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How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

bbc.com

41–50 of 146 posts

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#41
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just sensationalist clickbait. The whale species hunted are not endangered and there is no ban on hunting these whales. There are many species of creatures which actually are and which you should spend more time caring about though. These whales are not among them.

So Norway isn't violating a whaling ban?

[deleted]

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#42
I've often said the Nordic countries in general are as close to a Star Trek style civilisation as we've ever gotten.

As someone who lives in America Lite (the UK) your policies on just about everything strike me as insanely reasonable.

I pretty much feel shame whenever I think about our last two governments.

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#43
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Norway isn't violating a whaling ban?

There is no law which bans it. Just an agreement among several countries which Norway isn't a part of as far as I know.

Fair enough. Although I personally would prefer it if whales were left alone.

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#44
post #38
post #9

Statoil and how Norway essentially protected its future is a lot like how Australia should have dealt with the so-called mining boom. Named and outlined better, our "mining tax" could have been this. It could have protected against capital flight and essentially built national strength for all at the expense of those (especially foreign interests) looking to dig up serious swathes of our ground. Instead, we had a pre…

as an australian, i m sadden by this. Why isn't there public outrage and change? =(

Because the mining industry is powerful (major share of our exports) and big business dominates the media. They get the public fearful about the loss of jobs.

Further, Labor's infighting put off a lot of people while the Coalition were consistent with their message in opposition.

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#45
post #17

i want to go there so bad :(

Well, make it happen. University is one option: http://www.studyinnorway.no/Tuition-Scholarships I say this not to be glib, but as someone who yearned to move abroad and found out that it wasn't as hard as I thought.

"However, you should take into consideration that living expenses in Norway are higher than in many other countries."

I don't have a job right now, no savings, 29 years old, and paperwork bore me. There are dozens of those "programs", and I don't want to spend one entire week sorting it out to discover I can't afford to just live over there.

I want to go there no question asked, to work, not to study.

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#46
post #9

Statoil and how Norway essentially protected its future is a lot like how Australia should have dealt with the so-called mining boom. Named and outlined better, our "mining tax" could have been this. It could have protected against capital flight and essentially built national strength for all at the expense of those (especially foreign interests) looking to dig up serious swathes of our ground. Instead, we had a pre…

There was even discussion around this prior to the disastrous introduction of the mining tax[1][2]. Interestingly there was at least some support on both sides of politics for it.

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/a-n...

[2] http://www.afr.com/p/national/gillard_rejects_call_for_wealt...

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#47
post #19

Since we're talking about how awesome Norway is, this [0] should be mentioned. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam#Norway

It's an awesome right. As a Finn I always find it really weird when visiting places outside Nordic Countries that for them most of the country is unaccessible.

In Germany we don't got this right, but seldom I have been prohibited from "roaming" the landside. But we aren't allowed to put a tent anywhere and sleep in it, which is rather sad.

A friend of mine went on a hiking holiday in Scotland and he told me, he just walked till he was tired, put his tent up on the next green spot and slept there.

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#48

I've often said the Nordic countries in general are as close to a Star Trek style civilisation as we've ever gotten. As someone who lives in America Lite (the UK) your policies on just about everything strike me as insanely reasonable. I pretty much feel shame whenever I think about our last two governments.

Who knows, Scotland might be able to follow that model soon?

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#49
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an awesome right. As a Finn I always find it really weird when visiting places outside Nordic Countries that for them most of the country is unaccessible.

In Germany we don't got this right, but seldom I have been prohibited from "roaming" the landside. But we aren't allowed to put a tent anywhere and sleep in it, which is rather sad. A friend of mine went on a hiking holiday in Scotland and he told me, he just walked till he was tired, put his tent up on the next green spot and slept there.

As an aside, here in Scotland you quite often don't even need to put up a tent - there are houses/huts in a lot of wild locations, known as bothies, that are completely free to use:

http://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/

Re: How Norway has avoided the 'curse of oil'

#50
post #21

The economics of mining are complicated, but there are some similarities to the startup/VC complex. A big part of developing mines is exploration. Finding minerals can be hard, especially in the north sea. The oceans are big. The difficulty is why there are still new deposits being discovered. Exploration usually happens when the company doing it can hope to make money off of a successful discovery. They might even p…

> Politicians definitely don't want to be investing during their term for the benefit of politicians 10 years from now.

you've hit the nail - short term gains vs long term losses. What you need is some mechanism to make it so that the long term benefits align with the benefits of the politician - for example, the project(s) you start stays with you, even after you're term is over.

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