Environment
Is Gothenburg Sweden’s green capital?
Gothenburg once boasted the world’s largest shipyards, but faced with Japanese and Korean competition, the oil crisis and a world economic downturn, the city was brought to its knees in the 1980s, with 5 kms of empty dockland and 20 thousand unemployed people. But though shipbuilding was down, Gothenburg was not out. The City Council bought the empty shipyards for one Swedish krona – that’s 2 pence – financed new house-building, new secondary schools and linked up with Chalmers University to set up Lindholmen Science Park. It attracted the Swedish mobile phone maker, Ericsson who created a cluster of ten thousand people in other IT companies round its new HQ. This inter-dependency helped the sector survive the dot.com crash. The biggest advance though, followed the biggest setb...Read More
Heating homes without gas – the Nordic way
None of Scotland’s Nordic neighbours depends on gas for heating – but 85% of homes in Scotland do. Why the big difference? How did Nordic nations jump the green heating hurdle & should Scotland fix its energy crisis by installing district heating like Sweden and Denmark – or go electric like Norway? These were some of the big climate questions tackled by Nordic Horizons speakers, in our COP26 Verdict event, held straight after COP26 in November 2021. This 50 minute podcast of the COP 26 – Nordic Verdict event tackles all these big questions with contributions from Viktoria Raft, a former energy journalist and co-founder of the gender equality network for women in energy, Kraftkvinnorna; Tore Furevik, Professor in physical oceanography at the Geophysical Institut...Read More
On Thin Ice – is the Arctic safe?
Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant has left Murmansk for its 4700 kms trip to a remote Siberian port – according to Arctic Today. News agencies suggest China is building another 20 floating nuclear rigs. Meanwhile Donald Trump didn’t managed to buy Greenland but he can still wreak Arctic eco-havoc in Alaska. A new 200 kms motorway, a copper mine & oilfield have been proposed in the remote Brooks Range foothills – and it seems there’s little or nothing small, surrounding Arctic states can do about these developments. In 2011, Nordic Horizons organised a Festival of Politics debate about the safety of the High North, after Statoil (now Equinor) announced that its latest North Sea oil discovery (Aldous Major South) was the biggest Norwegian find in 20 year...Read More
If trees grow along Norway’s fjords why not in Highland glens?
It seems some folk are sceptical about how well trees would grow in the Highlands or on the fifth of Scotland’s landmass currently covered with grouse moors. There’s wind and rain and the soil is pretty degraded. So maybe the glens are just too barren for any other land use? On no, they’re not. Watch this excellent presentation including a 6 min video by Scots/Norway expert Duncan Halley of the Norwegian Institute of Nature Research, speaking at the Nordic Horizons event “Nurturing Nature” a few years ago. Then decide if Scotland is ready for a Norwegian-style reforestation programme with a wider variety of species – and a much, much wider variety of landowners. If you’d like to know more, here’s a brilliant article by Rewilding Britain with ...Read More
The world’s greenest offices – people-heated Stockholm
The world’s greenest offices – people-heated Stockholm Is Stockholm’s “people-heated” office the world’s greenest commercial building? And can Scotland have one? Monday 28th October 2013 Venue Old College, Edinburgh University Lecture Theatre 175 (far right corner of old quad opp Blackwells on South Bridge) Time 18:00 – 20:00 with Klas Johansson Kungsbrohuset is an office building with a difference. It’s heated by people. Excess body heat produced by 200 000 daily commuters in nearby Central Station is piped in, the windows let daylight in, but block out summer heat. Bike parking is state of the art and tenants are offered changingrooms with showers and lockers. Hour by hour, the building gets automatic digital weather forecast updates to adjust heating and cooling hours in advance ...Read More
The Great Green Danes
Great Green Danes – Digital Notes (L-R) Drew Ratter, Martin Mathers,Jenny Marra, Lesley Riddoch, Soren Hermansen All the material from the Great Green Danes meeting is collected here. Dave Watson from Unison is a prolific blogger and supplied these notes for the meeting from www.unisondave.blogspot.co.uk. Nordic Horizons held their latest event, Great Green Danes, in the Scottish Parliament last night, hosted by Jenny Marra MSP. The subject was renewable energy in Denmark. The main speaker was Soren Hermansen from Samso, a small island with a 4000 population, but a big reputation for renewable energy. Samso energy academy attracts 6,000 visitors a year, many out of season boosting tourism as well. While Samso is rightly hailed as a community initiative, its origins are actually more ...Read More
Nordic Revolutions – Cycling in Copenhagen
Is Small Still Beautiful – Digital Notes The event ‘Nordic Revolutions – Cycling in Copenhagen’ was held on Dec 4th 2012 in Committee Room 2 at the Scottish Parliament and hosted by Alison Johnstone MSP. It was organised by the Cycling Cross Party Group with Nordic Horizons 30 years ago cycling rates in Copenhagen were almost as low as they are across Scotland today. Then – something happened. Our guest speaker for this event was Søren Arildskov Rasmussen, a member of the Danish ‘bicycle embassy’ – a small group of organizations and companies who promote bike solutions and strategy internationally. He works for public architects Gottlieb Paludan who are designing the biggest new train station in Copenhagen with innovative bicycle parking as the main at...Read More
Energy from Rubbish
Energy from Rubbish – Event Details Our next speaker will be Kim Olsson from NSR Helsingborg, Sweden Scotland’s new waste reduction targets look ambitious — from 2014 local authorities will have to offer households in urban areas separate food waste collection and food-related businesses will have to separate food waste for recycling (hospitals and others with less than 50kg of weekly food waste have until 2016). Regulations will bring in two different ‘landfill bans’: a ban on materials separated for recycling (from 2014); and a ban on biodegradable material (from 2021). Can Scotland reach these green targets when newspapers reported only this week that £2m of valuable materials are being thrown into landfill or burned every day in Britain? Kim Olsson’s massive recycling plan...Read More