Zero

Zero emission of CO2, wouldn't that be good? No, not really. Ok then, how about trapping most of it? Sounds better. Even if it was possible to earn money on it? YES!

Conserving nature is not always a bad thing as they say. I will so much support the green movement when it gets its act together. Like Bellona. Chains, suits and papers. Great knowledge, innovative thinking.

This whole deal is about how even bishops here now are speaking of civil obedience to stop the plan of a gas power plant, due to the prospect of not all exhaust being rinsed for the first four years of it lifetime. Well enough, but consider this: no infrastructure of handling the CO2 exists, and will not be viable if not built in the right way. Sustainability, that is a good word.

The problem with CO2, apart from there being so much of it, is the cost of extraction, the challenge of final storage, and last but not the least: to get enough of it in one place. Why? Simply because CO2 is sucha valuable commodity. As our oil wells are meant to store massive amounts of CO2 (we're talking billions of tonnes), how do we put it there? And why?

We put it there from large scale extraction plants, running boats full of it to collection towers, we harness its soluble powers to vaning oil fields, shooting CO2 up our veins instead of valuable hydrocarbon gases, used to give us electricity in the same electricity plants. We run pollution free and filthy rich, help others with their CO2 troubles.

But it is a BIG project, so stop whining. Four years to get COMPLETELY pollution free electricity? You kidding me - you think that is terrible? The year 2014, quoted as that date, is not four years into the future, but eight. However, pilot projects have already started, and we might have pollution free power well ahead of 2014. And more oil and gas. We will also have some high tech, low consuming, low pollutant industries. It will make a great technological incentive towards the right direction.

There are other big challenges, but this is one solution getting away with a whole lot of trouble. Personal responsibility is what comes next. Burning sooting candles in front of the parliament makes no less pollution, that's for sure. Let us make this one for real, not another failure to see straight.

Edgar

Edgar the Elk has struck back at hunters. In Sweden, two elderly hunters have been found dead on two different locations. They were found relatively near each other and their hunters cabin. On the first man found, the police commented that he could not have shot himself.

My question is: Is there a killer moose going loose out there? Perhaps the albino running around on the border between Norway and Sweden? Is there any connection to the publicity surrounding the white moose and some wingnut ecologist? Or is it simply to very angry men gone Deliverance.

To check this out, a look on the map can place the killings on the eastern shore of Sweden, far from any Norwegian albino moose. It could be a local one, I'm sure. Hm, ok then. Maybe they were hunting eachother? Strange then that one was found a day before the other.

For more, see SVT.

Anima natura

In natura gloriam est. Or something like that. How often have I forgotten or neglected the true power of silence filled with noise easy on the ears, pugnant smells free of heavy metals, fears immediate and easily explained after a great mystery.

In simple terms, being outdoors is what you and me both are most fitted for. We might envelop ourselves in comfortable habits, under a great woolen blanket in front of a droning television set, full of blurb and praise of all man made. Be sure though, that your body will never seize to react to the fresh air after heavy rain, the changing light of the day or stop reacting to the smell of wild strawberries. No matter if you experienced any of these things, as soon as you spend ANY time in surroundings giving you those things, you will react.

Funkadelic Parliament have an album called Free your mind and your ass will follow. In essence, yes, I agree. I also believe the opposite is true - Free your ass and your mind will follow.

I am straying from my path. Let me more concise.

Light
Over the course of the day, our bodies secrete a number of hormones meant to regulate everything from food intake, alertness and sleep pattern. We are born under a sun, or rather, circling a sun giving a rhythm we cannot escape. Time define us as much as we try to define time. Seasonal anxiety disorder comes from lack of light, due to the fact that biologically we are all from equator and expects time to tick with an easily predictable rhythm. Living up north or down south, where there are great variations in the amount of light our bodies and eyes receive, the secretion of our glands comes out of whack with available goods to be delivered from the surroundings. Mistreating your body by being in an artificially lighted room when there is plenty of natural light is a not so effective thing to do to yourself.

Oxygen
We are not very happy in an office all our lives. We cannot be. Our bodies functions much better outdoors after a heavy rain, when most microparticles, dust, pollen and the like are washed to the ground. Our lungs gets a much better oxygen uptake in fresh air and our brains suddenly goes harmony. Fresh air promotes physical activity, which in its turn promotes an even more effective oxygen uptake.

Sound
Again, we are wired with a propensity to adapt to our surroundings. If you are in an environment with no or few unexpected variations in the level, pitch and frequency variations, you are much more alert and relaxed than in an enviroment full of noise. Noise is a major health hazard. Stress hormons are produced over an extended period of time and you overload both your nerveends in your ears and the ability to relax.

Ok, enough with such boring descriptions of what our bodies are able to and best suited to do. I could go on with how touching petals make you feel different than say rubbing plastic on a keyboard, or how subtle changes in barometric pressure or direction of the wind makes you feel alive, or how the pulse drops after half an hour in the woods.

I have no idea how to describe the joy I have of nature. My eyes are pleased, I feel invigorated, I feel relaxed as if I am one with everything. I am happy as in the arms of a loved one. I am more able to see nuances in colour, to hear subtle variations and to sense the mood of those I speak to when I return. Balanced, I guess that is what it makes me.

Western society prides itself on its great advances in technology and comfort. Bugger that. Technology was a matter of necessity, in order to survive in harsh conditions. With no doubt, nature have made western, or rather northern societies more adept at change than societies not having to think of tedious details like planning ahed for winter. We have just gone a bit too far, when our technolgy makes us forget how wonderful the real thing really is.

Next thing I'll write about nature will be strictly based on some story or the other, better able to describe a good experience. The mad cat Mono is sleeping in front of me on the desk.

1982?

25 years ago. That's a long time. A clown then, a clown now. A skewed smile, a skewed look on life.

I'm not sure if I was much different then than I am now. I like to play, I like to put on a face. It opens up so much. Perhaps I was closer to my friends then than now. It might be said I have a tendency yo zone out, to dream away, to make worlds where a clown is the most serious person there.

I am not yet so old that I have any reason to look back, to make any autobiography. Still, it is nice seeing that picture again. It was a beautiful august day, together with my neighbour, her somewhat nervous little brother and her cousin in the background. I remember I looked forward to seeing that cousing, totally captivated by her beauty. Maybe I did not have very vivid fantasies of what to do with that stomach churning feeling when attracted to beauty, and I cannot say I was in love. Seeing beauty just sort of made me feel good. Then as now.

What I dream of now is perhaps that life be a bit more like walking carelessly with a clowns mask, playing, skipping down the street, careless and free of worries. Life is, or should not be, just worries, work and obligation.

These thoughts might have popped up after the death of Mwalami. A few days after his death I got to know how he lived those last months, and the reason for his untimely demise. As it happens, he fell out of a tree - probably while being his usual carefree self, playing and laughing. He became unconsciuos, but seemed to get along well after a few weeks. Six months later, the night before an exam, he dropped dead. Just like that.

He continued at school. From when I helped him get into fourth grade, his first experience with school, he now was having final exams in seventh grade. He supposedly did splendidly at school. He was, according to those who lived with him, a very happy boy. As I knew him. Just those simple facts gave me great consolation. Knowing that what we struggled with, all those letters and numbers and swim strokes, did not go wasted. Yes, I choose to celebrate his life, and the life of all children finding the world exciting, strange and full of people and things to explore. No use being sad of all that did not become.

Get out and play.