Welcome to the crisis

Previously posted on July 6, 2020. Reposted due to the extreme weather conditions all over the world (including Sweden) this summer. 

Erika Bjerström is a Swedish reporter and former environmentalist activist. "Klimatkrisens Sverige" is her recently published book about the climate crisis. Or rather the climate crisis in Sweden. It´s interesting comparing it to Jonathan Jeppson´s "Åtta steg mot avgrunden", reviewed by me elsewhere, another book on the climate crisis published in 2020 by a Swedish journalist. Jeppson´s book sounds apocalyptic, while Bjerström describes the climate crisis as something creeping and gradual. Ironically, this actually makes her book *more* scary than Jeppson´s. Although I don´t doubt that climate change could lead to apocalyptic consequences, the apocalypse meme as such feels old and worn out. We are being sold one every other week, it seems. But what if climate change is instead a slow decline that sneaks up on us, becoming "the new normal", until it´s suddenly too late? (Btw, I don´t believe Jeppson and Bjerström necessarily disagrees on the facts. I´m refering more to the general atmosphere of their respective books.) 

Sweden is warming twice as fast as the global average, since the country is situated very far north. The average temperature has increased with 1.7 degrees centigrade compared to preindustrial times. The climate zones in Sweden are moving north with about eleven meters per day. In the future, the mountain ranges in northern Sweden will no longer have an Alpine climate. The tree line has moved steadily upwards, with 230 meters in 100 years. The pristine Alpine landscape will be turned into an enormous forest of conifers and birches. More rain will make mosquitos and flies super-abundant. One of Sweden´s foremost tourist attractions will be turned into "a shrubby mosquito hell". In Abisko national park, the local Arctic flora and fauna is heading for a mass extinction. The average temperatures in the park have increased with two degrees since 1913. Trees now grow at places where there have been none for 7,000 years! Meanwhile, Swedish glacials have lost one third of their total area since 1916. The growing season in the Arctic has increased with four weeks in a century, according to detailed studies made in Abisko. The plants become higher, the winters milder. When the permafrost thaws, quicksilver leaks out into the food chain. This can eventually lead to detrimental consequences for both reindeer and the Native Sami population. The entire reindeer herding business might disappear, for this and other climate-related reasons. 

Climate scientists predict that the annual average temperatures in Sweden will increase with 3 to 5 degrees until the end of the century. In northern Sweden, the increase might be 10 degrees! There will on average be more rainfall, although it´s possible that some areas will become drier instead. Heat waves will increase in numbers, more people will die of the heat and various diseases which thrive in warmer climactic conditions. Due to disturbances in the jet stream, both high-pressure and low-pressure areas might "get stuck" above Sweden for longer periods than usual, leading to extreme weather. Clean water will become more scarce as groundwater supplies are diminished, lakes turn dystrophic, or becomes poisoned by cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). Warmer water temperatures means more virus and bacteria. Swedish towns built around lakes and rivers are flooded already today, and this too will only get worse in the future. Of course, water purification and air conditioning will still be operational - but this requires enormous amounts of energy, and might led to higher energy prices. 

Another problem are "invasive species". The author does point out that such species are invasive only from a utilitarian human viewpoint. Nature doesn´t have a "viewpoint" at all, it´s simply out there. Ticks can already be found all over Sweden. More ominous are the "monster ticks" Hyalomma marginatum and Hyalomma rufipes, which can spread dangerous tropical diseases such as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. But Sweden is also invaded by regular tick species from Russia, which live by sucking blood from farm animals, often spreading disease in the process. Aphids are spreading in the new climate. The profitable Swedish forest industry could in the near future be attacked by the emerald ash borer and a moth known as black arches. They could also destroy city parks. Blueberries and lingonberries might disappear from Swedish forests, devastating another local industry. Other plant species will thrive: ferns, nettles or the Asian knotweed, which grows everywhere and slowly kills all other vegetation. 

Swedish agriculture was for a long time in denial about the consequences of global warming. It was rather seen as an excellent opportunity to introduce soy, quinoa and edible maize, three cash crops not grown in Sweden at present. Today, such dreams have been replaced by cold (or rather hot) realities. Climate change will lead to bad harvests. The production of dairy products, meat and beer will also be negatively impacted. Consumer prices will rise. Sweden has a self-sufficiency rate of only 45%, having an extremely globalized economy dependent on international supply chains (including food). A more ironic effect of climate change will be that the most privileged people in Sweden will be hit first by rising sea levels (in the so-called Third World, it´s usually the poorest that are impacted first). The luxury houses at Falsterbo in southern Sweden might be literally flooded at some point in the future, destroying property valued at a total of 70 billion kronor! 

While Bjerström´s book is about local conditions in Sweden, it´s obviously impossible to avoid the global big picture. At some point, the area around the Mediterranean Sea will become literally impossible to inhabit, due to average temperatures around 40 degrees centigrade. And even before that, agriculture will become almost impossible. Millions of people from southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East will move northwards, where the climate - despite everything I just said above - will still be tolerable compared to Mediterranean standards. They will be followed by even larger migrations from the tropics, which will also become uninhabitable. What will happen to Swedish democracy and hospitality when tens of millions of refugees want to get inside, perhaps desperately? One of the scientists interviewed by the author suggests that 50 million people might live in Sweden without any problems! (Today, Sweden has a population of 9 million.) Clearly a pro-immigration fanatic, since 50 million people *obviously* isn´t sustainable given all other facts mentioned in the book (and here above in the blog post). As a good liberal, Bjerström never calls for closed borders, but it´s difficult to see how this can be avoided already at much lower levels than 50 million. The book ends with some comic relief: an interview with an official optimist named Svante Axelsson who believes that of course we can solve all problems, blah blah.

My main take away from "Klimatkrisens Sverige" is that Nature will always find a way, even in the Anthropocene. The real challenge is for modern civilization, or at the very least the human species, to survive the coming storms. As long as the changes are as gradual as described in this volume, it´s still within the realm of the possible to adapt to them. Which doesn´t mean it will be easy! It requires a degree of national solidarity and resolve not seen in this country for a very long time. The problem, of course, is that Sweden ultimately cannot isolate itself from the rest of the world, or the rest of the atmosphere. Indeed, our little country might become a *very* valuable piece of real estate when the tropics and sub-tropics are emptied of human inhabitants, most of them moving north. Another problem is of course that the collapse will come even faster if we really would stop using fossil fuels tomorrow morning, suggesting that it won´t be done. The very same fossil fuels that "fuel" climate change in the first place... 

Perhaps the differences between Erika Bjerström and Jonathan Jeppson aren´t that large, after all.