Rückflug

Flying across dramatic skies, I made it back to Umeå with a delay of about two hours. On Wednesday in Malmö, I will be discussant on a paper about social theory that revisits Douglas Porpora’s 1996 article on whether there are levels of social structure. Given that I spend most of my time debating far more mundane matters, like how to best stop climate change, it is great to be back thinking about the kind of perennial questions that, to borrow the expression of Max Weber, lend social science its “eternal youth”.

This morning in Gothenburg, I went for a 14k run through Rudalen that was truly a blast from the past. With Amsterdam Marathon exactly three weeks away today, I will soon begin to cut back on my running but I still hope to be able to squeeze in a few more long runs before that.

Only U can save the climate

Talking at the book fair was fun, unusual and overwhelming at the same time. I cannot remember the last time I was so nervous about something so, with that in mind, I feel quite happy about the result. While it is always hard to know what people actually take with them home, I hope to have at least challenged some established truths about climate mitigation. The questions I got afterwards spoke of exactly that and a genuine curiosity about my highly contrarian perspective. Still, even for me, expressing “nuclear pride” is incredibly difficult given how entrenched certain misconceptions have become and the emotional investment that people have in existing mitigation strategies.

To my great joy, the adjacent hotel bar had “gamma rays” on tap, which felt like the perfect post-talk drink to share with my childhood friend Gabriel who is visiting from Poland.

Breakfast above the clouds

Upgraded to SAS Plus for the first of two flights this morning, I am now enjoying a complimentary breakfast with black currant granola and some Frosh juice. With more than two months on the ground in Umeå behind me, it feels exciting to be on the road again, if only for a night in Gothenburg. At 4 pm today, I will talk about climate nationalism at the book fair, something that makes me feel surprisingly nervous, probably because the setting is quite different from giving a lecture (something I often do in front of hundreds of people without blinking).

Already on Wednesday, I will be away again, but then to Malmö for the annual meeting of the Swedish Political Science Association (SWEPSA). Reading the workgroup papers, I am surprised by how influential the national imagery still is for some people and how difficult it seems to be to imagine the obvious, that ultimately, we will become one common planetary civilization and that the proper question, rather than how to uphold national borders, should be how to accelerate the transition to a world without borders.

Morning sprint

With Gabriel running ever faster around Skaryszewski Park in Warsaw, I realized that I had to sharpen up and set a new PR on 5k. As the autumn storm raged on outside, I managed to keep a pace of 4:16 min/km on the treadmill, something that would have been completely unthinkable a year ago.

I take this as further evidence of the benefits of building aerobic capacity over time through long-duration training. Even as I rarely do any high-intensity training, I was still able to improve my 5k time with almost a minute and even have energy left for my usual gym routine afterwards. Now time to meet the political philosophy class for one last lecture before their exam.

Crossroads

Making a soybean burger with home pickled red onions and some Lebanese mhamara, I can look back on three days with well-executed seminars that once again have renewed my faith in the next generation. Whatever you hear about failing standards in education, the kids today have so many qualities that are not captured by the prevailing fixation with measurable metrics. For one thing, they are equipped with a strong moral compass and a cosmopolitan sensitivity, qualities that I fear will be badly needed in the decades ahead.

Opening the leading conservative newspaper in Sweden this morning reminded me of how deep into the rabbit hole that we have fallen and how uncritically they have come to embrace everything from degrowthers to anti-feminist islamophobes. At the same time, all challenges are of course relative. In the latest issue of Monocle, there is a Colombia special which highlights the incredible strides that the country has made in the last ten years but also the persistence of corruption, inequality and narcopolitics. While our own visit to Bogotá in November will be brief, I am still very much looking forward to seeing a bit of all this with my own eyes.

200 kilometres

In August I fell five irritating kilometres short but today I was able to push my monthly total for September to 200 km and thus complete the Strava running distance challenge. With the temperature below the freezing point for the first time, I was treated to the most beautiful scenery as the sun climbed up over the lake. Now time for a quick shower and then five hours of seminars.

Henry and his science

In terms of beer, I think I have become much less prejudicial over the years. Nevertheless, I still have some hard limits and, just as the “Transatlantique Kriek” turned out to be practically undrinkable, Mikkeller’s new non-alcoholic beer “Henry and his science” was simply too much passion fruit soda for my taste.

At least, I made a creamy equinox potato soup which made me feel all warm inside, something much needed as cold winds are beginning to come down from the North. With a little more than five weeks left until all latitudes become inverted and autumn turns into spring with the help of Avianca and Swiss, I have now taken out my black coat from the wardrobe.

Pushing the envelope

Under meteorological conditions that would make Gothenburg proud, I completed the 10k seeding race ”Varvetmilen” in 48 minutes and 25 seconds. While I am still undecided if I will run the full half marathon in Gothenburg in mid-May next year, this felt like a good opportunity to improve on my PR and get some race practice before Amsterdam Marathon. In the end, I was only able to run about 13 seconds faster than my old PR but considering that the previous time was on a treadmill I am quite happy with the result.

Espiga

With the rain hammering down outside, I am back with a brand new The Escapist and blonde ales from Catalonia (also useful for the vegetarian version of Friday tacos). Otherwise, the last week has been unusually demanding with William coming down with high fever while I had an insane amount of teaching. Luckily he has fully recovered so now I am only keeping my fingers crossed that I will not get sick myself and somehow miss tomorrow’s race. While actually a seeding race for Göteborgsvarvet in May, my goal with the race is just to challenge my own PR on 10k. Unfortunately, given that the weather forecast talks about storm winds and rain by the time the race starts at 12 tomorrow, I am not sure if this will be possible though.

As for the yellow journal of places less explored, I am already lost in fantasies about having a drink at the Strangers Club in Panama City or forest escapes in Uthai Thani.

Sesquipedalian

When dreaming of morning runs through Englischer Garten, I was reminded of a more factual Tiergarten run and, then, the plane ale on the flight back to Arlanda. One of all these infinitesimal symmetries.

Making a really spicy chili soup for dinner, I pour up a can of Lagunitas “Sumpin’ Easy” hop-forward ale that just happens to teach me a new word: “sesquipedalian” (which apparently is used to describe polysyllabic words or long-winded prose). Learning a language is always a work in progress and new discoveries often happen in the most unexpected places.

The other day, I signed up for a 5k “Virtual New York City Marathon” in Strava that I have to complete during the first days of November when I will be a world away from my usual running tracks. In my imagination, I sometimes envision that I am chasing the sunrise along Avenida Atlântica in Rio and, while this may unfortunately not be an option for the virtual race, I will be closer than I ever been come November.

Breaking4

Even if I am doubtful that Nike will give me much in terms of sponsor money or that National Geographic will make any cool documentaries, I have to admit that my (unofficial) goal with the Amsterdam Marathon is to run the race in under four hours. Doing so would require me to sustain an average pace of 5 minutes and 41 seconds per kilometre (i.e. a speed of 10.5 km/h).

While I ran Tavelsjö half-marathon at a 5:21 min/km pace, I fully understand that maintaining such a pace for almost two more hours is something completely different. With that in mind, I have prioritized volume over intensity this week with the aim of building aerobic capacity, bringing my weekly total to a record 76 kilometres of running.

This Sunday morning, with the temperature hovering just above the freezing point, I went back and revisited the infamous SM-trail, although this time I did not bike back and forth but rather ran all the way, which not only gave me a nice total elevation gain of 586 metres but also allowed me to wrap up the Strava September 2,000 metres climbing challenge. Now, time to come up with some new exam questions for my police students.

Hotel Brummell

Through a fierce and unforgiving rain, I went for a ten km morning run, thinking that exactly a year ago today I was in Barcelona with Sofi. Long planned, it was not so much a trip to another time as a journey outside time itself. The Mediterranean was still warm after a ruthless summer and the mild rain only made it feel warmer.  On Nou de la Rambla 174, we found a most lovely hotel called "Brummell" which even came with our own outdoor soaking tub on the terrace.

After Barcelona we continued up to Madrid and went looking for a hidden Hemingway bar. From there, I flew back alone with Swiss while Sofi stayed on for a few days longer and explored Castilla y León.

The Silver Road

Ester Blenda Nordström was Sweden’s first investigative journalist. A hundred years ago, she travelled everywhere from Kamchatka to Buenos Aires, often hitchhiking alone. In the autumn following the outbreak of the First World War, she went north and became entangled in Sweden’s colonial enterprise in relation to the indigenous Sami population.

Today, I was thrilled to find Fatima Bremmer’s excellent biography about Nordström in the mailbox and I have had a hard time putting it down. Otherwise I had been thinking about ordering a completely different book about the #highnorth but as the number of tasks on my list are piling up faster than I can complete them, I guess I will have to pass on that for now, especially with all the running eating up my time. Just this morning I went for a 27 km long run which took almost three hours. As I expected and despite getting up at 4 am, making room for such long runs have been the most difficult part of my preparations for the Amsterdam Marathon. Perhaps if I stopped updating Rawls & Me every day I would have more time but what would be the fun in that?

Moroccan carrot soup

As night again falls and reason fades I am back thinking of distant shores and conflicting temporalities. More specifically, I discovered that the Qantas LAX lounge has released a new autumn à la carte menu. Like the London-Perth flight, that lounge and its Rockpool dining room remain high up on my bucket list. However, until I have stashed up enough miles, I decided to at least replicate one of the new menu items, namely the “Moroccan spiced carrot soup with coriander yoghurt and dukkah croutons“. Since we are already halfway to Australia, it goes without saying that the wine should be locally sourced from the Adelaide Hills and taste of pears and minerals.

Conflicting temporalities

Two weeks into the semester, I have already had a lot of fun with my two classes. I really could not wish for more ambitious or brighter students. In the political philosophy class, the next week will cover the different political ideologies while the future police officers are preparing to submit their first major assignment.

In terms of research, I spent this morning putting together an abstract for the book chapter that I have been invited to write. With a title seemingly taken straight from the bewildering world of Rawls & Me, my intention is to think about different time perspectives and try to better pinpoint what exactly it is that we are disagreeing about.

Title: "Conflicting temporalities and the ecomodernist vision of rewilding"

Abstract:

Ecomodernism offers a progressive and humanist vision of the Anthropocene, one in which publicly funded innovation has made possible both universal prosperity and planetary-scale rewilding. However, given the present primitive state of technology, ecomodernism is surely guilty of fabulism as its realization would depend on technologies that may not be available for many decades, including molecular assemblers, intelligent machine labour and advanced nuclear technologies. Still, ecomodernists maintain that even in the present, ecomodernism offers a more realistic way of protecting non-human nature than traditional environmentalism. Instead of seeking to harmonize with nature and employ land-extensive forms of agriculture and energy production, ecomodernists believe that greater separation and intensification will spare marginal lands and natural habitats. Equally controversial, ecomodernists argue that rather than treating sustained global poverty as an acceptable price for reducing climate and other environmental risks, there is an overriding moral imperative to accelerate the transition to a fully integrated high-energy planet. Nevertheless, doing so would undoubtedly increase near-term environmental stress and accentuate the need for climate engineering – all further raising the stakes in Anthropocene political debates.

Malgomaj

If the bottle is to be trusted, "malgomaj" is the Sami word for land where the reindeers have been grazing. It is also a lake about 200 km inland from Umeå.

As night falls, I am back with the election. In a number of municipalities, in particular in South Sweden, the Sweden Democrats is now the largest party. How do you even begin to heal such a rift? How do you bring back curiosity or even basic moral decency once whole communities have abandoned everything that the Enlightenment stands for?

Maybe the same is true for Republicans in Trump’s America, how can there be a return to civility once all these lines have been crossed? In my darker moments, I am thinking that maybe this is how civil wars begin, that we have become enemies to each.

Day of reckoning

Waking up to mist but with some sun shining through, the weather seems strangely aligned with the Swedish election. With a marginal of just one seat, the left-green parties again became the largest block in parliament. If the conservative party would try to form a government with the help of the Sweden Democrats, then they would need the support of the centre-right parties that have strongly ruled out such cooperation. As such, we will soon know the true moral fibre of these parties. At least for now, my hope and guess is that, in the end, the Löfven government will remain in power, although decimated.

As for my own election district, its population has increased by more than a thousand percent since 2014 which says a lot about how fast Umeå is expanding. While six percent voting for the Sweden Democrats is still a lot, these numbers are a good illustration of how geographically uneven their support is.

Slides

With rain and possibly the end of democracy in the forecast for tomorrow, I went for an extended half marathon in the afternoon sun. Having signed up for the September Run Climbing Challenge in Strava, I spent the first half of the run circling the 3.5 km course in Gimonäs as it offers a few nice hills.

Right now I am going over my slides for next week's classes on the history of political thought. Rarely have I felt more motivated to engage and do whatever I can to stem this slide into darkness.

Beyond GDP-growth?

While I am used to that many of those attracted by Malthusian thinking are more interested in promoting a perfectionist social vision than having a meaningful discussion about what sustainability in a globalized world would actually entail, I was still stunned when a friend sent me a link about a large Swedish research project called “Beyond GDP-growth”.

In the text, one of the researchers, Mikael Malmeus, suggests that even as we have had 100 per cent growth since 1985, it has not solved “our real problems” and that “our schools and welfare” are not any better. It is hard to know how to even begin to respond to this claim as it is so patently false. Maybe by stating the simple fact that we today have 1.5 million retired people in Sweden, a number that would have been wholly impossible to support at current welfare levels with the economy of 1985. On the other hand, there would have been much less need for that without the numerous medical breakthroughs that have happened during these thirty years, including magnetic resonance imaging, advanced cancer therapies and improved treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

While we may disagree about exact valuations, few would probably trade their iPhones for a landline, their laptops for a Commodore 64 or even change back to the diet people had thirty years ago (including foregoing Indian food, halloumi cheese and all the other things that are now part of our everyday life). More generally, globalization and economic growth have broadened our horizons in so many ways that it is almost impossible to imagine a world without affordable global mobility or the Internet.

So, how about the “sustainability” of all this? As I often have pointed out, if a ten, twenty or even thirty percent reduction in consumption would ensure sustainability then degrowth would be a no-brainer. However, in a world of almost eight billion people, we are rather talking about massive depopulation and a return to an agrarian society if anything remotely resembling long-term environmental sustainability is to be achieved with existing technologies. As such, I have long argued that rather than trying to reverse all the great transformative processes of the last centuries, we should instead seek to accelerate growth and to fully globalize welfare capitalism. In essence, the distance from where we are now to a space-faring post-scarcity civilization is far shorter than any return to an agrarian past, and also much more compatible with existing values (in particular the values of those who still live in poverty and aspire for what we take for granted).

New trails

This morning, I decided to leave the flats behind and discover some new trails. With the risk of sounding like Emelie Forsberg, adding a vertical element to you running definitely makes it a lot more fun. Maybe over the weekend, I will try to run the SM-trail again.

But before that, I have four hours of lectures on methodology coming up...

Weimaresque

Today I voted in an election that already feels ominously Weimaresque. Like in that dream I had about Siena one and a half years ago, it feels like we are taking yet another step into darkness. Clearly, part of the problem is the disarray of progressive forces and that the Left has failed so monumentally to identify the possibilities of a global future. For a more elaborate argument along those lines, I am at least happy to report that Global Policy just published my review of “Climate Leviathan” (the review is available online for free)

Risotto di barbabietola rossa

While always a shock to suddenly have hundreds of students in front of you, it feels great to be back teaching. Today I gave my customary lecture on philosophy of science which once again made me most grateful that I am political scientist and not a full-time philosopher. Afterwards, I went down the gym (where I apparently had one hour of free pt-time thanks to the university contract) which turned into great fun with a brutally honest pt.

Also research wise, it feels like it is all back to reality. Yesterday, I got invited to write a chapter in a new edited volume on non-human nature in the Anthropocene which seems like a good opportunity to explore my conflicting intuitions about ecomodernism and deep rewilding.

Finally, for dinner, I could not help dreaming a bit of Italy. To make it somewhat less obvious, I stumbled upon a bottle of white wine from a bit north of Melbourne which turned out to be a match to my beetroot risotto.

Pre-lecture run

Kale

To follow up on the soup theme, I made my favourite kale soup tonight with some Parmigiano cheese on top. Otherwise, I was thrilled to hear back from my sister who has been in Amsterdam over the weekend discussing the future of nuclear energy in Europe. One outcome of the meeting was the importance of expressing nuclear pride.

After all, given that nuclear energy has saved over two million lives and prevented 60 gigatonnes or more of carbon emissions, there is every reason to be proud of what you are doing if you work in the nuclear industry. While I understand that people may not want to bring this up at parties when they are asked about their profession, keeping silent legitimizes the idea that nuclear is something that we should be ashamed of and that closing down nuclear would somehow be good for the climate (a narrative that Swedish journalists keeps repeating, unintentionally or not).

Or not

For all my character flaws, a quitter I am not. Biking up with William to return my timing chip, I felt much better and decided to give the race a chance after all. While I finished in less than 50 minutes, I am still uncertain if this was the right decision.

Taken hostage by my inferiority complex, I found myself right in a pack of alpha males, running the first kilometre in an insane pace of 4:10 min/km. Without the aerobic capacity to sustain such a pace, the rest of the race was primarily a psychological challenge as I could not decide if this was really a good thing to do with a lingering cold. Anyhow, time for a shower and then more preparations for my political philosophy class that starts tomorrow.

Limits

On Wednesday, I manged to maintain a 4:53 min/km pace around the lake, which would have given me a chance on a new PR at today’s Umemilen. However, considering that everyone around me has been struggling with colds, I am not super surprised that I picked up something new. With 30+ hours of lectures scheduled for the coming week, I cannot jeopardize my health any further so I just have to accept that, sometimes, there are hard limits to what one can do. Besides, since it is a 10k race, the only interesting parameter would be time and I am 100% certain that I cannot set a new PR today.

As for happier news, my participation in the Gothenburg Book Fair has now been confirmed. Between 16:05-16:20 on Saturday the 29th of September, I will talk about climate nationalism at #forskartorget, a topic I am sure will spark controversy but hopefully also some serious reflection about why we are failing to stop climate change.

Hikes and soups

Early autumn is perhaps my favourite part of the year in Umeå. Since returning from Korea four years ago, almost every September has been filled with crisp cool air and abundant sunshine. It is also a time of the year when I love making soups, in this case oven-roasted potatoes and onions with some fried kale on top.

In an alternative universe, where I would not have to be in the classroom teaching between 9 and 15 every day, I would definitely make better use of my new Haglöfs hiking shoes. Unfortunately, for now, all I can do is to dream a bit about scrambling in Squamish or exploring the mountains around Stepantsminda in Georgia.