Sometime in October 2021, I have said in my prayers: I would write more of my ideas about how to save the world, life in general, and humanity, no matter how absurd these may sound – if I would pass the Norwegian language tests this year.
One must be careful of what one wishes for because most of these eventually come true. I got the test results for the oral part of the ”Test of Norwegian – advanced level (Bergenstesten)” with the grade ”Passed” (Bestått) on the 3rd of November 2021 while I received the test results for the written part with grade ”Passed Very Well” (Godt bestått) on the 1st of December 2021.
So today, on the 5th of December, after aches in my left shoulder and both hands subsided after some days of keeping away from the computer, I finished what I started to write down on the 1st of December 2021.
The world seems to be in more a self-destructing mode recently, with rising global temperatures apparently causing extreme weather aberrations, widespread forest fires around the world, and more destructive storms and catastrophic floods. There is much more talk these days about ”green technologies” and sustainable development efforts as potent means to curb the greenhouse emissions and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and thus, save the world.
The concepts about ”shift to greener technologies” and ”sustainable development” are not at all new to me. They seem to have followed me around, year after year, no matter where I go. Let us see this list, for example.
- I was already aware of deforestation causing floods, since my own birthplace got a big flood in the early 1970s. I was 7 years old then.
- I have read and discussed in class biogas/alcogas, methane gas from piggeries and waste depots, as well as efforts to turn waste into energy sources when I was in high school in my home province, Cagayan in the northern Philippines in the early 1980s. I was 15 years old then.
- Since the late 1980s when I was already living in the Philippines´´ capital, Metro Manila, I have also been made aware of the importance of sustainable growth and development for a country like the Philippines.
- When I was 21 years old, I heard someone discuss with the group of newly graduated economics majors that included me, about waste incinerators that could generate clean energy. (I also remember the late Mr. D. Cueto, my former supervisor at my first employer, the then Congressional Economic and Planning Service of the House of Representatives in Quezon City, Metro Manila, telling stories about Norway, shipbuilding, oil, and its welfare state. Little did I know then I would one day live and see all these in action in Norway.)
- In the mid-1990s, when I was in my late 20´s, I have started to witness the plastic scourge destroying the beauty of and life in the seas. In a weekend trip to a seaside resort near Bataan province, one of the industrialized areas south of Metro Manila, I saw a sight that appalled me: floating plastic bags that stretched many kilometers along the seashore in that area.
- While traveling in the Philippines and Southeast Asia in the late 1990s to early 2000´s in my early 30´s, I have also thought that air pollution from the factories in Metro Manila and other densely populated cities in Asia were not at all good for the air circulating in the world.
Thus, hearing more talks about green technologies and sustainable development being discussed by politicians and environment activists, in connection with the Norwegian parliamentary elections in 2021, was like déjà vu moments for me.
Norway is not at all new to giving out foreign aid, and it has used much money since 2008 to preserve rain forests in Brazil, Indonesia, and some countries in Africa. As to how effective these efforts have been is another bigger topic outside of the scope of this article, but the conclusion is clear: Norway has succeeded a bit in curbing man-made activities that raze forests, but may be, not so much in preventing naturally occurring forest fires.
Having gotten in late 2021 a new government comprised of a coalition of the Labor Party and the Center Party that is open to cooperating with the leftist political parties that favor greener technologies and solutions, might be a good thing for Norway and the world at large. The new government has a chance to look at Norway´s shift to greener technologies with a new perspective that may lead to more effective plan of actions.
Faced with a warmer atmosphere that has caused the icebergs to melt faster in the last few years, torrential rains that have caused flash floods/bigger floods and landslides, and large-scale forest fires around the country, Norway´s new government and other governments in the rest of the world do not have much time to dilly-dally in coming up with a workable plan of action to re-greening and repairing the earth. The earth is now acting more like a ticking time bomb that may blow up anytime, and destroy much more of the areas and live we know today, so the next seven years would be very crucial to the survival of earth and modern life as we have known and seen it, especially in the past 20 to 30 years.
At 54 years old, on the first day of December 2021, I realized Norway was a bit late to come to the world´s rescue, given the extent plastics have invaded the seas of the world since the late 1990s. Norway turns out to be also slow in its efforts to make “sustainable green technologies” pervasive. The previous governments could have done more in this area, but they did not, so it is now up to the new government to crank up the speed.
But there is no such thing as too late, even for Norway, especially when it comes to saving itself – and the world at large – from natural and man-made catastrophes.
(To be continued …)
