Warming Climate in Norway Reveals Relics of Ancient Viking Trade Route

OSLO — Ice patches that melted from the slopes of a remote mountain pass in Norway have revealed artifacts that provide new insight into the livelihood of hunters, traders and travelers along a route thousands of years old, archaeologists said this month.

A horse snowshoe.

The relics of this distant past include tunics and mittens woven with wool, leather shoes, arrows are still adorned with feathers, and snowshoes made for horses. Giant stone cairns mark old pathways once used by traders to find their way through fog and heavy snow. Antlers, bone and animal dung have also been found, the archaeologists behind the project said.

The discoveries, outlined in the scientific journal Antiquity, were made on the central mountain range in Norway’s Innlandet County by the Glacier Archaeology Program, one of many programs worldwide studying what glaciers and ice patches are laying bare as they shift and melt because of climate change.

Read the story from The New York Times by Henrik Pryser Libell and Christine Hauser - “Warming Climate in Norway Reveals Relics of Ancient Viking Trade Route.”

An $85 Billion Asset Manager Is Planning a Total Exit From Coal

The biggest publicly traded life insurer in Norway, Storebrand ASA, is planning a total exit from coal by 2026.

Jan Erik Saugestad.

They’re one of a widening field of investors withdrawing from the most polluting fossil fuels as the threat of climate change reshapes asset management. The asset manager has already excluded 64 companies with ties to coal since it introduced its first restrictions in 2013. Norway’s $990 billion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, cut its exposure to coal after introducing similar rules in 2015.

Oslo-based Storebrand, which has $85 billion in assets under management, already refrains from investing in companies that get more than 30 percent of their revenue from coal. Those restrictions will be gradually tightened over the next eight years, it said.

Read the story from Bloomberg by Mikael Holter - “An $85 Billion Asset Manager Is Planning a Total Exit From Coal.”

Norway Becomes World’s First Country to Ban Deforestation

Norway has become the first country to ban deforestation. The Norwegian Parliament pledged May 26 that the government's public procurement policy will be deforestation-free.

Norway has become the first country to ban deforestation.

Any product that contributes to deforestation will not be used in the Scandinavian country. The pledge was recommended by Norwegian Parliament's Standing Committee on Energy and Environment as part of the Action Plan on Nature Diversity. Rainforest Foundation Norway was the main lobbying power behind this recommendation and has worked for years to bring the pledge to existence.

“This is an important victory in the fight to protect the rainforest," Nils Hermann Ranum, head of policy and campaign at Rainforest Foundation Norway said in a statement. "Over the last few years, a number of companies have committed to cease the procurement of goods that can be linked to destruction of the rainforest. Until now, this has not been matched by similar commitments from governments. Thus, it is highly positive that the Norwegian state is now following suit and making the same demands when it comes to public procurements.

"Read the story by Katie Pohlman from EcoWatch - “Norway Becomes World’s First Country to Ban Deforestation.”

Norway leads the way on deforestation

Norway becomes first country in the world
 to commit to zero deforestation.

Norway has become the first country in the world to commit to zero deforestation.

The Norwegian parliament pledged the government’s public procurement policy will become deforestation-free after a committee of MPs recommended imposing regulations to ensure the state did "not contribute to deforestation of the rainforest".

Norway funds forest conservation projects worldwide and also supports human rights programmes for forest communities.

Nils Hermann Ranum, the head of Policy and Campaign at Rainforest Foundation Norway, said in a statement: “This is an important victory in the fight to protect the rainforest. Over the last few years, a number of companies have committed to cease the procurement of goods that can be linked to destruction of the rainforest.

Read the Independent story - “Norway becomes first country in the world to commit to zero deforestation.”

Building massive bike highway system to the future; a carbon neutral future

Norway has been pledging to combat climate change.  Now they plan to back this up with several projects and initiatives, including a seriously massive bike highway system.

The government plans to spend the equivalent of US$1.1 billion on 10 two-lane, cross country bike highways across its cities.  These highways are planned to be easy and fast as an incentive for motorists to leave the vehicles at home.

Read the Minds story - “Norway plans to be carbon neutral by 2050. Launch $1 billion bike highway project.”

Windfarms answer domestic needs, and exports some power

Denmark's windfarms answer all domestic
 power needs and then exports some.

So much power was produced by Denmark’s windfarms on Thursday that the country was able to meet its domestic electricity demand and export power to Norway, Germany and Sweden.

On an unusually windy day, Denmark found itself producing 116% of its national electricity needs from wind turbines yesterday evening. By 3am on Friday, when electricity demand dropped, that figure had risen to 140%.

Interconnectors allowed 80% of the power surplus to be shared equally between Germany and Norway, which can store it in hydropower systems for use later. Sweden took the remaining fifth of excess power.

ReadThe Guardian story - “Wind power generates 140% of Denmark's electricity demand.”

Wind power meets and exceeds Denmark's domestic electricity needs

S

o much power was produced by Denmark’s windfarms on Thursday that the country was able to meet its domestic electricity demand and export power to Norway, Germany and Sweden.

On an unusually windy day, Denmark found itself producing 116% of its national electricity needs from wind turbines yesterday evening. By 3am on Friday, when electricity demand dropped, that figure had risen to 140%.

Interconnectors allowed 80% of the power surplus to be shared equally between Germany and Norway, which can store it in hydropower systems for use later. Sweden took the remaining fifth of excess power.

Read the Guardian story - “Wind power generates 140% of Denmark's electricity demand”.

Chance or coincidence puts Shepparton in step with international goals

S

hepparton people banded together on Thursday, well about 150 of them, to demand the State Government provided the city with better rail transport.

Some of those among the pyjama-clad train travellers would have been eager to see trains used as the easily outstrip private transport with regard carbon dioxide emissions, while others sought only travel convenience, being another marker in Shepparton’s maturation.

By coincidence or chance, this push for improved rail transport to and from the Goulburn Valley comes as there is an international initiative aimed at ensuring the creation of more low-carbon transport.

Transport Ministers participating in the International Transport Forum (ITF) Annual Summit agreed in their Declaration from Ministers on Transport, Trade and Tourism on the value of pursuing low-carbon transport towards COP21.

The summit’s declaration says the Ministers, “Recognize that the new international climate agreement, which is to be forged and agreed by COP21, should encourage mainstreaming of low carbon transport in global policies on climate change and sustainable development.”

A report from the summit - “Transport Ministers from 54 countries call for global policies to mainstream low-carbon transport” – said, “Company CEOs, transport initiative leaders and government representatives discussed strategies and innovations to mitigate transport-related climate change impacts related to trade and tourism during this session.

“Ministers from the EU, France, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK, and others shared detailed and ambitious plans on transport advancing climate action.”

'Seed savers' understand the threat of climate change

Clive Blazey of the
 Diggers Club, as
 pictured in the
Melbourne Age,
 is a passionate
 ''preserver".

Climate change brings risks most of us can’t yet comprehend.

Some, however, understand the threat and so are acting to protect and preserve the world’s food supplies through the saving of seed.

Teams of people determined to ensure protection of thousands of plants and vegetables, first through the construction and opening in 2008 of an underground vault in Norway and second, through the Millennium Seed Bank at London’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

The ambitions of these two teams are explained in the story in Melbourne’s Aged head: “Seed savers”.