Consequential

It is always tempting to privilege the present, to think that we stand at a critical juncture in time. But after four years of the Tidö government, the election coming up in nine days is no ordinary one. If the Sweden Democrats were to enter government directly – and every vote for the Tidö parties is a vote for exactly that – Sweden would take a very dark turn indeed. From the dismantling of public service to outright ethno-nationalism, this is not an election about specific policies or how much money one gets to keep in the wallet, but a fundamental test of who we are (and aspire to be).

That does not mean that the choice is simple on every dimension. It would clearly be detrimental to our chances of reining in climate change if Sweden’s nuclear ambitions were replaced by an even greater reliance on gas-dependent renewables. But a misguided energy policy can be reversed, reactors can still be built, and technological development will continue elsewhere. Some political choices are more difficult to undo.

Perhaps that is why Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, which I am reading right now, feels particularly timely. His book is a useful reminder that democratic institutions are neither automatic nor indestructible, and that defending them ultimately depends on the choices ordinary people make while those choices are still theirs to make. 

Marc O’Polo

It took another round of returns, but in the end I was able to secure exactly the kind of corduroy blazer I had been looking for. At 180 SEK, it cost about a tenth of the retail price, reminding me again what a bargain Sellpy can be. Working away at Espresso House in Hässleholm, I felt reasonably on top of the autumn semester and my long to-do list. Once Linnéa had finished her riding class, we drove to her place in Kristianstad to make prawn spaghetti while rain came hammering down outside.

Today, I stopped in Helsingborg on my way back to Halmstad, running past Vikingsberg and along the familiar shores of Fria Bad, condensing decades into kilometres. After a quick shower, I caught the train to work for lunch with Ulf and our new professor, Johan Söderman, who has just edited a lovely new book on Didactics for Bildung in Preschool (yes, Bildung!).

Cows, trees and flights

When growing up in Sweden in the 1980s, the dairy industry was very visible in otherwise non-commercial schools, indoctrinating kids into believing that consuming large amounts of cold cow’s milk was absolutely essential for their health. Despite the dubious scientific basis, the message was remarkably successful in presenting a particular commercial interest as neutral, almost self-evident, public-health advice.

Something similar seems to have happened in Swedish forest politics. It is surprising to what extent the forest-industrial complex has been able to cast itself as an apolitical force for environmental protection, rather than as an industry with obvious material interests in how forests are managed and used. Despite the increasing polarization of forest politics, the industry’s own vision of intensive forestry, continued harvesting and expanding biomass use is still routinely presented not as one contested political position among others, but as an almost natural contribution to the green transition. This was particularly striking today at the Bio+ conference in Stockholm, where several of the projects presented were funded directly by the forest industry.

Now at Pontus on my way back to Halmstad, I have picked up Lisa Röstlund’s Skogslandet: en granskning from 2022, which examines precisely some of these relationships between the forest industry, science, public authorities and politics. Röstlund approaches Swedish forestry from a clearly critical perspective, but the book seems particularly interesting for its attempt to understand how certain claims about forests and sustainability have acquired scientific and political authority. Given today’s conference, it feels like timely reading as I wait for my biofueled flight (yes, I am once again buying biofuels for my flights, more on that in another post) down to Halland.

Capital

Listening to today’s presentations at the Bio+ conference, a recurring theme has been the lack of venture capital and the corresponding need for public funding. While I am generally sympathetic to greater investments in energy R&D, it is worth considering that the lack of private capital may also be a function of basic physical realities, that there simply is no scalable business case for the proposed innovations.

To give a practical example, the reason that we do not see electric generators at every stationary gym bike is not that capitalism is short-sighted but that the 100–150 W generated from biking simply does not amount to enough power to make practical sense. Still, after today, I could easily see the PowerPoint slide:

"Our innovative circular bio-based human energy platform (HEP) unlocks previously untapped endogenous renewable energy resources while simultaneously delivering public-health co-benefits. The technology is mature, locally sourced, fossil-free and compatible with existing electricity infrastructure. The principal barrier to rapid scale-up is currently insufficient access to patient, risk-tolerant capital."

3x Stockholm

Rusty

After not teaching for three months, it was with a fair bit of trepidation that I walked into room 308 to meet the fifty or so students waiting for me. Talking governance theory and the EU for four hours, it all went well in the end, but it still seems unbelievable that I once, as a PhD student in Lund, had a week with 36 hours in the classroom.

Otherwise, I started the day with a beach jog and some mural spotting in the neighbourhood before biking back and forth to work between the showers. Luckily, with my Transgrancanaria finisher jacket and Cunard thermos ready, I think I am reasonably well equipped for whatever autumn has in store.

Näsby

Back from our Österlen excursion, Linnéa and I made mushroom cannelloni with Västerbotten cheese, an instant new favourite for dinner. Afterwards, we played the feminist extension pack to “När då då” as night fell early and a long summer slowly drew to an end.

Before returning to Halmstad, I got to run ten kilometres along the shores of Araslövssjön, through quiet birch forests and open grasslands. Linnéa also gave me the full Kristianstad city tour, including a visit to Sweden’s lowest point and the iconic Conditori Duvander for coffee.

Now on the train back to Halland, reality will begin in less than 24 hours with two new classes tomorrow. And already on Tuesday, I will be on a high-speed train to Stockholm for the Bio+ conference.

Drakamöllan

Driving south along Road 19 towards Österlen today, Linnéa and I stopped for a hike around Drakamöllan, with its sweeping grasslands, sandy steppes, and Icelandic horses grazing beneath cloudy late-summer skies.

Over ten kilometres and 250 metres of elevation gain, the landscape kept opening and folding around us, a world away from the flat plains closer to Kristianstad. With the heath glowing purple, patches of beech forest appearing in the folds of the hills, and clouds racing overhead, one could almost imagine being transported to the heather-clad moors of Scotland. Every now and then, the sun broke through, lighting up the grasslands before disappearing again behind the clouds.

After picking blackberries along the way, we continued down to Rigeleje, where the beach had been left entirely to itself now that the summer tourists were gone. Under a darkening sky, with waves rolling in from Hanöbukten and nobody else around, there was an immediate sense of freedom.

Atlântimor

A name, a label, and the promise of salty Atlantic winds coming ashore. Clearly, wine decisions are rarely rational, but in this case, I backed mine up with a few gold medals and recommendations.

Passing through Lund earlier today, one could feel that the semester is just around the corner, with students everywhere. I cannot say that I am entirely envious of them, starting their studies at a time when artificial intelligence is reshaping so many certainties. On the train, I revisited my 2013 paper Ambivalence, Irony and Democracy in the Anthropocene, which has remained one of my most cited publications. In it, I explored what I saw as a basic dilemma of modernity: either we find technological ways of transcending ecological limits, or we accept those limits and somehow create the political institutions necessary to enforce them on a global scale.

Neither path looked particularly plausible. Radical technological modernization required a Promethean faith in human ingenuity that many environmentalists rejected, while comprehensive degrowth would demand levels of political coordination and personal restraint that few people appeared prepare to accept. For all the rhetorical appeal of “sufficiency”, its advocates rarely seemed to see any contradiction in expecting rising retirement incomes, ever more advanced medicine, and ever more elaborate forms of inconspicuous consumption in their own lives. My conclusion was therefore deliberately ambivalent: neither radical modernization nor comprehensive degrowth seemed politically within reach.

Reading the paper now, it is striking how much I treated advanced machine intelligence as belonging to the realm of science fiction. Today, we know better. In one sense, AI gives the anti-modern intuition perhaps its strongest possible case: maybe there really are doors that humanity should never open. Yet actually keeping those doors locked would itself require unprecedented global coordination over technological development, probably indefinitely. The more powerful the technology becomes, the more compelling the argument for restraint may become – and the less plausible it seems that such restraint could ever be universally enforced. 

Codice fiscale

Back in June, I attended a workshop at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale in Naples, which was absolutely fantastic. The process of getting reimbursed for my travel expenses has turned out to be slightly less fantastic, but now I have at least figured out that I need to apply for an Italian tax identification number (or codice fiscale) at the embassy in Stockholm. Sometimes you hear Swedish people complaining about how bureaucratic things are in Sweden, but my many years abroad have convinced me otherwise (at least as long as one is an “insider” with BankID etcetera).

Looking at the ten-day forecast for Halmstad, it is apparently going to rain every single day, so I decided to wrap up the pool season at Brottet with another thousand metres in the blue.