The world in 2012

The climate in 2012 I am traveling to Bulgaria to celebrate New Year Eve and since I calculated to spend six hours traveling I got myself a copy of The Economist's The World in 2012. 24 hours later I am still traveling and so i could read it twice if I wanted. Which I might. The Economist is one of my favorite English language publications, and I am a big fan of the way the combine insight with a great prose. This time I feel a little let down. The 2011 I lived through was a year not so much of politics as of deep transformations. It was climate change, peak oil and #occupywallstreet. We have yet to see what comes out of that movement, and I did not expect the Economist to sympathize with a movement saying that the interest of 1% is contrary to that of 99%. But I was eager to read some analysis of the return of street politics in the western world. There was none, just a one sentence speculation that US Left wing populism might gt violent in 2012. Did they use a NYPD white shirt officer to edit the paper, or what?

Peak Oil is discussed in one article, that actually hopes that OPEC will use its influence to lower oil prices and boost global growth. Are there people at the Economist who actually believe that the current oil prices are inflated by greedy sheiks? During my 2011 countries like Saudi Arabia struggled to meet demand, and will continue to do so in 2012. As for climate change, the treatment of the issue was disheartening. The buzz phrase was sprinkled over the text were appropriate, but in every occasion described as a political choice, e.g. what will it mean for UK politics when the government tries to curb co2 emissions? That is a valid question, of course, but not at all what I expected from the Economist. If someone accepts climate change as a reality, it is also clear that it will have tremendous effect on all kinds of social and economical life. Floods might disrupt industries, or new crops can become profitable. An initiated analysis of how climate change will affect the global economy would be among the most relevant reading right now. How sad that the Economist fails to deliver that. The writers seem to presume that business and politics can exist somehow independently of the physical world they exist in, something that they know very well is not true. But I guess some graphs predictions about how severe weather will affect the US economy would cause furore, and anger the papers' readership. In publishing, you give the people what the people wants.

Climate change arrives in Sweden

2011 is likely to go to history as the year that the New Climate started affecting Sweden. Not only has this Christmas been one of the warmest ever - insurance costs caused by extreme weather was up 18% since last year according to the local insurance industry. A spokesman for the insurers explains that climate change will mean more extreme weather, with increased prices for insurances as a result.

The insurance industry has for a long time been the great hope of many industrialists, including me. Not because an inherent goodness - this industry is probably as controlled by greed as any other. Which is what makes insurance companies interesting - they are set to lose a lot of money from more volatile weather, and have a strict vested interest in combating climate change.

It is nice to see the Swedish insurers out of the closet - hopefully they can lend some weight to environmentalists demands for more robust climate politics. I have a secret dream that they would actually use their power and refuse to insure companies that work against them - like oil drilling companies. BP would not exist today if Deepwater Horizon had not been insured. On the other hand it is probably a very bad idea to let private companies use political power.

Nonetheless, climate change is now not only a question for environmentalists. It is a new business reality that has officially arrived in Sweden.

Ni är inte ensamma!

When I first visited Bulgaria, in the fall of 2007, I could not help but notice posters, billboards, buttons everywhere saying "Ne ste sami!" It means "you are not alone", and is probably the first full sentece I learned in Bulgarian. In Swedish it would be, literally "Ni är inte ensamma!", and when I come back to Sweden in January after this winter's Bulgaria trip I hope to see those word written all over town.

(The Ne ste sami-ribbon) The slogan was aimed at the five Bulgarian nurses that were sitting on death row in Libya, blamed for contaminating blood with HIV, and killing Libyan children. This was before the Arab spring, and Libya was still a dictatorship where it was easier to blame and jail foreigners than admitting mistakes. The Arab spring has yet to affect Ethiopia. The state is more suspicious of dissent than ever, maybe scared by the specter of public protest like those in the Mediterranean Arab states. Scores of local foreign journalists have been harassed. Two of them are the Swedes Johan Peterson and Martin Schibbye. They were earlier today found guilty of supporting terrorists and entering Ethiopia illegally. They have confessed of entering without VISA together with an ethnic militia that has been terror-labeled by the government in Addis Abebba, but maintain that their purpose was solely to investigate the work of the Swedish company Lundin Petroleum in the Ogaden province. My private opinion is this: Lundin Petroleum is a secretive company with a very bad reputation when it comes to Human Rights. Schibbye and Peterson should be praised, not jailed for trying to bring stories about their work in Ogaden into the light. Another opinion might be that Schibbye and Peterson were acting foolishly and should be reprimanded and thrown out of Ethiopia but not senteced to jail. This seems to be the official view of our Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (Link in Swedish), who himself worked for Lundin Petroleum when the company's activities in Ogaden were initiated. A lot of thing could be written about Carl Bildt's dubious role in this drama, but it might suffice to say that the best thing with having him in government is that it keeps him away from Lundin Petroleum where he might do more harm. A lot could also be written about the terrorism laws that Peterson and Schibbye are sentenced under. Western commentators point out that these laws allow the Ethiopian government to label anyone it doesn't like a terrorist. But it is hardly the first government to do so. It is simply abusing a system of black listing organizations that has been abundantly abused since 9/11. But right now, the main focus must be to get Peterson and Schibbye home. Sweden needs journalists like them, the world needs to know about Lundin Petroleum and they do need us. They need to know that they are not alone. The Bulgarian "Ne ste sami" campaign was succesful, and the nurses eventually returned to their families. There is no reason Sweden should not manage to get Peterson and Schibbye free. But it might take a stubborn campaign saying "Ni är inte ensamma!" Let us start it now.

(Foto: Scanpix)