I leave in seventeen days. What are Norwegian people like? Google tells me polite but reserved, with a great concern for the environment. Outdoorsy, passionate about hiking, the fjords, the sea. Not like the people I know.
I’m back living in Mum’s house, and the bin-men are on strike. At this point, all that means is general waste is collected every two weeks, and recycling never. If you have a car, you can take your recycling to the tip. We don’t have a car. Norway was ranked the seventh most sustainable country in the world on the SDSN SDG Index [1]. In Bergen, there is a waste management system that operates in an underground network, reducing the need for rubbish collection vehicles at all. Waste is either recycled or converted into energy, and used to heat buildings and homes [2]. I’m going to be the most enthusiastic recycler ever to reduce and reuse.
I keep looking at my accommodation online. It is a fifteen minute walk from three different hiking trails, and is next to one of the seven mountains of Bergen. I can’t wait to stop going to the gym for treadmills and stairmasters, boxed in by four walls and the shrill electric hum, and instead have a view, and a breeze.
I looked at my walk to campus on Google Maps. It starts off along the waterfront, and then winds its way through the town. There is a bus that takes fifteen minutes, but the walk is only half an hour. I think I will walk, because it’s pretty. Because I want to soak up every minute I’m there. Because I’ve breathed enough hot bus fumes from inside and out to last me a lifetime.
And because I want to see stars. Real stars. I’ve always lived in cities, including at university. In the north of Norway, Øvre Pasvik National Park is an International Dark Sky Place [3], caused by effective lighting policies and responsible outdoor lighting. Although Bergen is a city, and will be different, it’s Air Quality Index is consistently low, and it has very low pollution levels, and worked to reduce its CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020 [4]. I want to help prevent air pollution, want to cycle and walk and spend as much time as I can outside, without heaters and lights and hot water.
Norway aims to have a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, in comparison to 1990. As part of that, more than 80% of the new passenger cars are electric. They have introduced a CO2 tax [5]. I’m not in Bergen yet, but I want to protect those mountains too, those stars in the night sky, the fish in the sea. I think going will teach me how to be more sustainable in the everyday – because the Norwegians living there are. I think it will teach me things I’ll practice for the rest of my life.
1. https://dashboards.sdgindex.org/rankings
2. https://www.sustaineurope.com/bergen-a-green-city-with-its-heart-in-the-right-place-20190420.html
3. https://darksky.org/news/first-international-dark-sky-park-designated-in-norway/
4. https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/articles/bergen-norway/#:~:text=Bergen%20boasts%20exceptionally%20low%20pollution%20levels%2C%20with%20an,to%20sustainability%20reflects%20in%20its%20pristine%20environmental%20statistics.
5. https://www.sgi-network.org/2024/Norway/Environmental_Sustainability#:~:text=The%20country%20has%20a%20long%20tradition%20of%20environmental,forests%2C%20%E2%80%9Crepresentative%E2%80%9D%20marine%20areas%20and%20other%20natural%20areas.
