Liguria

With colder winds and rain expected tomorrow, I took both boys on an afternoon hike to Kolbäcken where we discovered some great new trails. It is funny how, after three years criss-crossing these same woods, I can still find places where I have not been.

For dinner, I drifted away to other and far more dreamy places with some lemon garlic asparagus trucioli and a summer wine from just outside La Spezia. Apparently, there is also a #småparti of Italian Grüner Veltliner coming out soon which I hope to get my hands on.

Mileage

With the mileage I am putting down, I realized that a new pair of running shoes was desperately needed as I want to save my Asics Nimbus for race days. To keep me inspired, I went for a pair of black Adizero Boston. Considering that the qualifying time for the 2020 Boston Marathon is around 3 hours and 10 minutes (i.e. a 4:30 min/km pace) in my age group, it feels just as unrealistic as running my first marathon felt when I was starting out 15 months ago. And I guess, that is what one has goals for? On the other hand, just running 10k in a 4:55 min/km pace this morning felt like a bit of a stretch so it is perhaps good to maintain some measure of realism...

Marathon training

Today I received a reminder that Stockholm Marathon is less than five weeks away. This prompted me to review my Strava stats for the past month to see if I am somehow on track. As I have mentioned previously, my main problem has been to find sufficient time for long runs but at least I have been able to keep a steady pace of about 50 km per week. Going into May, I will have a chance to try out the 15 km track of Umåker trail on the 6th before doing the real race on the 18th. Otherwise, I will do what I can to run at least one half marathon per week in order to increase my ventilatory capacity and overall endurance leading up to what will be my third road marathon.

California picnic

With my dad appearing in The Guardian with his rail-only travel agency in relation to “fly shaming”, Jon sent me a brilliant interpretation on WhatsApp: “Whaat… Ur whole first-class-lounge socialism thing is a rebellion against ur dad?”

I guess any response will sound like an admission that his analysis is correct so instead I took my newly acquired California tote bag down to Nydalasjön for a picnic. While there is still snow in the forecast, the last week has been truly incredible and I have taken every opportunity to be outdoors. Despite an intermittently sore throat, I was even able to break the 200 km barrier for the first time since September.

Danish Rye Bread

One of the things that I missed the most when living in Korea was real bread. While an Italian bakery opened near HUFS just before we moved back, dark bread remained unheard of. Now with spring in Umeå, I decided to celebrate with some Danish rye bread on the porch.

Bloody Mary Salad

Turning night back into day, I made a Bloody Mary salad with celery, pepper and cilantro for dinner. Outside, there is still ice on Nydalasjön. However, with the temperature rising to almost 20 degrees in the afternoons, I guess it will go fast now. Today I had my third day of the pedagogical course on assessment and evaluation but in my mind I was still somewhere over the North Atlantic.

I should say that the N.Z. wine was just props as I decided to go for an evening run despite a slightly sore post-flight throat. I guess the rule is that, as long as one does not have a fever, it is okay to run?

Kidspeak

Waiting at O’Hare to board my flight to Helsinki, not even an excellent Mexican “torta” with a Pacifico lager can lessen my uneasiness when reading that “now when the American century is over, we’re becoming more like Bosnia than Bosnia like us”. But when I turn pages and find a wonderful essay about how todleresque is making its way into the English language (e.g. “I am writing this blog post because procrastination”), my spirits are immediately lifted. And then, at the very end of the issue, another essay on Walt Whitman reminds me that I am not entirely alone in all of this.

Walking over to my gate, I stumble upon Intelligentsia coffee roasters and quickly grab an oversized cup of their house blend. Now, I can finally leave America with some hope that all will ultimately be fine.

Colombo

Waking up to the news of a series of bombings having killed hundreds in Sri Lanka, I felt deeply saddened. As the world becomes more peaceful, the brutality of such acts becomes even harder to comprehend. From my own visit to Sri Lanka five years ago, I remember the visible military presence and the constant checkpoints but also a sense of optimism as the country was finally leaving its civil war behind.

In the May issue of The Atlantic, there is a long article about Richard Holbrooke entitled “Elegy for the American century”. While I remain optimistic that the US will ultimately find its way again, there are of course many reasons for concern. Beyond all the obvious ones, I am thinking of how dark and disoriented that the worldview of the Left has become, something that was on full display at WPSA. Talk of not wanting to have children because of climate change may be the most extreme example but there is a more general sense of malaise and post-colonial self-hatred that has been allowed to completely overshadow the great possibilities of this century. As the Left has lost track of its original emancipatory vision and replaced it with grievances over identity, it not only fails to take meaningful responsibility for historical wrongdoings but also to offer something better in return for the future.

Alienation is my nation

This morning, it was finally time for the panel that I had been dreading for months. It is such a true suicide mission to go into a room like that and try to turn all certainties upside down. But no, we do not need a “cultural shift” (which by the way is just a code word for other people becoming like us) to solve climate change, in fact, it is this very insistence on lifestyle politics that is holding back compromise and effective action. It is also highly counter-productive to stand on the top of a mountain of material affluence and say that all that matters in life is free. Just in case you wonder.

Maybe it was an accidental effect of having a Slovenian lady next to me in the panel, but sometime during my presentation I realized that I had gone into Žižek-overdrive when I, with an unmistakable accent, said something like, “oh my God, in an abstract sense, of course”. Yes, alienation appears to truly to be my nation sometimes.

Now, I am waiting at the Santa Fe Depot for the Surfliner to take me back to L.A.

The devil is in the details

Today, I was again reminded of why I mostly teach public administration and other things that I am not so emotionally invested in. Still, despite me going off on a rant or two, I think our panel on theorizing human/nature relations went really well with a lot of food for future thought.

Afterwards, I walked to a nearby café together with the discussant Andy Scerri and a friend from Bristol who had been in the audience. It is funny how unaccustomed I am to people actually agreeing with me (normally, that only happens once a year at the Breakthrough Dialogue). Anyhow, what I think sets green political theory apart from most other fields of study is its peculiar mix of intellectual history and hard science about the physical world. One minute you are taking about Machiavelli and the other about how much sand you need to make concrete or natural carbon sequestration rates. As often in these kinds of discussions, the devil is in the details, and it becomes clear to me how much that ultimately comes down to things that are either unknowable (like the future evolution of science) or very hard to estimate (like the minimum EROI needed to power a cosmopolitan society).

Being Rasmus

I guess “incorrigible” is a good word to describe myself. After having some adobe braised tofu or “sofritas” for lunch, I went down to the Manchester Hyatt to register for the conference. With the first of my two panels starting at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, I decided that further academic activities would be overrated and that I would instead go for an afternoon run down to the USS Midway and along the road that seperates San Diego International Airport from the Pacific. The run reminded me of how much I have missed the ocean.

Pacific Surfliner

Still green after the winter rains, I have the rolling hills of Southern California on my left and the ocean on my right as Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner makes its way down towards San Diego. Sitting on the upper level, I paid an extra ten dollars for business class on this, my first American train journey outside the Northeast Corridor; as you can see from the picture above, I have been amply rewarded with the views. Normally, California is synonymous with winding coastal drives and the interstate insanity of the I-5, but this time it felt good to ditch the rental-car universe and instead spend the hours contemplating what lies ahead.

As in Vegas back in 2015, I feel a familiar apprehension going into these engagements, especially since I too can see the darker sides of capitalism and the liberal social order. Yet in a world of shades and relative balances, the other side of the argument deserves to be heard as well. On that front, I am now almost done revising my book chapter in response to the reviewer feedback.

How many times have I not read that “technological innovation without a real change in humanity’s way of thinking and acting in relation to nature could only make things worse”? But as I pass San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant – once providing more than 2,000 MW of stable, carbon-free baseload power and now largely replaced by fossil gas – I feel more certain than ever that this kind of ethical absolutism is misguided. If there is to be any hope of ecological salvation, it depends not on rejecting modernity but on our willingness and courage to see it through, accepting that there will always be competing values and divergent moral frameworks.

Vice

After my laptop battery ran out somewhere over Greenland, I decided to watch the film “Vice” about the life of Dick Cheney. While more biographical drama than documentary, it reminded me again of all the contradictions that make up the United States. Despite having spent almost a year of my life in the US, I have to admit that I am just as lost as I was thirteen years ago. And now, it is still dark in Los Angeles and I am about to go for my April 5k virtual race...

BA281

”He was a man with years of dirty, dangerous memories - a spy”

I had everything lined up for a perfect blog post, including a vintage copy of Ian Flemming’s 1963 novel On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But then I forgot the book back home on the kitchen table in Umeå. At least, BA has been kind enough to serve me a gin and tonic as our 787-9 heads out over the Irish Sea. On the other hand, considering that I otherwise got the full Fredi treatment, including a middle seat at the very end of the economy cabin, and that we have about 10 more hours to go until Los Angeles, that only seems about fair.

Yesterday, someone who is not in the climate research universe asked me what I thought about “fly shaming” (yes, it is a thing in Sweden). Whenever I get these questions, I struggle to know where to even begin, there is simply so much to unpack, be it climate response times, the crucial role of global economic integration in reducing vulnerability to environmental risk and the more general need to stop thinking of climate change as something amenable to “demand-side” solutions. On Saturday at WPSA, I will get a chance to return to some of these points as I will take part in a panel on the ethics of flying to international conferences (how fitting…). For now, I have to return to writing my assignment for the course on assessment and evaluation that I am taking this semester.

TF275

Given my deep loyalty to SAS and Star Alliance, I have never actually been to Bromma Airport but tonight I will take my first ever flight with the airline BRA to this classic 1930’s airfield which is located just 8 km from central Stockholm.

Waiting for my ATR 72-500 to depart, I am reading the review comments on my forthcoming book chapter “Conflicting Temporalities and the Ecomodernist Vision of Rewilding” which also happens to be the paper that I will present in San Diego now on Friday. As this will be part of an edited volume with a number of different theoretical approaches, I have tried to make the ecomodernist perspective as distinct as possible even if I knew this could potentially provoke the ire of more traditional reviewers. As such, I was greatly relieved when reading the opening sentence of the first referee report:

“This is a very well-argued and well-researched piece, making a compelling case in defence of an ecomodernist approach, especially to the extent that it emphasizes its astrobiological perspective and its visions of a post-scarcity, energy-abundant future and the out-of-sync character of these visions with immediate ecological challenges.”

It appears as if, sometimes, communication is indeed possible.

All set

Shortly before midnight, I made it to an empty house on Lyktvägen. Thanks to a delay caused by a broken track just outside of Boden, I was able to get some money back for the ticket and also finally submit my two outstanding journal reviews. As such, waking up under clear skies this morning, I felt like I deserved a break so I went for a morning run around the lake which, half-way through, apparently turned into a race of sorts, allowing me to set a new half-marathon PR.

Now, everything is packed and I am ready to head up to the university for some teaching before my flight.

Goahti

As night fell over Kiruna, we stumbled upon a traditional Sami hut, complete with Christmas lighting, gas heaters and every other possible late-modern add-on. Still, it felt good to sit down inside for a moment and have a calm dinner after all the travelling.

And now I am already back on the tracks, reviewing a journal article on Vietnamese energy futures while drinking too much black filter coffee. Hopefully, I will be able to squeeze in a half marathon tomorrow morning before my teaching starts.

Full Arctic Circle

Eight hours and ten minutes is a long time with two kids on a train. But in the end we finally arrived in Sweden’s northernmost municipality steeped in winter glare. While only mid-April, the light is truly overwhelming.

There was a time when I used to commute along these tracks but now four full years have passed since my last visit to Kiruna. Yet, true to history, I will take the train back south to Umeå already tomorrow to teach a bit before flying off to the most distant of shores.

Such sweet sorrow

After two weeks when the kids have taken turns being sick, they were both finally back in school today, much like Pippi Longstocking who starts school just in time for the Christmas break. This meant that I, after taking a rest day yesterday, was able to repeat Wednesday’s feat and do both a higher intensity treadmill run at USM and a slower sunset run around the lake for a total of 15 km.

When not running, I have again spent most of the day planning the fall semester and booking yet more classrooms. While hopefully slightly less insane than this semester, it still looks like I will have three full courses and more than 200 students to grade. 

April weather

When I woke up the world had turned white again. Capitalizing on the fact that USM opens already at 05.30 a.m., I biked down to Utopia to run 6k in 28 minutes on the treadmill and do some strength exercises before it was time for UPL and my new course on assessment and evaluation in higher education. This course is the eighth pedagogical course that I am taking so it felt strangely familiar to be back.

Much later, as the sun was setting over Nydalasjön, I could not resist going for an evening run. Still, I doubt that I will be able to beat last week’s 75 km of running. Just like David Zaritsky's “The Bond Experience” has not been good for my shopping habits, watching too many Youtube videos with Sage Canaday has come to seriously inflate what I consider a “good week” in terms of running mileage. I mean, there was a time when I would feel good about myself for running twice per week...

Perpetual infinity

After bringing my running mileage for the first week of April to 65 km, I felt that a calorie boost was in order. To make the picture perfect, I found a småparti birthday favourite from just south of Vigo in Galicia with Albariño grapes that I cannot recommend enough.

Always prone to escapism, I wish I could spend the coming week hiking in Galicia but, alas, I have another pedagogical course to attend. But I really should not complain as San Diego is less than two weeks away...

Sunspel

While I have been busy teaching social work students, it seems as if the Swedish nuclear debate is finally getting somewhere. Unfortunately, people like Tomas Kåberger keeps distorting the facts in a number of high-profile media appearances, consistently confusing (a) the marginal cost of adding one unit of renewable energy capacity with (b) the total system costs associated with a larger share of weather dependent renewable energy while obviously ignoring all questions about energy density and global scalability. Still, I think that the discourse is shifting and that many lay people find it strange that, if climate change now is so serious, we would deliberately close down our largest existing source of low carbon energy.

Next weekend we will all take the train up to Kiruna which is an eight hour long ride. On the day after, I will take the train in the opposite direction before flying to California. So, lots of transportation coming up. As I am travelling on a hand baggage only fare, I have put some thought into what to bring. With running clothes obviously being non-negotiable, I invested in a Sunspel zip hoody which I think will be quite versatile.

Through the Valley of Shadows

While it would be convenient to blame it on the mirror universe, I guess I have to take full responsibility for making beef stroganoff tonight. With four hours and close to 3000 kcal of activity just today (if Samsung Health is to be trusted), I have come to develop a rather voracious appetite. Yet, at the same time, my intuition tells me in no uncertain terms that meat eating is a savage practice and something that should be relegated to humanity’s past.

In two weeks' time, I will fly from London to Los Angeles in a 787-9 belonging to British Airways. Despite all my travels across the Atlantic over the years, this will actually be my first long-haul flight with BA. Still, I cannot say that I look forward to spending 11 hours in a middle seat even if it happens to come with a gin and tonic...

April half marathon

This month, the half marathon challenge returned to Strava after a few months of hiatus. With the sun shining and no teaching scheduled until the afternoon, I decided to go for a windy river run to Älvtået and back.