Tylö

With the waves rolling in, I followed the wooden bridge onto the sand, just as my watch again warned me of its critically low battery level. After three years of exemplary service everywhere from the mountains of California to the streets of Tallinn, my Suunto 9 Peak had refused all attempts to charge it so, before heading out, I had ordered a new (or rather refurbished) Suunto 9 Peak Pro from the factory in Finland. Luckily, the battery held up long enough for me to complete my half-marathon loop.

Once back home, I booked tickets to Umeå in mid-October for an environmental ethics conference that has apparently had a change of heart after previously rejecting my submission. That alone was intriguing enough to warrant my attendance, and by combining night trains and flights, I will be able to attend while still doing my planned teaching in Halmstad. Paying 500 SEK extra out of my own pocket for biofuels (as that is not covered by the university travel policy), I realize that I really need to say something about that, not least in relation to yet another post on LinkedIn about those who say that what we do in Sweden does not matter for the climate.

While it is technically true that Sweden is responsible for only 0.1–0.2 percent of global emissions (roughly equivalent to its share of the world’s population), the way we go about reducing those emissions may matter much more than our small share alone would suggest. If we were to pioneer technologies or lifestyles that are globally scalable and attractive to others (ranging from advanced reactors that can recycle our nuclear waste to bicycle-friendly city planning), then we could have a disproportionate effect on global emissions. On the other hand, doing what feels good for the climate may not always be good for the climate. If we expend scarce political capital on non-scalable or environmentally harmful solutions (such as wind energy sprawl in sensitive mountain areas), then we may perhaps look good in our own eyes but do little to rein in global emissions.

So, how about that flight to Umeå? Biofuels are clearly neither scalable nor environmentally sensible as a general solution to aviation. So why pay extra for them? Because, by buying biofuels, one is sending a signal to the airline that someone actually cares, that people are willing to pay to reduce their climate impact, and that signal may ultimately help the airline explore other forms of sustainable aviation fuel. So, between doing nothing and sending that signal, I have decided that signalling is better. 

Finally, even the underlying choice between flying and taking the train to Umeå is not quite as straightforward as it may seem from a climate standpoint. For long-distance travel, the climate arithmetic becomes more complicated once infrastructure and opportunity costs are included: scarce railway capacity may be better used for shifting heavy freight from road to rail, while new high-speed lines require enormous quantities of concrete and steel and may take decades to repay their initial carbon debt. Meanwhile, aviation requires remarkably little infrastructure between its points of departure and arrival.

Yoko

This being Rawls & Me, I cannot end the day with such a dark and ominous post. If only to dream, I need to pretend for a bit longer that it is the 1920s aboard the Orient Express, and that new international adventures lie ahead.

As such, I met up with Linnéa in the rain last night for the September instalment of the American Express dining benefit. Blending Japanese and Nordic cuisine, Yoko at the waterfront in Helsingborg served a five-course omakase. Kicking things off with a “Bruce Lee 2.0” champagne drink and a “Mr Miyagi” cherry G&T, highlights included sashimi, arancini with prosciutto, and an absolutely lovely ice cream dessert.

After a night at Mollbergs, which was one of the first real hotels in Sweden when it opened two hundred years ago, we stayed true to the Helsingborg ethos by taking a morning swim. With the water at 16.8 degrees, summer may technically be over, but luckily there are still trains or planes to catch.

Balad al-fawḍā

After four years with the Tidö government, I was hoping that Sweden would somehow have turned the page, that there would be a strong popular rebuke of all the attempts to sow distrust, and that a new government (however imperfect) would start the long journey back to solidarity and a greater vision that would speak to the highest, rather than the lowest, in each of us.

Yet, seeing the blatantly racist poster above, and getting a push notification saying that the distance between the two blocks is now within the margin of error, I am beginning to fear that the land of chaos (balad al-fawḍā) that the poster warns of may indeed soon be upon us. As with Trump’s America, it is tempting to give in to misanthropy or cynicism, to think that we have indeed become prisoners of the past, and that the Star Trek idealism that Obama expressed in his 2009 speech at Cairo University cannot overcome the rising fascism of our time:

“For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes -- and, yes, religions -- subjugating one another in pursuit of their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it.”

Kyro

There is a new Korean app called “Kyro” that lets you claim territory based on your runs or hikes. Every time you close a loop, the enclosed area becomes your territory. With one of Eddie’s favourite teachers also playing, Eddie and I set out to capture some of his territory in Gothenburg yesterday. Hiking almost 17 kilometres over three hours, we had some great conversations but, sadly, failed to get the hike registered due to a GPS error caused by our indoor lunch break. Though disappointing, we have not given up; we will just have to be a bit more careful next time.

Yesterday, I also discovered a wild card for commuting between Halmstad and Kristianstad that I had not thought about before: the bus from Halmstad to Markaryd. Travelling along Road 15 into Kronoberg, I was reminded that there is also a perfectly functioning railway between Halmstad and Hässleholm (one that I used extensively in 2009 and 2010 when commuting between Lund and Gothenburg). Unfortunately, that railway is nowadays used only by freight trains, which is annoying since passenger services would effectively cut the travel time in half.

Otherwise, I have been busy submitting not one but two journal reviews, drafting a grant application to the Swedish Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU), and submitting yet another application to the Karl Staaff Memorial Fund. With that, all that remains is my real work or, more specifically, to do another round of interviews and finally write up that paper on the legitimacy of different allocation mechanisms for biogenic hydrocarbons.

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 I found myself returning to Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny. 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 linguine 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.