Renewable Energy and the Reindeer
Norway’s solution to mitigate climate change is threatening an age-old way of sustainability
There is no cutting-edge climate technology inhumed in the blanket of white snow that covers the tundra in Jokkmokk, Sweden — a small hamlet in the Swedish Lapland. Nor are there glossy climate research centers — let alone people at all–but according to Scandinavia’s indigenous Sami people, the snow is nowhere as abundant as it used to be. “When I was young, the snow used to be up to our shoulders,” an elderly Sami woman tells me. “Years later, up to the belt. Eventually, the knees. Now look, it’s up to the ankles.” She motions toward her booted feet outside of her home. Even though it’s mid-February, the snow hardly covers them.
The Arctic region where the Sami live, along with the polar bear, has long been a poster child for the environmental crisis. The symbolism exists for a reason — with its high proportion of ice, the region acts as an amplifier of sorts for the global heat engine as the ice melts and seas rise. The results are catastrophic — causing major global socio-economic, psychological, and ecological impacts. Once triggered, they may continue for centuries and cause irreversible change to ice sheets, global circulation, and sea level rise. Indigenous people, like the Sami of Lapland, are at the…
