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oakfarmI wish I could say I learned the following from a visiting Norwegian or from a trip to Norway, but I learned it from social media. We have the tradition of eating rice porridge at christmas - in the old days porridge with milk and rice was a luxury .- and in the pot with porridge some put an almond. The tradition is that the person who gets the almond will get married next year. Recently I learned the Norwegians apparently have the same tradition, except the one who gets the almond gets a pig made of marzipan. Marzipan pigs are a Christmas thing here too, traditionally, but I have not heard about that tradition before. We get married, the Norwegians get a sweet pig. Think about that. Btw mom likes to cook our Christmas porridge from oats instead of rice. Oats are not important and must be more climate friendly. Oh, and of course “gets married next year” is just a saying, not a binding contract.
Speaking of the climate, the next paragraphs are about it. Later I will write about what I’m excited about. Last year I saw the name “Kemi'' in headlines in the British media. So I thought: “What do they know about the town Kemi in northern Finland where I, the summer I was fifteen, visited an UFO-museum?” But no, those headlines were about British politician Kemi Badenoch. not about the Finnish town Kemi. However this article in Psychology today was recommended to me and it’s actually about the river the Finish towns is named after: Imprisoning the river Kemi.The article describes how locals were psychologically hurt by the change in the landscape caused by the construction of hydropower plants in Kemi river. The psychological pain from the changing landscape today must be from climate change. How different the winter is now compared to how they used to be. It’s not like I have trauma over it, but I get sad when it’s raining in the middle of the winter. It’s simply not fun at all. (Then the word "kemi" is also Swedish for "chemistry".)
It also means it’s not really advisable to bike at the moment. Either there’s too much snow on the road or it’s raining and besides being a problem in itself it leaves the roads slippery. This is also a reason it’s weirdly difficult to order products online. At school we were shown an American documentary about how the private sector - lead by a certain Seattle based online seller - have made people used to getting their ordered products to their doors in a very short time. For us it’s the opposite, when we had a government owned post it delivered in a few days and I only had to walk 500 m to get ordered products. If I make an order today the private companies that have taken over the post take several days to deliver and they send the packet to places all over the town. Only one of those places is within ordinary walking distance from me. If I can’t ride my bike it’s difficult to order things that might end up far from me.
But, yeah, that’s a small inconvenience when it comes to the climate catastrophe. The scary part is if the weather is this skewed up now when global temperature is 1.2 degree C over pre-industrial times, how crazy will it be when it’s 2.4 C over?
Time to write about things I'm enthusiastic about. In my internship I hope to get to visit their facility in a little town I always have liked. It’s called Östersund and is located by Lake Störsjön, which apparently is the 29 largest lake in Europe. Wikipedia also reminded me they have a lake monster in the lake. Anyway beside the view of the lake, the town also has a view over mountains. That’s cool.
Another cool thing. A pet shop here has the fish Uaru, aka triangle cichlids (Uaru amphiacanthoides). A fish I didn’t know anything about before seeing them, but I guess I got a small crush on those South American cichlids. Wikipedia also tells me they are a food fish in South America. Ok, that doesn’t mean I will start farming them for food, it doesn’t even mean I will get them as aquarium fishes. Since they grow to 40 cm one needs a 700 l aquarium at least. And that’s just one reason to not get them. All I’m saying is that I find it cool they had such a fish for sale.
Then I guess I should be excited that in north Sweden they have found the largest deposit of rare earth minerals in Europe. Or that it seems like Sweden actually will give archer 155 mm howitzers to Ukraine.
Speaking of the climate, the next paragraphs are about it. Later I will write about what I’m excited about. Last year I saw the name “Kemi'' in headlines in the British media. So I thought: “What do they know about the town Kemi in northern Finland where I, the summer I was fifteen, visited an UFO-museum?” But no, those headlines were about British politician Kemi Badenoch. not about the Finnish town Kemi. However this article in Psychology today was recommended to me and it’s actually about the river the Finish towns is named after: Imprisoning the river Kemi.The article describes how locals were psychologically hurt by the change in the landscape caused by the construction of hydropower plants in Kemi river. The psychological pain from the changing landscape today must be from climate change. How different the winter is now compared to how they used to be. It’s not like I have trauma over it, but I get sad when it’s raining in the middle of the winter. It’s simply not fun at all. (Then the word "kemi" is also Swedish for "chemistry".)
It also means it’s not really advisable to bike at the moment. Either there’s too much snow on the road or it’s raining and besides being a problem in itself it leaves the roads slippery. This is also a reason it’s weirdly difficult to order products online. At school we were shown an American documentary about how the private sector - lead by a certain Seattle based online seller - have made people used to getting their ordered products to their doors in a very short time. For us it’s the opposite, when we had a government owned post it delivered in a few days and I only had to walk 500 m to get ordered products. If I make an order today the private companies that have taken over the post take several days to deliver and they send the packet to places all over the town. Only one of those places is within ordinary walking distance from me. If I can’t ride my bike it’s difficult to order things that might end up far from me.
But, yeah, that’s a small inconvenience when it comes to the climate catastrophe. The scary part is if the weather is this skewed up now when global temperature is 1.2 degree C over pre-industrial times, how crazy will it be when it’s 2.4 C over?
Time to write about things I'm enthusiastic about. In my internship I hope to get to visit their facility in a little town I always have liked. It’s called Östersund and is located by Lake Störsjön, which apparently is the 29 largest lake in Europe. Wikipedia also reminded me they have a lake monster in the lake. Anyway beside the view of the lake, the town also has a view over mountains. That’s cool.
Another cool thing. A pet shop here has the fish Uaru, aka triangle cichlids (Uaru amphiacanthoides). A fish I didn’t know anything about before seeing them, but I guess I got a small crush on those South American cichlids. Wikipedia also tells me they are a food fish in South America. Ok, that doesn’t mean I will start farming them for food, it doesn’t even mean I will get them as aquarium fishes. Since they grow to 40 cm one needs a 700 l aquarium at least. And that’s just one reason to not get them. All I’m saying is that I find it cool they had such a fish for sale.
Then I guess I should be excited that in north Sweden they have found the largest deposit of rare earth minerals in Europe. Or that it seems like Sweden actually will give archer 155 mm howitzers to Ukraine.