https://www.sustainabledevelopmentindex.org/time-series
for anyone reader’s interest: here’s an insider look into what the graph tells of the Nordic countries.
the reason all of Nordic countries were at the top was because after the 2nd world war we held the world’s highest class-mobility. to create educative children’s shows was the highest social status among artists. to go to ‘folkhögskolor’ was the norm. none of this wellfare was funded on a war-machine but high taxes (think 1/3 is taxes on anything) and Keynesian economics (think tax the rich, make being a worker into a social status symbol, reward loyal workers with a middle-class life like lifelong income stability and luxury goods like free vacation homes from the workplace. as thanks for loyalty. we called eachother “SJ barn” if we were children of a family working in swedish national railways, it became a status thing and a league of it’s own to work generationally for a workplace. strengthens bonds internally.)
now coming off of seventy something years of charismatic “left-wing” party leaders, our prime minister was assassinated in an alley one night in 1986. Olof Palme was dead. public shock. no one wanted to believe it.
i am at first glance surprised the chart shows Sweden peaking into net-neutral climate emissions per this index in 1993, because after the assassination we had the weakest government in Sweden’s history, but at second glance i am not surprised. it was the culmination of almost a century of “left wing” politics. Sweden was riding that wave before the unorganized “right-wing” realized opportunities in this weak government’s place. the following decades for Sweden was and has been increasingly cold “right-wing” politics. it took thirty years but now austerity politics has defunded and cut down the wellfare system to be on the level of efficiency of other countries and our climate politics is at the lowest it’s ever been. there is no political courage and no party politics: only individual politicians managing perception, vainly, in polls. Sweden is a polar opposite today in political government than in the wake of Olof Palme’s assassination. we see that reflect in the worsening emissions. i’d go on to say sweden is less diverse today when racists in government go out to say “we"ll pay you tax money to go back to where you came from, immigrants”(!!!) compared to our 1970s 1980s when television quota was “every fourth child shown on children’s television must be representative of marginalized people in swedish society” so we had a quota. americans cry about DEI whatever. we had that in the 70s 80s while educating about Iran Iraq and children forced into labour in chinese factories and breaking toxic gender stereotypes of “brutal boys” and “gentle girls”. read the documentation from someone who was there in the television inddustry: Malena Jansson - när bara den bästa TV:n var bra nog åt barnen. (when only the best TV was good enough for the children.)
USA to the west, Russia to the east, nordic countries in the middle - especially Sweden led that way. Olof Palme was everyone’s favourite prime minister.
as for Norway… they began drilling oil… once oppressed by Sweden & Denmark since just after the viking ages, suddenly financially strong and independent. it was good for them and they’re deserving of freedom from their colonized oppressors. i know there is more sea-based wind-power in norway these days than anywhere else and that the oil rigs are kept up to the highest scrutiny for pollution filters in the world. still, a stronger nordic economical union would lower that need for them to drill.
idk what happened for Finland to drift into emitting so much pollution. my educated guess is increased military tensions at their border to Russia since Olof Palme died. the european peace agreement between nordic countries and Russia was named after Olof Palme. thirty years later only scandals and tatters from the dropped ball that was de-militarization and peace activism on state levels. these states used to hold other states accountable peacefully while leading by example. it used to be that this one part of the world enforced other parts of the world to follow suit. now no such standard exists. our literal government handed Greta Thunberg over to Israeli torture themselves. i am not surprised if the current Prime Minister enjoys that and has paid any money for humiliating footage of her from the five days she was kept there. five days of swedish diplomats walking away from their in-person interviews with her and downplaying the degree of torture to family members through their teeth. Ulf Kristersson (of “the Liberals”, a party formerly named the Christian “Democrats”) & Jimmy Åkesson (of the Sweden “Democrats”, formerly of the literal youth nazi party) are crooks just like Nixon & Reagan & Bush. Not like Trump level.
welp They are not my politicians. nordic countries are at an all-time authoritarian & short-term-profit crisis after thirty years of weaker political leadership. i’d say we didn"t enter the network era gracefully, as per Manuell Castell’s terminology, after being the world’s finest states in the service era.
we are sparsely populated and have the world’s best agro-forestry policies in place. alot of room for improvement, like Lübeck style forestry…
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyggesfritt_skogsbruk
https://www.skogsstyrelsen.se/globalassets/mer-om-skog/skogsskotselserien/skogsskotsel-serien-11-bladningsbruk.pdf
still collective traffic is in chaos from AI scalpers urging services like AI reading of bus- and trainstops. since the pandemic. unbearably bad pronounciation and insane costs. for the first time cameras are put up in public spaces and immense amounts of private security guards are patrolling. on collective traffic’s budget cost. no income, just expenditure for worse services. because refugees and racist politicians appealing to a “social media” radicalized society of sleepwalkers. yes, nordic country has sleepwalkers. safe big wellfare bubble. people still await Olof Palme’s return. that’s what right-wing fash propaganda is appealing to: the old socialist wellfare ways. yet it’s ironic and insincere.