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Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

csmonitor.com

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Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#21

Post by whazor »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

Norway is an interesting case because their own energy grid is mostly powered by renewables. However, they export huge amounts of fossil fuels to other countries: > With their hydro-powered energy grid and electric cars, they are among the world’s most enthusiastic consumers of green power, but decades of exporting oil and gas means this nation of 5.3 million enjoys a generous welfare buffer, and sits on the world’s…

It would make more sense to use the fossil fuels in ways that are more sustainable.

Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#22

Post by _jal »

outside1234 wrote: post #13
bobthechef wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the drug dealer model: NEVER eat your own dog food.

Its worse than that. It is pretending to be against drugs while simultaneously being the biggest per capita seller of drugs. Its “just say no” with cartel scale sales operations.

So, Sacklerish.

(Sacklarian? Desackler-capitalism?)

Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#23

Post by dotancohen »

There is another reason for Norway to dig up the fossil fuels that gets little discussion: Russia. The Norwegian army's most pertinent threat is Russian invasion for the fossil-fuel reserves.

It is interesting that some precious resources, such as fossil fuels, are also a great liability. In retrospect, I can think of quite a few nations that would have seen far less foreign interference and invasion had they had less fossil fuel reserves. A Canadian tribe also once famously tried to hide their precious metals from Europeans for fear of invasion.

Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#24

Post by credit_guy »

Norway is wealthy because of its strong institutions. Nigeria and Venezuela have more oil, Azerbaijan and Libya too, but for them it's a curse not a blessing. Norway has the rule of law, low corruption, people have confidence in their government, and the government looks out for the people. With or without oil, these things are tremendous assets. If oil were to become worthless tomorrow, Norway would continue to do quite well. After all, Denmark has only a tenth of Norway's oil reserves, and about the same population. That doesn't make them ten times poorer, in fact their GDP per capita is only 20% lower.

Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#25

Post by rootsudo »

credit_guy wrote: post #24

Norway is wealthy because of its strong institutions. Nigeria and Venezuela have more oil, Azerbaijan and Libya too, but for them it's a curse not a blessing. Norway has the rule of law, low corruption, people have confidence in their government, and the government looks out for the people. With or without oil, these things are tremendous assets. If oil were to become worthless tomorrow, Norway would continue to do q…

This, but it's also agency too. People in those "other" countries never grew up in a safe, stable and reliable society.

What they see is the old system of explore and exploit.

Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#26

Post by anovikov »

rootsudo wrote: post #25
credit_guy wrote: post #24

Norway is wealthy because of its strong institutions. Nigeria and Venezuela have more oil, Azerbaijan and Libya too, but for them it's a curse not a blessing. Norway has the rule of law, low corruption, people have confidence in their government, and the government looks out for the people. With or without oil, these things are tremendous assets. If oil were to become worthless tomorrow, Norway would continue to do q…

This, but it's also agency too. People in those "other" countries never grew up in a safe, stable and reliable society. What they see is the old system of explore and exploit.

That's right, but here goes the question: colonialism provided a way to "export" safe, stable and reliable societies. And people rejected it. Was it a mistake?

Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#27

Post by space_fountain »

anovikov wrote: post #26
rootsudo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, but it's also agency too. People in those "other" countries never grew up in a safe, stable and reliable society. What they see is the old system of explore and exploit.

That's right, but here goes the question: colonialism provided a way to "export" safe, stable and reliable societies. And people rejected it. Was it a mistake?

I think most people would say colonialism did a poor job of explaining safety at least. Instead it was often powered by racism and subjugation. We do desperately need to find a way to help countries develop, but on the balance colonialism doesn’t seem to be it

Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#28

Post by pydry »

anovikov wrote: post #26
rootsudo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, but it's also agency too. People in those "other" countries never grew up in a safe, stable and reliable society. What they see is the old system of explore and exploit.

That's right, but here goes the question: colonialism provided a way to "export" safe, stable and reliable societies. And people rejected it. Was it a mistake?

Colonialism certainly liked to think it was "civilizing the savages" but that was far from its true intended purpose or effect.

Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#29

Post by rootsudo »

anovikov wrote: post #26
rootsudo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, but it's also agency too. People in those "other" countries never grew up in a safe, stable and reliable society. What they see is the old system of explore and exploit.

That's right, but here goes the question: colonialism provided a way to "export" safe, stable and reliable societies. And people rejected it. Was it a mistake?

That's another fun conversation of governance, rights and nation building.

Which, ironically has plagued South America for quite a while - The reason Colombia and Venezuela have similar flags is they had the same wars and fight for freedom. They freed themselves from Spain and then became the institutions we know today. Corrupt, semi corrupt nation states, not on a national level but influence can be bought.

Africa no idea, but that's the thing, was it fully rejection?

Not every country can be the United States in terms of fighting for freedom, gaining independence and being successful. You can still go into many parts of New England and see lots of British influence.

Also Florida, and see much Spanish influence.

It isn't as much as "export" but building, having a plan and the problem then (and possibly event today) is that the people who are successful, ethical, moral and such are living comfortable lives.

Prisoners were most of the people that were on the Spanish ships that sailed to Venezuela and Colombia and built much of that, alongside prisoners were political refugees such as Jewish people and people who were destitute. Religious political refugees too, bad enough stuff but not exactly criminal.

You can kinda align it today with the people who are ground on troops with USA in AFghanistan, where we exported our way of life for 20 years.

Overnight, erased. The people there didn't want it, we didn't leave anyone part of the military behind and whomever had some influence slid into power or fled for their life.

--

I don't even know where to begin w/ Africa, I'm not up to date on their History or such besides some/much used to belong to the French.

Re: Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

#30

Post by nowayman1 »

credit_guy wrote: post #24

Norway is wealthy because of its strong institutions. Nigeria and Venezuela have more oil, Azerbaijan and Libya too, but for them it's a curse not a blessing. Norway has the rule of law, low corruption, people have confidence in their government, and the government looks out for the people. With or without oil, these things are tremendous assets. If oil were to become worthless tomorrow, Norway would continue to do q…

No - Norway hasnt been treated like Nigeria, Venezuela, Azerbaijan and Libya because Norway is a white western country. Thus, neither the US/UK/France nor others will topple democratic regimes in Norway to get at the resources.

Nigeria, Venezuela, Azerbaijan and Libya on the other hand are "expendable" nations where western powers clear the slate and build as they like. Usually in the name of Democracy, but really in the name of money.

A perfect example is Iraq -- the US installed Saddam Hussein, then armed him, let me rule the country to despair, then the US spent two decades removing him and re-destroying the country. All the while, cheap to free oil was extracted from the nation for the benefit of western powers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme

Nigeria, Venezuela, Azerbaijan and Libya are corrupt because the US/UK/others install corrupt regimes and topple democratic ones.

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