Comission for abandonment

Sweden has done it. They have had the brave vision long due to materialise. They have, by their Prime Minister, created the comission for the abandonment of oil. It has been set down with the mandate to find methods and ways to deploy these that mitigates and in the final run makes it possible for Sweden to be independent of oil.

One of his arguments was among the lines of:
If we look fifteen years into the future, we will have difficulties with our predictions. If we look at the oil prices 15 years ago and now and then fifteen years into the future we can have an idea. It is obvious that something is taking place, and we must be ready for this big change.

Four ministers will be members of this comission, led by Göran Persson himself. Because we, and I have an intense belief in the environmental issues - as he said.

Björn Carlson, a eh... quite a rich Swede, has donated 500 million SEK to rehabilitate the Baltic Sea and Botniska Viken which has suffered tremendously from pollution and runoff nitrogen, killing most life and making it inaccessible to swimmers due to cyanide algies.

Now, comparing the placing in space and time of these two news is interesting indeed. Six o'clock news on the biggest and most trusted television channel. Mature men the both of them. Göran Persson just selected for his fourth term as head of the social party. It was during a press conference there that he announced these news. Stefan Edman, an environmentalist, will be the General Director of the comission.

Björn Carlsson, well, he has had a stroke recently, but obviously lucent and cooly inspired. When asked he denies the thought of this being an idea that was made by him suddenly, but has been building for five years. He has been giving it a lot of thought and found that this was probably the best he could do to serve society. A fairly anonymous business man with a background in academics.

No matter. They might now each other or not. They may both be avid fishermen for all I know. It is what they have initiated that is just mindboggling. It remains to see if there is energy to fulfill those goal, but of course it is. In the immediate future, Botniska Viken will have the biggest benefits. Making it public and in conjunction with the new comission will hopefully better the chances of meeting success.

Bravo. A monsterwave of Schröedinger proportions might arise.

Now, living next door, where we have just billions of barrels under the sea, what have we done? As far as I know, we rely on the day to day progress and maturity of the future. Sometimes, we are so boringly grounded it is defensible to rip a head or two off our shoulders. There hasn't been a political vision here since post war and to a slighter extent the seventies. No, not that oil is all we have, but it has given us a lot of economic leverage and made possible a slightly benign nature. I must not remember that the last three years has brought horrible twists and an horrifying economic logic behind every official move. Economic motives based on symbolic values, such as moola, will always bring with it a polarization. There are those that see money itself as valuable. There are some that does not realize that the dollar you have today will be a cent on the roof tomorrow if you don't invest it in renewable commodities. Ideas is such a commodity. A tree is also a commodity. Some trees are better worth on the walls of your house than alive. What is sustainable?

It is time that everyone pulls this one off the drawing boards and stop competing on economic terms solely. Nature is all we have as real resource, in the now and in every valid future. I for one, would like to look at nature as so much more that a tree in a park and to a lesser extent disturbed by short-term gains. Short term today might be like a second tomorrow. There is no squirrel in the woods when a tree falls and no-one hears it.