Rationing

Apparently the government is talking about food rationing as the Covid-19 epidemic continues to wreak havoc with global supply chains. Contrary to conventional thinking, the solution should not be protectionism and “reshoring” but rather to do everything we possibly can to keep global markets open. System shocks are always more likely to occur at the local level and international trade acts as a safety net as Breakthrough's Food and Agriculture Analyst Caroline Grunewald pointed out in a piece the other week.

With coffee being mentioned as one of the things that may have to be rationed in Sweden, I acted as a true selfish hoarder and immediately ordered six boxes of illy. I guess I should head down to Systembolaget and do the same for our house wine so that we have reserves for the summer. Tonight however, I went not with the sauvignon blanc but the Latitude chardonnay.

Flexible hours

One of the best, but also worst, things with life in Academia is the extreme flexibility in terms of working hours. With two kids waking up super early, I appreciate being able to work odd hours and taking time off when the sun is shining like today. With some bad news that I needed to digest, I decided to go for a longer run to the gym and then home via Mariedal for a total of 23 kilometres.

Once home, I am making the last preparations for tomorrow’s seminar and also reading a bit in my Pale Rider book. Sometimes history, in this case in Brazil, does seem to repeat itself:

‘On 12 October 1918, the day when the flu spread through the elegant guests at the Club dos Diários, the satirical magazine Careta expressed a fear that the authorities would exaggerate the danger posed by this mere limpa-velhos – killer of old people – to justify imposing a “scientific dictatorship” and violate people’s civil rights […] by the end of the October, when half a million cariocas – more than half of the population – were sick, there were still those among Rio’s opinion-makers who doubted the disease was a flu’.

Zoom

Like everyone else, I am finding myself on the Zoom bandwagon these days. This Thursday, I will have my first ever thesis examination on Zoom with four future teachers. Later in June, I will have several full days of online examination so this will be a good test of how it works.

Beyond preparing for Thursday’s seminar, I have also been able to squeeze in some pool time at Navet, trying to incorporate everything I have been reading about how to improve my technique and not letting my hips drop too much. Still, I feel there is a lot of room for further improvement.

Interpress

Of all the companies in the world, Interpress has to be one of the most evil. Having a de facto monopoly on international magazines and newspapers in Sweden, they charge exorbitant prices, often more than double the retail prices in most other comparable countries. As much as I like reading The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs or Condé Nast, 20 USD per issue is nothing short of theft.

However, in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic, travel magazines are obviously having a rather ehh... difficult time. As such, I found the latest issue of Condé Nast Traveller for a very affordable 59 SEK (6 USD) today at Pressbyrån, packed with dreamy images of everything from mineral-rich magnesium-salt pools in the hills of Byron Bay’s hinterland to jungle retreats in Guatemala. With all real-world travelling on hold, at least the world is still coming to Umeå, even in the shape of a German IPA from Barth “Hopfen is unsere Leidenshaft” Haas.

Pale Rider

Last night I finished the monumental Selma Lagerlöf-biography that I have been reading for some time now. Shortly after turning sixty in November 1918, Selma came down with the Spanish Flu and there is a brief mentioning in the book that she was sick for quite a while. Still, life seemed to be going on pretty much like before with Selma attending a Nordic congress for authors in Copenhagen and, then, big public celebrations of women’s suffrage in May 1919.

Considering that the mortality rate of the Spanish Flu was many times that of Covid-19, this is all testimony to how much more we value life today and that we are also rich enough to be able to act on that valuation. While there were definitely quarantines and travel restrictions also a hundred years ago, the global scope of what we are seeing now is clearly unprecedented. For instance, just today we learned that the schools in Italy will remain closed until September.

As to the bigger question of how to prevent future pandemics, I think I have to disagree with the Breakthrough Institute’s latest call for agricultural intensification. While they are correct that human-wildlife interaction is the culprit and that extensive low-yield farming would be even worse, packing more animals into factories simply cannot be the answer. As I have written many times before, as much as our intuition tells us that we need to harmonize with nature, the opposite is in fact true, that we need to quickly disentangle the human and the natural world through synthetic biology and, ultimately, atomically precise manufacturing. This is not to say that you cannot still have your own garden or grow your own tomatoes but just that we need to end large-scale metabolic processes in nature.

Greek islands

Though no stranger to Greek islands, Rawls & Me has so far only travelled there vicariously. In fact, the last time I crossed the Ionian Sea was in 1996, long before anyone had heard of blogs. After reading an enthusiastic review in The Guardian, I ordered Polly Samson’s new book “A Theatre for Dreamers” which digs even deeper in time back to the 1960’s.

Considering that it was snowing when I took the bike down to the gym today, I very much look forward to starting the weekend by escaping into summer, even if only in my imagination.

555

With the global racing circuit closed down, one has to look for alternative ways to challenge oneself. After Sunday’s virtual marathon, I have now registered for a 5k virtual race on the 5th of May organized by World’s Marathons with a 5 EUR donation to Médecins Sans Frontières, thus “555”.

Learning that Berlin Marathon is already cancelled, the only major race that may still happen in 2020 could be the Valencia Marathon on the 6th of December. With this in mind, I picked up a suitable #småparti IPA at Systembolaget to go with an old time favourite dish of mine. 

On trend

While the European postal system may have been nothing but a shadow of what it was a hundred years ago even before the epidemic started, the end of commercial aviation has clearly not helped. But I guess a few mail flights are still flying because today, only six days after I received the April issue, I received the May issue of Monocle. Suddenly on trend, it is all about “home” but also with a lot of positive energy and hope about the future.

Still, for now, there are more ominous news as the World Food Programme warns that hundreds of millions will be pushed into starvation as the global economy breaks down. Unless radical action is taken, the cure may literally turn out to be worse than the disease, showing once again that the lives of rich people are valued infinitely higher than the lives of the global poor. Yet, just as many people before the crisis made a fetish out of “buying local” with little regard for the bigger picture, the lack of interest among Western elites is perhaps not that surprising. 

Ersboda

From Avellino to Ersboda. Extending my usual lake run to the north, I explored the “yellow” 4.1 km Ersboda trail in my Reebok All Terrain Craze shoes that I have barely used since racing Angel Island Half Marathon last summer. Avoiding asphalt as much as possible to give my legs a bit of relief after yesterday’s river run, I was thrilled to be back to trail running, even if parts of the trail was still covered in thick ice. Depending on how the situation with the epidemic evolves, I hope to be able to take a rental car into the country and maybe even over to Norway for some serious trail running later in the summer.

Avellino

Of all the regions of Italy, Campania will always have a special place in my imagination. This time, I travel north of Salerno and into the mountains. On steep hills near the town of Avellino, fiano grapes are turned into this month’s #småparti with two Apennine wolfs on the label. With a distinct taste of summer, this bright straw-yellow wine is simply the perfect antidote to the grave new world of Covid-19.

Consistency

Following Sunday’s marathon, I only went for a few easy recovery kilometres yesterday but today the spring sunshine proved irresistible so, together with Elin, I ran 10 fast kilometres along the Ume River. Afterwards, I stopped by at USM for some strength training, something which I guess will take more of a conscious effort as the days get longer and warmer. Still, just as with the running, I know that consistency is key if I want to see improvements so I will do my best to keep at least two gym sessions per week in my training schedule throughout the summer.

Otherwise, the big issue right now is the autumn semester and whether or not we will have classes on campus again. Apparently, there will be a meeting on the 8th of May with all the university vice-chancellors and after that we will hopefully know more. If the decision will be to keep everything online-only for the autumn, I fear I will have to spend much of the summer recording lectures and planning new online learning activities...

Butter my bread

True to Seth James DeMoor’s signature expression “butter my bread”, I rewarded myself with a pizza after my marathon as Seth himself set out to run those 42k along the Mary Carter Greenway Trail in Denver. Even as he raced 50 miles to raise money for people who have lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 epidemic just a few days ago, I was almost certain that he would be able to set a new marathon PR, possibly even running under the magic 2 hours and 19 minutes qualifying standard for the Olympic Team Trials (had it been a certified race). Yet, for once, Seth turned out to be at least slightly human as his legs gave up about 10k into the race, forcing him to drop from 3:20 min/km to 4:30 min/km, ultimately finishing in 2 hours and 58 minutes (which is still almost an hour faster than what I was able to accomplish today).

As for my own running plans, I just learnt that Urskogsloppet has been cancelled as well. Like Göteborgsvarvet, but unlike Umåker, the organizers are playing foul and refuse to make any refunds. While I fully understand that there are some costs associated with organizing an event like this, and would be happy to pay a few hundred SEK in an “administrative fee”, simply taking people’s money is not the way to build trust. Despite these bad experiences, I am still tempted to sign up for the 70k Kuršių Nerija ultramarathon in Lithuania in October when (or if) registration opens on 1st of June. More than ever, it feels important to not give up on the future and to keep dreaming.

Virtual Marathon

While I have taken part in a number of virtual 5k and 10k races in the past, this afternoon I completed my first ever virtual marathon in 3 hours and 51 minutes, my second best marathon time after Stockholm. Organized by the Youtube-runner James Seth DeMoor when his own key race this spring, the Hamburg Marathon, got cancelled due to the epidemic, the “DeMoor Global Running” event is attracting thousands of people across all time zones in what is, essentially, a test of mental strength. Unlike a big city marathon where others can help with the pacing and you get to see a new city, running laps around Nydalasjön is really just about being in your own mental bubble and pain cave.

Running in my racing shorts with a couple of Maurten Caf 100 gels that I had left over from South Devon Ultra in February, I ran the first half in 1 hour and 46 minutes only to realize that a negative split was not within reach. Instead, I focused on keeping my heart rate down and preventing injury. Still, there is something about the marathon distance which always surprises you by its inherent brutality. Directly afterwards, and in keeping with tradition, I promised myself to never run a marathon again but already now, two hours later, I am wondering when my next marathon will be… #goldfish

Huevos Rancheros

Somewhere between huevos rancheros in Bogotá and shakshouka in Tel Aviv, I made a second breakfast before biking down to MQ for their very last sale following the bankruptcy earlier in the week. With 50% off on everything, I was able to get some new jeans for Anna and me as well as a highly Obama-esque all-weather coat in dark navy, perfect for re-exploring the British Isles when all of this is over.

Tomorrow, I plan to take part in the inaugural DeMoor Virtual Marathon by running five loops around Nydalasjön, starting around lunch time in my red Craft V175 Lite. However, given that I have still not been able to complete the Ultra Interval Challenge, I am not taking anything for granted until it is over.

Green screen

After shooting Eddie’s virtual trip to Hamburg, I am now looking forward to recording my own climate video although I am figuring that getting the lighting right will be a big challenge. 

Okinawa

The world may be ending but one can somehow always count on Monocle. As if written in an alternative universe where people still care about spring fashion or new beach bars opening in Dakar, the long lead time of magazine production means that the April issue still offers a (however unintentional) moment of relief from the Covid-19 news cycle. The final 15 pages tell the story of Okinawa, or how “Japan’s offshore prefecture chills out”, of course featuring a stop at “Good Day Coffee” in Chatan.

Shields

While I vaguely remember something about a New Year’s Resolution, a package from Nike just made it to Umeå with a pair of Nike Pegasus 36 Shield in size 47.5 inside. With a water-repellent upper, I am now ready to take on wet cold routes everywhere from Malmö to Umeå. Given the mileage that I have been able to get out of my Nike Pegasus 35, 799 SEK felt like a good investment for the future.

Apple pie

With Espresso House giving out apple pies for 5 SEK, I guess the recession to end all recessions has come also to Umeå, in the most postmodern of versions (especially as the gym remains packed with people).

Irony aside, I do not think the seriousness of the moment can be overstated as the global economy is brought to a screeching halt. Sometimes, I have felt tempted to write an op-ed about the politics of the epidemic but, unlike with climate change, there are some very real and immediate ways in which one can be wrong. Much for instance turns on to what extent immunity is possible and what long-term health effects that Covid-19 sickness may have.

For the developing world, strict quarantine measures may be counter-productive and lead to greater suffering than the pandemic itself. A new study from Yale suggests that with relatively younger populations and scarce access to health care, low-income countries do not have the same to gain from social distancing measures. With health care systems already overwhelmed to begin with, it simply becomes less important to "flatten the curve". One additional concern is the disconnect between urban elites and the rural poor in many countries. Members of such elites may personally be able to financially sustain prolonged periods of lockdown and may also want to show the rest of the world that their country is “modern” and capable of taking drastic measures. As with climate change, elites in developing countries often adopt post-material Western values and show little interest in broader socio-economic development (the most extreme example of this phenomenon may be Vandana Shiva and her fetishation of agrarian poverty).

Lonely Planet Trail

In the Selma biography, there is an excerpt from a letter she wrote in 1895 when traveling through Italy: “Don’t you find it hilarious that I am drifting around day after day with a blue guidebook in my hand, stopping in every corner to read? I find it ridiculous, but the rest of the world does the same”. Looking up at my bookshelf with its dozens of Lonely Planet paperbacks, I guess not much has changed over the years. Everywhere from Australia to Zanzibar, I have found myself on the Lonely Planet trail, running into the same people again and again over the course of a day, and I somehow doubt that the Baedeker trail was any less predictable.

Provocateur

A month ago, I started reading a captivating biography of Selma Lagerlöf, a Swedish author born in 1858 and the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Like few other recent books, it has inspired me to write more myself and to think of reading in new and less passive ways.

In Wilmersdorf in former West Berlin there is a hotel aptly named “Provocateur”. I stayed there in October 2017 and I remember thinking that, if something were to happen to the world, those would be the kind of places that we would dream of returning to. I also remember brushing away those same thoughts, telling myself that I should stop being such a “Spökenkieker” and instead have more faith in the future, after all, much of my research has been about challenging the prevalent pessimism of traditional environmentalism in particular.

And here I am in April 2020, ordering “Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World” to somehow put things into perspective.

Postponement

Once again, I decided to postpone the Ultra Interval Challenge. Under the current circumstances, it simply feels better to err on the side of caution. Instead, after a good night’s sleep and an American pancake or two, I ran down to the ferry terminal in Holmsund. With almost no flights left flying in Swedish airspace, it is at least reassuring to see the maritime traffic continuing in the Gulf of Bothnia on its way everywhere from Antwerpen to Primorsk, giving some hope that, when all of this is over, the world will still be there.

Glup said the globalist

At Systembolaget, I found a new #småparti wine from a bit south of Santiago de Chile called “Glup!” which I can wholeheartedly recommend. Being a perfect pairing to my signature tabbouleh with Greek yoghurt, I now look forward to an Easter away from work. Unless I catch a new cold, I plan to start my own Ultra Interval Challenge on Saturday, running 8x10 km over 24 hours.

Isebekkanal

Three years ago, I was in Hamburg, walking through green parks and stopping by at Nord Coast Coffee Roastery next to Isebekkanal. Today, I am sitting next to our slowly melting lake in Umeå, thinking that in a month from now, there will hopefully be flowers here as well.

Otherwise, I just submitted a grant application together with some researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm to MISTRA. The application is about the possibilities of using thermal waste energy from nuclear power plants to capture carbon dioxide from ambient air which is an idea that could potentially revolutionize Sweden’s mitigation efforts and bring some much-needed realism to Sweden’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2045. Based on the grant proposal, I have also started working on a journal paper that situates Nuclear-powered Direct Air Capture (or N-DAC for short) in relation to other negative emissions technologies (NETs).

The Struggle is Real

Reporting from the frontlines of latte liberalism, I am doing my uttermost to keep the global economy spinning as the WTO warns that the world is on track for a new Great Depression. Between Spanish strawberries and Danish IPA, I wish we could all take this moment and appreciate the fact that we still nevertheless live in a time when the world is shrinking, not the least through the Internet. Thinking about the global reaction to Covid-19, I somehow sense a new era of common responsibility beneath all the protectionist measures, that the fear of losing loved ones, and seeing the suffering of distant others, make us pause and at least realize the absurdity of deliberately inflicting further suffering on others through military means.

One of the starkest illustrations of the limits of nationalist thinking is Trump’s recent decision to halt the delivery to Canada of urgently needed personal protective equipment from 3M’s factory in South Dakota, missing the little detail that much of the raw material used in that 3M factory comes from across the border in Nanaimo, British Columbia... On the same theme, I just learned that another anti-globalist, Bernie Sanders, has decided to end his campaign which is truly good news for the world.

River runs and strawberries

Coming back to USM after running along the river with Elin, the locker room talk is all about companies furloughing their workers and fears of the future. Still, just as out on the run, the early spring is as serene as ever.

“These times are so crazy, scary and somehow beautiful at the same time”

Back home, I was able to transfer my registration from Asics Premiärmilen to STHLM Loop in October which I think will give me a soft introduction to the backyard ultra universe as I will run 10 x 5 km over the course of five hours.

Le confinement

On both sides of the Atlantic, the rich are leaving for their sea-side homes, casting new light on age-old inequalities as others are left behind in cramped inner-city apartments. With temperatures rising in the Northern Hemisphere, I get flashbacks to Seoul where Anna and I spent two years in one small faculty dorm room with Eddie (with the big difference that we were allowed to go outside whenever we wanted).

After a morning with different Zoom meetings and thesis supervision, I went for a tempo run around Nydalasjön, thanking my lucky star that I now live by a lake in a house that can easily double as a summer cottage. On this theme, Jon sent me a piece that reinforced how different this crisis is depending on whether or not your salary keeps coming, and that there is something problematic in advocating strict “lockdown” while being among those whose income is secure. The most extreme version of this is perhaps the situation in India where the lockdown has forced millions onto the roads as their city income has suddenly vanished. This does not mean that letting the epidemic wash through society is necessarily any better, just that we need to realize that there are some real trade-offs here and that waiting 18 months or more for a vaccine may simply not be sustainable.

Props

In the Quarantine Era, it is all about having the right props (the closest Starbucks is for instance 400 km away). While I am still waiting for my plague doctor beak mask from China, I just received the green screen that I ordered when it became obvious that this would go on for some time. Beyond being able to give Eddie a virtual trip to “Miniatur Wunderland” in Hamburg, I plan to use the green screen to enhance the quality of my online teaching and maybe also record a Youtube clip about my research.

A Theatre for Dreamers

Today I brought my own soundtrack along as I went for a lunch run down to Holmsjön and back. Listening to the same songs as I did two decades in my girlfriend’s dorm room, time plays its funny tricks on me, with New Jersey somewhere there in between. Somehow, the epidemic and the acute localization of existence have made me think even more about psychogeography, about what emotions and behaviour that places give rise to, as in the intersection between the physical environment and our experiences.

Once back home, I read about the release of a new book about a young Leonard Cohen on a Greek island in the 1960’s, halcyon days with “thyme-scented hillsides, sunbathing and skinny-dipping in coves of crystalline water” to quote the Guardian review that immediately sold it to me. The Quarantine Era is certainly one of escapism.

Thunder Road

For once, I am the one behind the wheel and the radio is playing Springsteen as I take the boys on a slightly less adventurous road movie down to the recycling station.

Afterwards, as I cross the bridge to the nowadays nearly dormant airport, Jon’s question of how I can still support the Swedish “Sonderweg” lingers. I am no epidemiologist and, to be honest, it was maybe all just wishful thinking that we could deal with the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic simply by isolating the old and the vulnerable while everyone else quickly acquired immunity. Over the last days, especially the impossibility of keeping nursing homes separated from the rest of society has dawned on me and maybe also the Swedish government as they have now asked parliament for vast new executive powers.

Even among those who are healthy and 70+, old habits are difficult to change. When asking my own parents about why they did not do their shopping online, I was told that one of their neighbours used to get the some of her groceries wrong, which was apparently bad enough to warrant the risk of going shopping yourself during a deadly pandemic. At some point, voluntary behavioural change will of course happen, the question is just how overloaded the hospital system will be by then.

Conscious uncoupling

After attending the Breakthrough Dialogue for seven years straight, I made the difficult decision that it would be my last dialogue event, at least for a while. Invaluable as it has been to meet others outside the hegemonic fold of traditional environmentalism, I thought that I owed my kids to finally be home for Midsummer. I also felt that it would be fun to spend more of my travel budget going to new places rather than returning over and over to the Bay Area (as much as it will always have a special place in my heart).

Little did I know that my highly premeditated decision would not matter much as SARS-CoV-2 came along and cancelled the Dialogue for everyone. Tentatively rescheduled to October and relocated to Northern Virginia, it is most unclear what the post-corona world will look like. While it is always tempting to overstate the importance of the present, I fear that this pandemic will turn out to be quite determinative, at least for the first half of the 2020’s.

So, with no transatlantic travel in store, I instead bought a new coffee-table book about a man who ran 3,700 miles across the continental United States, simply perfect for some Friday fantasizing.

Back to white

Overnight, a new layer of snow fell over Umeå, and I struggled a bit with the bike trailer on the way out to Innertavle. However, since about a month back, I have a Spotify subscription which makes the biking somewhat less monotonous. While perhaps not the same as playing “An American Prayer” in the speakers of a white convertible, there are still echoes of other times and places (which suddenly have become equally inaccessible).

Later in the afternoon, we had our first PhD final seminar over Zoom. It is fascinating to see how “normal” this way of working has become. Nevertheless, at the gym yesterday there were lots of older people, and the same outside COOP today where four older men were coughing and betting on horses, making me even more concerned about the road ahead. Still, my main worry remains the developing world that often lacks the most basic infrastructure to combat the disease (such as running water to wash hands etc.) and where many people live hand-to-mouth which makes any “lockdown” particularly painful. The only possible comfort may be that the age structure of many developing countries is significantly younger than in the developed world.

Dominion

As I was about to finish my book on the decadence of the Weimar years, I stumbled upon a few reviews of Tom Holland’s new book “Dominion” that made me curious, maybe because I often feel that I spend too much time thinking about things that are really not that important, at least sub species aeternis. As Terry Eagleton puts it in his review:

“Yet what distinguishes the Judeo-Christian idea of love from the romantic, erotic, touchy-feely sense it has acquired in modern times is that it has nothing to do with feeling. Love for the New Testament is a social practice, not a sentiment. How you feel about the person whose place you take in the queue for the gas chambers is neither here nor there. You don’t even have to know him. Only a love of this ruthlessly impersonal kind, which couldn’t care less about the gender, rank, skin colour or personality of whoever needs your help, could prove equal to what St John darkly calls the powers of this world: Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro and their lackeys.”