At the peripheral centre of things

What´s fun about Longyearbyen is that it´s a rather popular place for Big (and middle-sized) Names to visit. For such a desolate place, it´s really quite central. What other small communities have visitors like kronprinsesse Mette-Marit, comedienne Shabana Rehman and writer Anne B. Ragde within a few weeks time?

Politicians have been here as well: Norwegian and Russian, mostly - putting gentle diplomatic pressure on each other to show who´s Toughest in the Arctic (this I ought to write more on - but not just yet).

And scientists come too. Wednesday, the British scientist James Lovelock gave a short talk at UNIS. In the 1960´s, Lovelock introduced the idea of the earth being a superorganism, the so-called Gaia theory. However, the talk at UNIS was called Creative Adaption to Climate Change, so it was mainly on his views on global warming and the future energy problem of our world. I´m not going to repeat all he said, only that he thought that even the estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was too mild, he expected the temperatures and sea level to rise even more than they predict. He didn´t think that we´d be able to stop the climatic changes, but believed that we should instead concentrate our efforts on learning to live with it.

Also, he believed that nuclear power plants would be the solution to the world´s future energy demands. Not surprisingly, this brought some reactions from the listeners - but he was quite firm, and claimed that modern nuclear plants are a lot safer than those that were built first. He seemed sure that only nuclear power could sustain the world´s demand for energy in the long run - he didn´t believe that solar power would do the trick, and he almost sneered at wind power.

Hm. I myself felt the "anti-nuclear" spasms starting in my guts - it´s the automatic reaction of most Norwegians, I think. But his enthusiasm almost turned me around. But not quite.


I liked the way he was critical towards all the environmentalist propaganda that overflow the western world. The politicians drone on about trading of climate quota (emissions trading), to make it sound as if they´re doing something - and oil companies have huge campaigns where they advertise for environmental-friendly energy, to make it look like they care about anything else than making a profit. The whole thing is quite stupid. Since the Kyoto-conference nearly 10 years ago nothing has happened, except a lot of words.

It´s depressing of course, but Lovelock didn´t seem depressed - he focused on the fact that we have to learn to live with the consequences. He also predicted that Northern Europe would become a more popular area to live, because of rising temperatures, while the Mediterranean areas would become deserts (and as an apropos, he suggested that Norway should continue to stay out of the EU, to stop the flow of "climate refugees" from the south).

This was actually the final talk on a over 2 week long tour in Norway, where he´s been on radio and TV, and held several talks. That´s pretty impressive when you hear that the guy is 88 years old! With this vitality and a solid reputation, he can say almost anything he like - which made his speech both entertaining and refreshing to listen to. Whether I agree with all is another case, but he´s certainly a qualified voice in a loud choir.

Here´s his homepage by the way, if you want to know more about him.

So that was one Big Name that came visiting this distant spot. Some other Names have just landed (or are arriving as we speak) to take part in Dark Season Blues Festival that started yesterday. How Big they are I won´t dare to guess at, as I know almost nothing about Blues. But I´ll be going to at least three concerts, so hopefully I´ll know more when the weekend´s over.