Newsletter: We actively construe the part of our memory that fits into our image of the world
Arctic sea ice northwest of Greenland. (Source: Malik on Flickr.com under CC BY 2.0)
Dear Reader!
"Out of sight, out of mind" is a well-known saying. A phrase that may appear to hit home with the way the world’s politicians are managing the climate changes that are sneaking up on us, rather than turning us over, though the people who live up north – even if we aren’t that many in number – are already feeling it on their bodies. March will, according to the Norwegian Met Office, be the 100th consecutive month with temperatures above normal on Svalbard.
Nevertheless, many have underestimated today’s youth, who are now speaking up and refusing to be ignored on the issue of climate change. Around the same time as new research is published, indicating that the Arctic Ocean might be ice-free in the summer within the few next decades, some 40,000 Norwegian kids shirked school to object to the parents generation’s lack of action.
We actively construe the part of our memory that fits into our image of the world. And the image of the world of climate historian Sverker Sjölin provides for a most interesting read. It remains to be seen whether he is talking to deaf ears, however, the engaged Swede does not give in. In a large interview with High North News, he draws parallels between the climate changes and an increasingly nationalist and populist world. New thoughts, at least for the undersigned, and perhaps to you too?
Today, High North News published the first out of a series of analyses about the Arctic seen from the outside, written for UTSYN. Today’s analysis is written by Terje Bruøygard, former head of the Telemark Battalion, and he focuses on the American perspectives.
And – not to forget – a truly encouraging article in the wake of the Iditarod, where the fans of musher Blair Braverman collected more than USD 100,000 to small communities in Alaska.
With these stories, and with Editor-in-Chief Arne O. Holm’s wise notes following his meeting with the mother of the Arctic Council, Mary Simon in Canada, we wish you all the best for the weekend. We also bid you a warm welcome to the High North Dialogue conference next week, where a.o. [Norwegian] Prime Minister Erna Solberg and a series of foreign ambassadors will attend.
Siri Gulliksen Tømmerbakke,
News Editor, High North News