social media,
Speaker 7: so that's understandable. But there's a huge movable middle that
Speaker 7: we can communicate with and they may not raise their
Speaker 7: voice that much, but they are there. They are listening.
Speaker 7: That's what we have to work with to give them
Speaker 7: facts and to give them some other stories than what
Speaker 7: they are used to.
Speaker 2: Reflecting back to carry nor guards call for courage, journalists
Speaker 2: can take some comfort in Ana Khan's words, there is
Speaker 2: a receptive audience and a movable middle ready to engage.
Speaker 2: The silence around oil won't break itself, but it can
Speaker 2: be challenged through clear, persistent reporting that connects the dots.
Speaker 2: Some have already been active in this work. For example,
Speaker 2: Standout News reports on the activist group People Against Fossil
Speaker 2: Power during the Ski World Championships told a compelling story
Speaker 2: about regular citizens making a stand, made the connections between oil,
Speaker 2: climate and the threat to winter sports, and followed the
Speaker 2: interactions between activists, sports people and scientists through to its
Speaker 2: successful conclusion. Elsewhere, As Anikarin explains, Norway's journalists need to
Speaker 2: step up their game. The facts need to reach the
Speaker 2: people and be connected to broader public debates. And even then,
Speaker 2: another challenge remains accountability. Journalism's role doesn't end with exposure.
Speaker 2: As author, journalist and climate data expert Catanjoshi explains, it
Speaker 2: also means following up, tracing where the promises lead to action,
Speaker 2: and applying pressure to make it so.
Speaker 8: So now is pretty comparable with other countries that I
Speaker 8: like to call progressive climate villains, which is, you know,
Speaker 8: countries like Australia, countries like Canada that have center or
Speaker 8: center left governments go to cop meetings with a lot
Speaker 8: of sort of bluster and confidence, but really don't have
Speaker 8: the numbers to back it up. We make progress. Our
Speaker 8: transport sector is actually seeing a reduction in greenhouse gas
Speaker 8: emissions due to the deployment of electric vehicles. These are
Speaker 8: real numbers. It's going down it's good, but the question
Speaker 8: is is it going down in line with what our
Speaker 8: previous targets were, And no, it's not. Governments should be
Speaker 8: held accountable, no matter whether you like them or hate them.
Speaker 8: They should be held accountable to their promises, and if
Speaker 8: they're failed, give them a chance to explain it. Maybe
Speaker 8: there are good reasons, but to just refuse to check
Speaker 8: is really bad. And just like the other countries that
Speaker 8: I analyze, Norway is among the countries that really just
Speaker 8: avoids the question. When people think about climate delay or
Speaker 8: climate denial, they often think about things that are real problems,
Speaker 8: like misinformation from the fossil fuel industry, or corruption among
Speaker 8: politicians and companies. All of those things are really material
Speaker 8: and significant. But I've become quite obsessed with hollowness and
Speaker 8: emptiness of rhetoric, and I think Norway is among the
Speaker 8: countries that knows how to make a good speech. But
Speaker 8: when it comes to their actual accountability, that's when things
Speaker 8: start falling apart a little bit. When emissions fail to
Speaker 8: fall as fast as they should, part of it is
Speaker 8: because we heard the right thing, but we didn't follow
Speaker 8: up to check whether or not people did the right thing.
Speaker 2: So my understanding is that the social cost of weak
Speaker 2: climate journalism isn't just a less informed public. It also
Speaker 2: gives politicians room to talk the talk without walking it.
Speaker 2: Catan notes that Norway often sounds ambitious on the international stage,
Speaker 2: but as we explored, when the previous episode, follow Through
Speaker 2: tends to lag behind alongside visible activism, then journalism is
Speaker 2: one of the clearest ways to push back against industry
Speaker 2: influence when it falters. Oil doesn't just dominate politics. We've
Speaker 2: heard how it seeps into culture, art, sport, and the
Speaker 2: stories people tell themselves and each other about what it
Speaker 2: means to be Norwegian. The report What is Norwegian Energy
Speaker 2: Culture from Klimaculture, a nonprofit focused on climate, nature and justice,
Speaker 2: documents the reach of this influence across public debate and
Speaker 2: daily life. That's the thread we're pulling on here, how
Speaker 2: oil's presence in everyday life shapes what Norwegians see is
Speaker 2: normal and how it might finally be unpicked. Activism, voting,
Speaker 2: and journalism all offer paths to change, but there are
Speaker 2: other ways to loosen oil's grip too. Yuliafortschammer from Klimacutuur
Speaker 2: suggests how Norway might begin to do so through alternative means,
Speaker 2: drawing on moments of past leadership and change.
Speaker 9: The very first thing we have to do is to
Speaker 9: make people aware of how much the fossil funding is,
Speaker 9: because in the culture sector it's really not that much money,
Speaker 9: but it seems so much harder to stop it because
Speaker 9: people are worth for the funding. But what we see
Speaker 9: in the UK, where so many cultural institutions already have
Speaker 9: kicked out fossil fuels, is that they have to do
Speaker 9: it because the audience demanded. My dream for the culture
Speaker 9: sector in Norway and also for sports is that children
Speaker 9: and young people should not be exposed and should not
Speaker 9: be wearing logos advertising for companies who are actively hurting
Speaker 9: this world. I think we should start to talk about
Speaker 9: how Norway reacted to tobacco back in the seventies, Noah
Speaker 9: being one of the countries in the world who was
Speaker 9: the first to band tobacco advertising in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 9: And I think we really have to understand how bizarre
Speaker 9: it is that someone advertising such a harmful product gets
Speaker 9: so much access to our minds, to our children, to
Speaker 9: everyone through them very rarely respected actors like schools, museums, arts, etc.
Speaker 9: What we really need to start talking about in Norway
Speaker 9: when it comes to petroganda, fossil fuel advertising, sponsorships, etc.
Speaker 9: Is that it's becoming illegal. So many places in the
Speaker 9: world right now, more and more cities and readients and
Speaker 9: even countries are talking and have implemented fossil fuel advertising
Speaker 9: bands fossil fuel sponsorship bands. So it's not even a
Speaker 9: question about what is right or wrong and how do
Speaker 9: you feel? And what about the money and all that
Speaker 9: it could also become totally illegal.
Speaker 2: Julia's point is pretty straightforward. If sponsorships and ads from
Speaker 2: oil and gas companies help normalize their presence in everyday life,
Speaker 2: then limiting that exposure could open space for new voices,
Speaker 2: new partners, and a cultural life more in tune with
Speaker 2: what she sees as Norway's core values. And Norway wouldn't
Speaker 2: be starting from scratch. The country already has a history
Speaker 2: of restricting advertising from industries that cause harm from tobacco,
Speaker 2: go to junk food, and with similar bands on fossil
Speaker 2: fuel promotion and gaining traction around the world supported by
Speaker 2: voices as prominent as the United Nations, Norway would simply
Speaker 2: be keeping step with its peers. Also, interestingly, the sums
Speaker 2: of money involved here aren't immense. In a previous episode,
Speaker 2: we heard how Norway's national oil company, Equinor, spends around
Speaker 2: seven million dollars a year on cultural sponsorships, an amount
Speaker 2: Yulia believes is small enough to be replaced by more
Speaker 2: socially responsible partners. All of this suggests, at least to
Speaker 2: me that the symbolic power of fossil sponsorship far outweighs
Speaker 2: its financial scale. If the will exists, change is well
Speaker 2: within reach, and the change might even already have started.
Speaker 2: One of Norway's thirteen science centers, institutions we've heard criticized
Speaker 2: for being amplifiers of petroganda, has explicitly refused to partner
Speaker 2: with Equinor, stating that such a relationship would conflict with
Speaker 2: their values. But thinking about Norway's fuel future isn't just
Speaker 2: about who funds its culture or how public debate and
Speaker 2: political accountability are strengthened. Sociologists carry more. God points out
Speaker 2: that a deep belief in innovation and modernity runs through
Speaker 2: the national psyche, shaping how the country approaches climate challenges
Speaker 2: and what solutions feel possible in the first place.
Speaker 3: Amongst the things that I've found really unique and really wonderful,
Speaker 3: but also that maybe shape the particular ways that people
Speaker 3: think about climate change include the sense that modernism is working.
Speaker 3: There's a sense of optimism therefore in technology, and of
Speaker 3: course this can be a wonderful thing. A sense of
Speaker 3: optimism is very important if you're trying to solve problems.
Speaker 3: There's a trajectory that the world has gotten better and better,
Speaker 3: that technology works, and then climate change really can come
Speaker 3: face to face a challenge that But if you aren't
Speaker 3: as bought into the idea that the world is getting
Speaker 3: better and better and that modernism is so universally a
Speaker 3: good thing. For example, if you're a sami per, the
Speaker 3: rise of Norwegian modernism has led to pretty severe atrocities
Speaker 3: for indigenous peoples in Norway, then probably your sense of
Speaker 3: whether we're falling off a cliff when it comes to
Speaker 3: the future or whether were already in crisis is very different.
Speaker 2: Carry points out that Norway has a deep belief that
Speaker 2: innovation will solve the world's greatest problems, and whilst this
Speaker 2: kind of optimism has benefits, it can also make deeper
Speaker 2: systemic challenges harder to see and address. For example, we've
Speaker 2: heard much about the faith and support Norwegian's throw behind
Speaker 2: the likes of carbon capture and storage and blue hydrogen
Speaker 2: despite their lack of genuine development and impact. But according
Speaker 2: to Katan Joshi, imagining solutions to climate change is about
Speaker 2: more than technological fixes. It's also about engaging with histories, lands,
Speaker 2: and cultures that don't always fit the mainstream narrative. Norway's
Speaker 2: belief in progress, for instance, contrasts sharply with indigenous perspects,
Speaker 2: especially those of Thesami, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia,
Speaker 2: whose culture and identity remain closely tied to the land.
Speaker 2: Catan highlights the social and political consequences of Norway's so
Speaker 2: called clean energy successes. Whilst celebrated for reducing emissions, he
Speaker 2: explains that hydropower and wind power have often been implemented
Speaker 2: with severe impacts on local and indigenous communities. This tension
Speaker 2: between climate achievement on the one hand and social justice
Speaker 2: on the other is key to understanding what a green
Speaker 2: and just energy transition really means.
Speaker 8: I'm thinking specifically about wind power and hydropower in Norway.
Speaker 8: Both of these things were developed quite quickly and with
Speaker 8: really severe impacts on the indigenous communities in which they
Speaker 8: were built. When is a bit more recent in memory,
Speaker 8: a large development was found to have breached the human
Speaker 8: rights of people living nearby, and so I think this
Speaker 8: is a really important thing to consider that when we
Speaker 8: brag about having very very clean electricity, a lot of
Speaker 8: those developments were not done particularly well, and it's something
Speaker 8: that should be made a little bit more prominent. I
Speaker 8: think just because we did the right thing in terms
Speaker 8: of greenhouse gas emissions doesn't mean that we did the
Speaker 8: right thing by communities where those projects are.
Speaker 2: To understand more about the perspective of the Sami, I
Speaker 2: spoke to Biaska Nilas, parliamentary leader of the Norwegian Sami Association,
Speaker 2: who described the long history of oppression that the Sami
Speaker 2: have faced at the hands of colonial powers, including Norway,
Speaker 2: all the way through to the present day. Relations between
Speaker 2: the Sami and the Norwegian government, he claimed, are strained,
Speaker 2: especially regarding industries like mining, land based wind power, and
Speaker 2: other incursions into Sami territory. Recent developments have triggered some
Speaker 2: of the largest Sami protests in history, revealing how deeply climate,
Speaker 2: energy and justice are intertwined in Norway today. Since many
Speaker 2: of those cases have their roots in fossil fuels, as
Speaker 2: well as the shift away from using them. Biasca emphasizes
Speaker 2: how these realities challenge Norway's consumption driven so systems and
Speaker 2: its fossil dependent economy.
Speaker 10: The oil consumption in the world. It's a global drug addiction.
Speaker 10: The capitalist system and the global economy is dependent on it.
Speaker 10: And it's crazy how people regard this so called development
Speaker 10: as a necessity. I think that's a really big difference
Speaker 10: between mindset of how we should regard, how we should
Speaker 10: treat how we should have relationship with the land and
Speaker 10: with nature and also with the water.
Speaker 2: Biasca described a number of ongoing protests and court cases,
Speaker 2: including a copper mine in the ripper Field or rip
Speaker 2: of Watna in the North, and land based wind farms
Speaker 2: planned for the electrification of a gas plant in Melca
Speaker 2: near Hammerfest, a town we heard in a previous episode
Speaker 2: was resurrected by fossil fuels.
Speaker 10: In some areas, we still have clean water, we still
Speaker 10: have land, we still have resources that can vedos for eternity,
Speaker 10: but those won't last very long if the industrialization and
Speaker 10: the capital gets the rule from much longer. The copper
Speaker 10: mine in Uppowotne is portrayed as very necessary for the
Speaker 10: green transition. But when we look where that energy is going,
Speaker 10: what they are building with that copper, then it's only
Speaker 10: to grow and make more and more money. It's a
Speaker 10: new land enclounchment process, but now painted with green, and
Speaker 10: it's devastating effects for the semi culture, not only reindeer herders,
Speaker 10: but also every other that is dependent on the land.
Speaker 10: We have seen in the last ten years also that
Speaker 10: the Norwegian majority has realized how bad this is for nature,
Speaker 10: destroying that area for the use that has been their
Speaker 10: time immemorial. So for us wind power said, but true,
Speaker 10: it's not green or sustainable at all. It's the biggest
Speaker 10: land grabber and biggest land intruder there is right now.
Speaker 2: In fact, land based wind power has become one of
Speaker 2: Norway's most debated environmental issues. The government's national framework for
Speaker 2: wind development was firmly rejected in twenty nineteen, largely over
Speaker 2: concerns about impacts on the very landscapes Norwegians cherish and
Speaker 2: that the PSAMI consider sacred. These debates show just how
Speaker 2: complex a green and just transition can be. From my
Speaker 2: own research into Norway's win power conflicts. I found that
Speaker 2: whilst most people agree changes needed, they often disagree on
Speaker 2: what that change should actually look like. Biasca believes that
Speaker 2: before this tension can truly be resolved, a much deeper
Speaker 2: transformation has to take place within Norwegian society itself.
Speaker 10: Norway is in the world leading class of overconsumption. They
Speaker 10: think that this is necessary for a good life, and
Speaker 10: it crashes very much with my world review. The myth
Speaker 10: is that the Norwegian nation is a nature loving skiing
Speaker 10: nation that likes to go into the mountains and enjoy
Speaker 10: the fresh air. Where a healthy nation with good values
Speaker 10: and with good politics. But when they many of them
Speaker 10: go home, they go home to work in the oil fields,
Speaker 10: they go home to to work in extractive industries, they
Speaker 10: go home to stock markets. The main value seems now
Speaker 10: to make money, to make wealth. Norway has more billionaires
Speaker 10: per capital and USA. Many of those obviously comes from
Speaker 10: extractive industries. The problem is people have too much money,
Speaker 10: and people care about money too much. So then we
Speaker 10: get in this catch twenty two where the chase is
Speaker 10: to build some a little more on the house, have
Speaker 10: our second cabin, maybe have car number three, and that's
Speaker 10: regarded as the good life. Norwegians are a desservant of
Speaker 10: this because we are such a good country that does
Speaker 10: good in the world, and we have such good welfare
Speaker 10: systems in place, so this can't be bad. So I
Speaker 10: think many people are ignorant of the facts.
Speaker 2: Baska explains that while Norway sees itself as a healthy,
Speaker 2: nature loving nation, many of the same people who ski
Speaker 2: and hike can spend time in the forest work in
Speaker 2: extractive industries. Believes wealth and consumption have become dominant values,
Speaker 2: replacing the ideals of simplicity and care for nature, rewriting
Speaker 2: what he believes Norwegians considered to be the good life.
Speaker 2: This pursuit of wealth, he explains, fuels over consumption, bigger houses,
Speaker 2: second cabins, more cars. This a cruel of stuff, combined
Speaker 2: with Norway's strong welfare state and moral self image, makes
Speaker 2: it hard for people to see that this way of
Speaker 2: life may actually be part of the problem. Instead, Biasca
Speaker 2: believes Norwegians could learn much from the Sami philosophy of
Speaker 2: Bidgi Up.
Speaker 10: Meh Bigeups basically, not to take more than you need
Speaker 10: as loang. As you take care of the land, the
Speaker 10: land will take care of you. And this is in
Speaker 10: every aspect of the land. It's the animals, the fish,
Speaker 10: it's their plant syst would, it's the water, it's everything.
Speaker 10: To be able to sustain yourself with the land, you
Speaker 10: have to know the land intimately. It's a whole universe
Speaker 10: of knowledge in that one single word is not only
Speaker 10: about the resources and the relationship. It's about knowledge you
Speaker 10: have to have and learn, and you learn it from
Speaker 10: the land, and you learn it from your relatives, you
Speaker 10: learn it from the parts of nature that don't speak.
Speaker 10: So it's deeply rooted in respect. It's not a coincidence
Speaker 10: that the rest of the wilderness and biodiversity is in
Speaker 10: onnindigenous people's land. That's not a coincidence. So leave those
Speaker 10: lands alone and then study how do the indigenous peoples
Speaker 10: use the land, and then start to consider maybe we
Speaker 10: should do the same. Maybe we should dismantle those dams,
Speaker 10: Maybe we should dismantle those turbines, Maybe we don't have
Speaker 10: to buy the third car, and so forth, and try
Speaker 10: to see what happiness really can be about. The most
Speaker 10: unhappy people are the richest people, and that's not a
Speaker 10: coincidence at all. So maybe take a hard look on
Speaker 10: consumption and what is really needed for a good life.
Speaker 2: Baasca's reflections reveal a sharp contrast between Norway's image as
Speaker 2: a nature loving, prosperous nation and the realities of extraction
Speaker 2: over consumption and environmental loss. But within Sami philosophy lies
Speaker 2: an alternative approach bidgiub me taking only what you need,
Speaker 2: sustaining the land, and maintaining deep knowledge of ecosystems. For Biasca,
Speaker 2: these values aren't just a critique of modernity. They're a
Speaker 2: guide towards a more sustainable and balanced way of life,
Speaker 2: one that could inspire Norwegians to rethink their own path.
Speaker 2: After all that we've heard in this series, I imagine
Speaker 2: that for some Norwegians, taking inspiration from a culture that
Speaker 2: has historically stood in opposition to their sense of progress
Speaker 2: and development may feel challenging. So I found it particularly
Speaker 2: interesting speaking with Runa Jaro Rasmussen, a professor of Nordic religion,
Speaker 2: who made it clear that many of the same ideas
Speaker 2: prominent in the Sami worldview once shaped how Norwegians themselves
Speaker 2: related to the world. Long before the rise of oil
Speaker 2: and modern industry, the people of the North lived within
Speaker 2: a worldview known as Nordic animism, one where humans were
Speaker 2: part of nature's web, not living in opposition to it.
Speaker 2: Runa explains that while those beliefs were largely displaced by
Speaker 2: Christianity and modernization, their traces remain in small rituals, old stories,
Speaker 2: and seasonal traditions that quietly keep this older relationship alive.
Speaker 6: Animism in a global perspective is pretty much everywhere, and
Speaker 6: there's always culture bound focus on specific places because it's
Speaker 6: about building relation to those beings that we share, for instance,
Speaker 6: our landscapes with, so that a different locally relevant aspects
Speaker 6: relating to specific kinds of landscapes, water bodies, rocks and mountains,
Speaker 6: and specific landscape relations like a bear in northern Scandinavia,
Speaker 6: raven seals in southern Scandinavia, storks and so on. There's
Speaker 6: a specific cycle of light in in northern Europe, we
Speaker 6: experience rather marked light difference between summer and winter, and
Speaker 6: you see that very much reflected in the animists relating
Speaker 6: to the changing seasons. If you go to the northern
Speaker 6: part of Scandinavia where there are bears in the landscape,
Speaker 6: then relating to bears is a really important part of
Speaker 6: relating to that landscape. But Sami people do it too,
Speaker 6: and finish people who live and inhabit those same landscapes
Speaker 6: also build relation to bears. Our nationalistic perspective would tend
Speaker 6: to say, okay, so there's something that is somehow essentially
Speaker 6: an inherently Norwegian, But when you actually look at Norwegian animisms,
Speaker 6: you find that they're very closely aligned with Sami animisms.
Speaker 6: I think Norway is blessed with very rich animists tradition
Speaker 6: that has survived comparatively for a very long time. I'm
Speaker 6: sometimes astonished when I'm in Norway and I'm engaging people
Speaker 6: up there of how alive some of these things are there. Also,
Speaker 6: Norway has a nationalist heritage. There's a tradition of valorizing
Speaker 6: the old stuff. There is a preparedness to engage with
Speaker 6: these things also often in very renewing ways, where these
Speaker 6: things are being pulled in and sort of being playfully
Speaker 6: made into something very contemporary.
Speaker 2: For Aruna, revisiting these older worldviews isn't about longing for
Speaker 2: the past. It's about recognizing what still lives within Norwegian
Speaker 2: culture today. Because in a sense, we've come full circle.
Speaker 2: As we heard in the first episode of the series.
Speaker 2: Norway built its national identity around a revival of the
Speaker 2: Norse kingdom, its myths, its heroes, and its deep connection
Speaker 2: to nature. Those stories helped define what it meant to
Speaker 2: be Norwegian, and as sociologists carry Norguard emphasized, those same
Speaker 2: narratives about nature, relationships, and identity continue to shape how
Speaker 2: Norwegians understand their place in the world and their response
Speaker 2: to the climate crisis. So when Runa speaks about Nordic animism,
Speaker 2: he's not reaching for something distant or mystical. He's revealing
Speaker 2: a continuity, another thread that runs from ancient beliefs through
Speaker 2: the founding of modern Norway to the present day. It's
Speaker 2: a reminder that the resources for change aren't just technological
Speaker 2: or political. They're also cultural, rooted in the stories that
Speaker 2: built the nation itself. And among those old stories, one
Speaker 2: stands out to Runa as especially relevant today, a myth
Speaker 2: about destruction and renewal, about the possibility of starting again.
Speaker 2: That story is Ragnarok.
Speaker 6: There are nodes in the animist way of thinking that
Speaker 6: a build to reach a lot of people. These are stories,
Speaker 6: they're made to be retold for millennia. That's why they're
Speaker 6: still here because they have an incredible resilience and capacity
Speaker 6: to speak to our deep cognition. So if you have
Speaker 6: a story like the Ragnaroch story from the Nordic mythology,
Speaker 6: which is a story I think about how lost connectivity
Speaker 6: ends up in ecological and social collapse, that is an
Speaker 6: apocalyptic story. It is written in one of the most
Speaker 6: monumentally impressive, beautiful poems ever written. It has a lot
Speaker 6: of capau to speak with that story. When you talk
Speaker 6: about climate change and what have the people been doing,
Speaker 6: They've been writing two thousand pages long you and climate
Speaker 6: reports that are filled with topsoil erosion and methane beliefs,
Speaker 6: coefficients and ocean acidification. Nobody reads them, nobody understands them,
Speaker 6: and they have not changed a hair in how the
Speaker 6: global communities relate to the world. Now that that is
Speaker 6: a failure of storytelling. We have not been able to
Speaker 6: produce motivating narratives that can basically reach people and motivate them,
Speaker 6: interchanging how the world actually works. This material has that potential.
Speaker 2: Stories like Ragnarok and the animist narratives that Runa describes
Speaker 2: are lessons in connection, balance, and consequence. Throughout this series.
Speaker 2: We've heard myths that justify the status quo, stories of
Speaker 2: progress and pragmatism that keep oil at the center of
Speaker 2: Norwegian life. But Ragnarok points in another direction, towards renewal
Speaker 2: and the courage to begin again. Runa explains how this
Speaker 2: story told thousands of years ago can still cut deeper
Speaker 2: than the latest climate report, and that's a strong reminder
Speaker 2: that facts alone rarely moves societies. Imagination and emotion have
Speaker 2: a major part to play too. For a country like
Speaker 2: Norway that places such faith in reason and innovation, it's
Speaker 2: a reminder that change is also a matter of meaning,
Speaker 2: of what people value and the stories they choose to
Speaker 2: live by. In this episode, a pattern has emerged tackling
Speaker 2: the paradoxes at the heart of Norway's identity aren't just
Speaker 2: about technology or emissions. They're also about culture, from people
Speaker 2: speaking up to journalism that holds power to account, confronting
Speaker 2: fossil influence in sport and the arts, to embracing different
Speaker 2: ways of engaging with nature and community. The threads of
Speaker 2: change being spun here are many and interconnected, and the
Speaker 2: work to weave them into something bigger is already underway.
Speaker 2: Communities and organizations across Norway are already imagining what it
Speaker 2: might mean to live without the influence of fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: The Beyond Oil Conference in Bergen celebrated its tenth anniversary
Speaker 2: this year, convening leading minds to explore alternatives. Oslow's recent
Speaker 2: Citizens Assembly explored new forms of governance that reflect what
Speaker 2: people truly care about, and local initiatives. Gatherings and symposiums
Speaker 2: all over the country are experimenting and building movements around
Speaker 2: practices that prioritize well being, stewardship, and collective care rather
Speaker 2: than profit growth and endless consumption. From conferences to culture halls,
Speaker 2: think tanks, to political parties and beyond, these developments show
Speaker 2: that there is a deep hunger and a powerful capacity
Speaker 2: for change. Modern Norway was born from imagination, reviving an
Speaker 2: ancient kingdom, revitalizing its connection to the land, and writing
Speaker 2: its people into legend. Throughout this series, we've heard how
Speaker 2: that vision helped shape Norway's sense of self as a
Speaker 2: nature loving nation and a force for good in the world,
Speaker 2: and how that all now comes into tension with the
Speaker 2: realities of a fossil fuel economy that's accelerating the climate crisis,
Speaker 2: But as sociologists carry nor Guard reminds us, the courage
Speaker 2: to take on daunting challenges and perilous conditions has always
Speaker 2: been part of Norway's story, and we've already heard plenty
Speaker 2: of that courage from those who raise questions, speak out,
Speaker 2: take action, and imagine doing things differently. Pushing back against
Speaker 2: the influence of oil and gas. In Freeloft sleeve the
Speaker 2: outdoor life at the heart of Norwegian culture, one of
Speaker 2: the core tenets is they are at ing and scum
Speaker 2: or snooth. There is no shame in turning back or
Speaker 2: changing direction when the conditions demand it, and the conditions
Speaker 2: have changed. Oil is no longer essential to Norway's prosperity,
Speaker 2: and continued production undermines the country's own ideals of fairness,
Speaker 2: care and responsibility. By pulling out the black thread oil
Speaker 2: and curbing the influence fossil fuels have over its politics,
Speaker 2: culture and daily life, Norway can begin to shape its
Speaker 2: next chapter, life after Oil. The Black Thread is a
Speaker 2: collaboration between communicy In Climate Change and Klimacule Tour. It
Speaker 2: was written and narrated by Dick and Bonvickstone, produced and
Speaker 2: edited by lever Solid Schulearud and the executive producer was
Speaker 2: vigdis Bonvickstone art work is by Anya Jimushkevich. For more information,
Speaker 2: see the show notes