How Oslo Learned to Fight Climate Change

newyorker.com

21 points·haakonhr··6 comments

I would just like to say how much I appreciate the whole No-ICE-Construction-Vehicles thing as an Oslo parent who has to squeeze by a long-term waterworks project site every morning and afternoon for daycare dropoff. There's only a narrow pedestrian passage to get around the dig site.

The backhoes, augers -- even the dumptrucks -- are all full electric (!). It's a small, older street with narrow pedestrian detours on either side, but the noise levels are so low I can continue speaking at normal volume to my kids the whole way.

What they didn’t tell you in the article is that a lot of householdings in Oslo use firewood to keep their houses warm during the cold season.

People unloading firewood from their Tesla X/Audi e-tron is a usual sight in Oslo.

Oslo (that is Norway) cannot fight climate change. Not on its own.

The whole world as one maybe can.

To elaborate, Norway population is ~5M, which is ~0.05% of the the world population. Even if they were the worst polluters ever, at 20x average (they are not!) and even if they went back to living in caves and became vegetarian tomorrow -- the effect size would be 1% of the total world action.

And Oslo is just 12% of Norwegian population, so ...

I would have thought Norway can't fight climate change because of its dependence on oil exports.

Do you expect fighting climate change to look like synchronized swimming?

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