Time To Talk About Norway And The Environment, But Mostly Norway

ENN: Environmental News Network article
First, let me explain a bit about Norway, where this article was written. Norway is rich and socialist. Norway manages to keep those contradictory traits because it is a major oil exporter. In fact, Norway has at least 50 years worth of oil in the reserves that are currently being used, and possibly centuries worth of oil in reserves farther north, but little surveying has been done to find those reserves. Norway is also very cold, and Norwegians love to joke about how they refer to -75 degree weather as "a bit nippy". However, Norway manages to have surprisingly good music (to the extent that a Norwegian won the "World Idol" competition, if my memory is correct. Additionally, I’m listening to some Edvard Grieg, Norway’s most notable composer, right now), and Norwegians who know English can write it better than the British.
However, the frozen nation of Norway has some race problems, and the population views black as a sub-class, dependant on the government or charity to survive.
Back to Norway being rich: the nation has way too much money, and a lot f spare electricity. Either earlier this year or late last year, Norway actually shut down one of its largest hydropower plants for nine hours to tune a piano. The auditorium was carved into a mountain by the power company (yep, carved into the mountain), but the hum from power generators did not allow an expert to properly tune a piano in the auditorium in preparation for a major concert. So, the company turned the generators off for nine hours, long enough for the piano to be tuned and for the concert.
That’s Norway in a nutshell. A very cold, very rich, very socialist, and a bit racist nutshell.

Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry has won plaudits abroad for his promises to fight global warming but could find his hands tied at home if he wins next month's U.S. elections.
An ideological chasm separates the environmental policies of the two candidates, with President George W. Bush favoring more use of domestic coal and oil to cut dependence on Middle East oil, while Kerry seeks a shift to clean energy like solar or wind power by 2020.
…
"Kerry would engage with other countries about what would come after 2012 in a way that the Bush administration wouldn't," said Eileen Claussen, head of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. She said the environment came far behind Iraq, terror, and the economy in voter priorities.
The Republican president has derided Kyoto as too costly and says it is unfair because it exempts rapidly industrializing countries like China and India. "It's one of those deals where, in order to be popular in the halls of Europe, you sign a treaty," he said.
Kerry says Bush should have tried to renegotiate a "flawed" Kyoto rather than ditching it. Kyoto is set to enter into force in the next few weeks with Russian backing.
Kyoto aims to cut developed nations' emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. Many scientists say storms, rising sea levels, and desertification may be the biggest threat to life on the planet in the coming centuries, justifying trillions of dollars in spending to crack down.

What this treaty comes down to is how much each person cares about the environment. People like me, who want an ozone sunroof, couldn’t care less about a useless piece of regulation like Kyoto. Environmental fanatics, on the other hand, think Humanity should sacrifice modern economies to prevent a bit of carbon from entering the atmosphere.

Read the article if you want to. No one is really interested in global warming, though, so I won’t bother to analyze the story in this post. Instead, I actually enjoy talking about Norway a bit, and I couldn’t pass up a good chance to bring the subject up.