Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. Today we are bringing you the fourth and final episode of the miniseries The Black Thread, about Norway's complicated relationship with its identity as both a progressive leader and an oil state. This mini series comes to you from the host of the Communicating climate change podcast, Dick and von vick Stone, and was created in collaboration with Norwegian nonprofit Climate Culture.
In today's episode, we look at Norway beyond Oil because despite the limits that Norway's oil industry imposes on its citizens' ability to imagine a future without fossil fuels, people all over the country are starting to speak up, take action, and begin the work to free themselves from the industry's influence. We're excited to bring you this fourth and final episode of The Black Thread.
Enjoy Welcome back to The Black Thread, a podcast unraveling Norway's complex relationship with prosperity, identity, and responsibility in a warming world. I'm Dickon, a climate communications expert based in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, tracing the Black Thread oil through Norway's
society and culture. Last time, we picked at the needlework, uncovering dropped stitches in the stories and rhetoric of the Norwegian fossil fuel industry and the logic championed by Norway's major political parties to extend the country's oil age long into the future. Reflecting back to the first episode of this series, and sociologists carry nor Guards claim that when you study something that's a threat to society, you start
to see how things work. I think it's fair to say that through this journey of discovery drilling into Norway's oil story, we've begun to do exactly that. But where do we go from here? In this closing episode of The Black Thread, we'll look forwards imagining Norway's future with
help from leading experts. We'll explore how Norway might begin to loosen oil's grip on its politics and identity, and hear how different voices envision aligning the country's actions with its values, its reputation, and the realities of a change in climate. In short, how Norwegian society might free itself
from the influence of oil. Along the way, we'll hear a range of perspectives on what it could take to unpick the Black Thread from strengthening journalism and civic debate to reducing the influence of fossil fuels across culture, sports and public life, and drawing on Norway's long traditions of care, courage and collaboration to shape what comes next. To get us started, let's hear from Carrie Norgard, a sociologist are referenced earlier who studied how societies grapple with climate change,
including here in Norway. Her work looks at the cultural and emotional dimensions of denial and inaction, and how our shared values, traditions, and sense of belonging shape what feels possible in a country where as we've learned in previous episodes, oil is bound up with the national identity. This lens is crucial for understanding not only why Norway struggles to imagine the end of its oil age, but also where change might come from.
For all of us, Imagining the future is difficult in different kinds of ways, and for sure in Norway there's just this wonderful grounding in sensive history in the past as a way of understanding the present. At the same time, we have to be able to imagine the future. Norwegians, like most of us, should be doing more of that. And understanding the ways that our imaginers of the future may be shaped by assumptions about the present that may
or may not be accurate. I think we need to understand the reasons that we are where we are in order to get somewhere else.
Carry emphasizes that our ability to imagine the future is often shaped and sometimes limited by assumptions we carry about the present, and across this series, it has become clear that many of the barriers to imagining a future beyond oil in Norway aren't accidental. Critics argue that petroganda doesn't just defend the industry, it helps shape what people see
as possible, influencing both thought and feeling. Building on that, Carrie's research suggests that fear, guilt, and a sense of helplessness have played a central role in shaping Norwegian's responses to climate change. I asked her which emotions, in contrast, might help societies like Norway engage differently, and what they might reveal about the country's capacity for change.
Recognizing that this whole system is operating and that it's not just a matter of that people don't care or that people don't know. I think that's really important, and so trying to paint a understanding of the world where it takes courage to and so what are the conditions under which we can find that courage And I think community is one. I think traditions that point us to a sense of responsibility where we don't have a choice
to care or not are very, very valuable. And so political social movements can create a larger feeling of capacity where there's common purpose and more power felt in that. And I think we can circle around to Yantolovin in a way there and think about ways that there can be created subcultures of engagement building off of existing social traditions, existing points of pride. I have an article with a colleague on donod.
Remember the Norwegian concept of dougnod from episode one, This idea of volunteering to a collective purpose and contributing to the greater good.
There's a possible springboard for climate action. And the idea of climate dougnod is an antidote to individualism.
Right.
We're made to believe that we should think of action at the individual scale, but ultimately we are much more powerful when we work collectively, and so it's a cultural tool that allows collective action to take place.
So according to Carry, simply recognizing these limits to imagination and to action is an important first step. But then what In a society that prizes consensus, Stepping outside the norm can feel almost impossible. Several of our experts contend that this is part of how oil interests maintain their hold in Norway. By presenting oil as common sense, as the responsible and pragmatic choice, it makes oppositions seem unseerious or even extreme. Carry reminds us that courage doesn't have
to come from lone individuals. It can grow from community. From the same values, Norwegians already live by consensus, collective responsibility, and a love of nature. Those values once helped protect the oil story. Consensus silenced opposition, collective responsibility made oil feel like a shared national project, and love of nature became a story where money and technology could protect the environment even as the damaging forces of extraction and consumption escalated.
But Carry suggests those same cultural instincts can also guide Norway in a new direction. Consensus can open space for honest debate, collective responsibility can mean holding leaders and companies to account, and a love of nature can grow from reverence into stewardship, and yet even when society will courage and debate grow, their impact depends on how these pressures
interact with politics. Understanding how change unfolds inside institutions can reveal opportunities for influence, which is precisely where bord Lane, from the University of Oslo's Oil and Society Research Network comes in. With a storied background in both activism and advocacy, Board offers a window into how change actually happens within Norway's political system and what's possible when people come together to make their priorities known.
One thing that's easy to miss when you see policy making from the outside the institutions is how dynamic things
really are. So this is some reason for hope and for hoping that change might actually be more achievable than it might sometimes seem, because from the outside it's very easy to see the government or the political system as a kind of a monolithic thing, right, But the role of civil servants and the role of the different ministries and so on, it kind of cuts both ways, because in one way it serves to conserve to some extent and to make changes difficult, but it also makes sure
that there are lots of viewpoints represented in policy processes, even if it might not look like that from the outside.
I have this one vivid memory from the process when I was helping to write this government commission report on a new climate policy or Norway towards twenty fifty were I and a group of people were sitting inside the Ministry of Climate and Environment writing this new report, and then suddenly all of the entrances to the ministry were blocked by activists, including Great Tatunberg, And it was such an absurd feeling sitting inside this ministry actually writing a
report that tried to make many of the same points that the protesters were making. Right, The point is not to say that, you know, protesters should go more easy on the institutions or anything like that to the country. I think a strong voice outside these buildings really help
build momentum for change inside them. But I would say, at least for these activists, it should be a reason for hope that most of the times you could count on the fact that at least someone within these institutions are actually echoing some of your points, and so by making a strong case outside, you're actually strengthening some voices inside, and you should be maybe looking for allies within these institutions.
This example reinforces carry Norga's point the collective action is vital. Strong visible activism outside government can reinforce voices working for change inside. Public pressure strengthens the internal advocates who are shaping policy behind the scenes. And this isn't just theory. Public pressure recently pushed the Norwegian government to divest the oil fund from Israeli companies tied to the genocide in Gaza. It also influenced the moratorium on seabed mining and shaped
responses to indigenous Sami rights violations too. So Norwegians aren't powerless in the face of oil industry rhetoric.
Far from it.
Public opinion plays an important role in shaping the political landscape, providing it's loud and clear. What we think of as normal shapes what we do and say. But normal isn't fixed. It shifts over time as people see what others are doing and saying. In Norway, as we discussed in the first episode of this series, the tendency towards self censorship and not rocking the boat can high how much attitudes
are changing. When polling makes that visible. What once seemed fringe starts to feel mainstream, giving people confidence to speak up, act and push their leaders to respond. And for those who can't or don't wish to protest publicly, there's another powerful way to drive change, the right to vote. Sillia ask Lundberg, head of north Sea Campaigning at Oil Change International, shares insight on how Norwegians might align their votes with their values.
In terms of oil and gas policy. Fifty percent ish of the general public wants to stop exploring for new oil and gas or to slow down exploration, so they want some kind of reduction, and the parties that support that and have party manifestos that are in line with that, that would be m the gear. So the Green Party es the Socialist Left Party, then slid the Liberal Party and wret the Red Party.
In the recent national election, several of the parties stillia mentioned those advocating to slow or stop new oil exploration made significant gains. These outcomes point to an appetite for change. But even in a relatively open political system like Norway's, where citizens often have direct access to decision makers, policy shifts don't happen automatically. They depend on debates carried out
in good faith with credible information at the center. Our experts suggest that for people to support or critique climate policy, they need to understand how ambitious or timid government proposals really are, and they need tools to hold politicians accountable for following through on their promises. That requires journalism to play its part to moderate the debate, fact check the claims, and make complex issues accessible, as well as to cover
major protests or actions when they happen. Too Yet, in Norway, especially when it comes to oil, gas and climate politics, we've heard in previous episodes how the press often struggles to provide the level of scrutiny required as journalists. Writer and project leader at the Norwegian Climate Foundation, Anakarr and Sather explains the gap in critical climate literate journalism leaves citizens without the reliable information they need to make informed choices.
Well, there's two few journalists that write about oil and gas in a way. Back in the nineties we had lots of oil journalists in a way, but now we have too few experts in media and a lot of people think that climate and energy politics in general are complicated and they're afraid of doing something wrong. So among the political journalists and commentators, there is hardly anything about
oil and gas. Perhaps that's also because there is normally not conflict lines through the big parties, like between the Conservatives and the Social Democrats. They agree on the oil and gas politics, so that's part of the reason as well. But I think the media should step up their game. They just need to learn more about it and to be more eager to learn. I think they have an important role in shaping our minds and their hearts in this area.
A recent PhD thesis on climate journalism confirms what Anna Karen observes. Coverage of oil in Norway is minimal and often shallow. The study concluded that quote journalism's ability to highlight the climate oil connection in Norway is limited due to oil industry hegemony and journalistic norms and routines end quote in practice. As we've heard in previous episodes, this means that much of the public discourse about oil is untethered from the real environmental and social stakes of burning
fossil fuels. Considering the idea we've heard floated about the social costs of acting outside perceived social norms, I asked Ana Karen whether her outspokenness on oil and climate had ever drawn pushback or professional consequences.
Not at all. And talk to everyone in oil and everyone in politics. I haven't had any problems at all. In social media, you can get criticism. You will be portrayed as someone who is not smart enough to understand how things really are, not smart enough to understand how the economy is, or things like that. Scientists say that it is the extremes that are most active in social media,
so that's understandable. But there's a huge movable middle that we can communicate with and they may not raise their voice that much, but they are there. They are listening. That's what we have to work with to give them facts and to give them some other stories than what they are used to.
Reflecting back to carry nor guards call for courage, journalists can take some comfort in Ana Khan's words, there is a receptive audience and a movable middle ready to engage. The silence around oil won't break itself, but it can be challenged through clear, persistent reporting that connects the dots.
Some have already been active in this work. For example, Standout News reports on the activist group People Against Fossil Power during the Ski World Championships told a compelling story about regular citizens making a stand, made the connections between oil, climate and the threat to winter sports, and followed the interactions between activists, sports people and scientists through to its successful conclusion. Elsewhere, As Anikarin explains, Norway's journalists need to
step up their game. The facts need to reach the people and be connected to broader public debates. And even then, another challenge remains accountability. Journalism's role doesn't end with exposure. As author, journalist and climate data expert Catanjoshi explains, it also means following up, tracing where the promises lead to action, and applying pressure to make it so.
So now is pretty comparable with other countries that I like to call progressive climate villains, which is, you know, countries like Australia, countries like Canada that have center or center left governments go to cop meetings with a lot of sort of bluster and confidence, but really don't have the numbers to back it up. We make progress. Our transport sector is actually seeing a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions due to the deployment of electric vehicles. These are
real numbers. It's going down it's good, but the question is is it going down in line with what our previous targets were, And no, it's not. Governments should be held accountable, no matter whether you like them or hate them. They should be held accountable to their promises, and if they're failed, give them a chance to explain it. Maybe there are good reasons, but to just refuse to check
is really bad. And just like the other countries that I analyze, Norway is among the countries that really just avoids the question. When people think about climate delay or climate denial, they often think about things that are real problems, like misinformation from the fossil fuel industry, or corruption among politicians and companies. All of those things are really material
and significant. But I've become quite obsessed with hollowness and emptiness of rhetoric, and I think Norway is among the countries that knows how to make a good speech. But when it comes to their actual accountability, that's when things start falling apart a little bit. When emissions fail to fall as fast as they should, part of it is because we heard the right thing, but we didn't follow up to check whether or not people did the right thing.
So my understanding is that the social cost of weak climate journalism isn't just a less informed public. It also gives politicians room to talk the talk without walking it. Catan notes that Norway often sounds ambitious on the international stage, but as we explored, when the previous episode, follow Through tends to lag behind alongside visible activism, then journalism is one of the clearest ways to push back against industry
influence when it falters. Oil doesn't just dominate politics. We've heard how it seeps into culture, art, sport, and the stories people tell themselves and each other about what it means to be Norwegian. The report What is Norwegian Energy Culture from Klimaculture, a nonprofit focused on climate, nature and justice, documents the reach of this influence across public debate and
daily life. That's the thread we're pulling on here, how oil's presence in everyday life shapes what Norwegians see is normal and how it might finally be unpicked. Activism, voting, and journalism all offer paths to change, but there are other ways to loosen oil's grip too. Yuliafortschammer from Klimacutuur suggests how Norway might begin to do so through alternative means, drawing on moments of past leadership and change.
The very first thing we have to do is to make people aware of how much the fossil funding is, because in the culture sector it's really not that much money, but it seems so much harder to stop it because people are worth for the funding. But what we see in the UK, where so many cultural institutions already have kicked out fossil fuels, is that they have to do
it because the audience demanded. My dream for the culture sector in Norway and also for sports is that children and young people should not be exposed and should not be wearing logos advertising for companies who are actively hurting this world. I think we should start to talk about how Norway reacted to tobacco back in the seventies, Noah being one of the countries in the world who was the first to band tobacco advertising in nineteen seventy five.
And I think we really have to understand how bizarre it is that someone advertising such a harmful product gets so much access to our minds, to our children, to everyone through them very rarely respected actors like schools, museums, arts, etc. What we really need to start talking about in Norway when it comes to petroganda, fossil fuel advertising, sponsorships, etc.
Is that it's becoming illegal. So many places in the world right now, more and more cities and readients and even countries are talking and have implemented fossil fuel advertising bands fossil fuel sponsorship bands. So it's not even a question about what is right or wrong and how do you feel? And what about the money and all that it could also become totally illegal.
Julia's point is pretty straightforward. If sponsorships and ads from oil and gas companies help normalize their presence in everyday life, then limiting that exposure could open space for new voices, new partners, and a cultural life more in tune with what she sees as Norway's core values. And Norway wouldn't
be starting from scratch. The country already has a history of restricting advertising from industries that cause harm from tobacco, go to junk food, and with similar bands on fossil fuel promotion and gaining traction around the world supported by voices as prominent as the United Nations, Norway would simply be keeping step with its peers. Also, interestingly, the sums
of money involved here aren't immense. In a previous episode, we heard how Norway's national oil company, Equinor, spends around seven million dollars a year on cultural sponsorships, an amount Yulia believes is small enough to be replaced by more socially responsible partners. All of this suggests, at least to me that the symbolic power of fossil sponsorship far outweighs its financial scale. If the will exists, change is well within reach, and the change might even already have started.
One of Norway's thirteen science centers, institutions we've heard criticized for being amplifiers of petroganda, has explicitly refused to partner with Equinor, stating that such a relationship would conflict with their values. But thinking about Norway's fuel future isn't just about who funds its culture or how public debate and
political accountability are strengthened. Sociologists carry more. God points out that a deep belief in innovation and modernity runs through the national psyche, shaping how the country approaches climate challenges and what solutions feel possible in the first place.
Amongst the things that I've found really unique and really wonderful, but also that maybe shape the particular ways that people think about climate change include the sense that modernism is working. There's a sense of optimism therefore in technology, and of course this can be a wonderful thing. A sense of optimism is very important if you're trying to solve problems.
There's a trajectory that the world has gotten better and better, that technology works, and then climate change really can come face to face a challenge that But if you aren't as bought into the idea that the world is getting better and better and that modernism is so universally a
good thing. For example, if you're a sami per, the rise of Norwegian modernism has led to pretty severe atrocities for indigenous peoples in Norway, then probably your sense of whether we're falling off a cliff when it comes to the future or whether were already in crisis is very different.
Carry points out that Norway has a deep belief that innovation will solve the world's greatest problems, and whilst this kind of optimism has benefits, it can also make deeper systemic challenges harder to see and address. For example, we've heard much about the faith and support Norwegian's throw behind the likes of carbon capture and storage and blue hydrogen despite their lack of genuine development and impact. But according to Katan Joshi, imagining solutions to climate change is about
more than technological fixes. It's also about engaging with histories, lands, and cultures that don't always fit the mainstream narrative. Norway's belief in progress, for instance, contrasts sharply with indigenous perspects, especially those of Thesami, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, whose culture and identity remain closely tied to the land. Catan highlights the social and political consequences of Norway's so
called clean energy successes. Whilst celebrated for reducing emissions, he explains that hydropower and wind power have often been implemented with severe impacts on local and indigenous communities. This tension between climate achievement on the one hand and social justice on the other is key to understanding what a green and just energy transition really means.
I'm thinking specifically about wind power and hydropower in Norway. Both of these things were developed quite quickly and with really severe impacts on the indigenous communities in which they
were built. When is a bit more recent in memory, a large development was found to have breached the human rights of people living nearby, and so I think this is a really important thing to consider that when we brag about having very very clean electricity, a lot of those developments were not done particularly well, and it's something
that should be made a little bit more prominent. I think just because we did the right thing in terms of greenhouse gas emissions doesn't mean that we did the right thing by communities where those projects are.
To understand more about the perspective of the Sami, I spoke to Biaska Nilas, parliamentary leader of the Norwegian Sami Association, who described the long history of oppression that the Sami have faced at the hands of colonial powers, including Norway, all the way through to the present day. Relations between the Sami and the Norwegian government, he claimed, are strained, especially regarding industries like mining, land based wind power, and
other incursions into Sami territory. Recent developments have triggered some of the largest Sami protests in history, revealing how deeply climate, energy and justice are intertwined in Norway today. Since many of those cases have their roots in fossil fuels, as well as the shift away from using them. Biasca emphasizes how these realities challenge Norway's consumption driven so systems and its fossil dependent economy.
The oil consumption in the world. It's a global drug addiction. The capitalist system and the global economy is dependent on it. And it's crazy how people regard this so called development as a necessity. I think that's a really big difference between mindset of how we should regard, how we should treat how we should have relationship with the land and with nature and also with the water.
Biasca described a number of ongoing protests and court cases, including a copper mine in the ripper Field or rip of Watna in the North, and land based wind farms planned for the electrification of a gas plant in Melca near Hammerfest, a town we heard in a previous episode was resurrected by fossil fuels.
In some areas, we still have clean water, we still have land, we still have resources that can vedos for eternity, but those won't last very long if the industrialization and the capital gets the rule from much longer. The copper mine in Uppowotne is portrayed as very necessary for the green transition. But when we look where that energy is going, what they are building with that copper, then it's only
to grow and make more and more money. It's a new land enclounchment process, but now painted with green, and it's devastating effects for the semi culture, not only reindeer herders, but also every other that is dependent on the land. We have seen in the last ten years also that the Norwegian majority has realized how bad this is for nature, destroying that area for the use that has been their time immemorial. So for us wind power said, but true,
it's not green or sustainable at all. It's the biggest land grabber and biggest land intruder there is right now.
In fact, land based wind power has become one of Norway's most debated environmental issues. The government's national framework for wind development was firmly rejected in twenty nineteen, largely over concerns about impacts on the very landscapes Norwegians cherish and that the PSAMI consider sacred. These debates show just how complex a green and just transition can be. From my
own research into Norway's win power conflicts. I found that whilst most people agree changes needed, they often disagree on what that change should actually look like. Biasca believes that before this tension can truly be resolved, a much deeper transformation has to take place within Norwegian society itself.
Norway is in the world leading class of overconsumption. They think that this is necessary for a good life, and it crashes very much with my world review. The myth is that the Norwegian nation is a nature loving skiing nation that likes to go into the mountains and enjoy the fresh air. Where a healthy nation with good values and with good politics. But when they many of them go home, they go home to work in the oil fields, they go home to to work in extractive industries, they
go home to stock markets. The main value seems now to make money, to make wealth. Norway has more billionaires per capital and USA. Many of those obviously comes from extractive industries. The problem is people have too much money, and people care about money too much. So then we get in this catch twenty two where the chase is to build some a little more on the house, have our second cabin, maybe have car number three, and that's
regarded as the good life. Norwegians are a desservant of this because we are such a good country that does good in the world, and we have such good welfare systems in place, so this can't be bad. So I think many people are ignorant of the facts.
Baska explains that while Norway sees itself as a healthy, nature loving nation, many of the same people who ski and hike can spend time in the forest work in extractive industries. Believes wealth and consumption have become dominant values, replacing the ideals of simplicity and care for nature, rewriting what he believes Norwegians considered to be the good life. This pursuit of wealth, he explains, fuels over consumption, bigger houses,
second cabins, more cars. This a cruel of stuff, combined with Norway's strong welfare state and moral self image, makes it hard for people to see that this way of life may actually be part of the problem. Instead, Biasca believes Norwegians could learn much from the Sami philosophy of Bidgi Up.
Meh Bigeups basically, not to take more than you need as loang. As you take care of the land, the land will take care of you. And this is in every aspect of the land. It's the animals, the fish, it's their plant syst would, it's the water, it's everything. To be able to sustain yourself with the land, you have to know the land intimately. It's a whole universe of knowledge in that one single word is not only
about the resources and the relationship. It's about knowledge you have to have and learn, and you learn it from the land, and you learn it from your relatives, you learn it from the parts of nature that don't speak. So it's deeply rooted in respect. It's not a coincidence that the rest of the wilderness and biodiversity is in
onnindigenous people's land. That's not a coincidence. So leave those lands alone and then study how do the indigenous peoples use the land, and then start to consider maybe we should do the same. Maybe we should dismantle those dams, Maybe we should dismantle those turbines, Maybe we don't have to buy the third car, and so forth, and try to see what happiness really can be about. The most unhappy people are the richest people, and that's not a
coincidence at all. So maybe take a hard look on consumption and what is really needed for a good life.
Baasca's reflections reveal a sharp contrast between Norway's image as a nature loving, prosperous nation and the realities of extraction over consumption and environmental loss. But within Sami philosophy lies an alternative approach bidgiub me taking only what you need, sustaining the land, and maintaining deep knowledge of ecosystems. For Biasca,
these values aren't just a critique of modernity. They're a guide towards a more sustainable and balanced way of life, one that could inspire Norwegians to rethink their own path. After all that we've heard in this series, I imagine that for some Norwegians, taking inspiration from a culture that has historically stood in opposition to their sense of progress
and development may feel challenging. So I found it particularly interesting speaking with Runa Jaro Rasmussen, a professor of Nordic religion, who made it clear that many of the same ideas prominent in the Sami worldview once shaped how Norwegians themselves related to the world. Long before the rise of oil and modern industry, the people of the North lived within a worldview known as Nordic animism, one where humans were part of nature's web, not living in opposition to it.
Runa explains that while those beliefs were largely displaced by Christianity and modernization, their traces remain in small rituals, old stories, and seasonal traditions that quietly keep this older relationship alive.
Animism in a global perspective is pretty much everywhere, and there's always culture bound focus on specific places because it's about building relation to those beings that we share, for instance, our landscapes with, so that a different locally relevant aspects relating to specific kinds of landscapes, water bodies, rocks and mountains, and specific landscape relations like a bear in northern Scandinavia,
raven seals in southern Scandinavia, storks and so on. There's a specific cycle of light in in northern Europe, we experience rather marked light difference between summer and winter, and you see that very much reflected in the animists relating to the changing seasons. If you go to the northern part of Scandinavia where there are bears in the landscape, then relating to bears is a really important part of
relating to that landscape. But Sami people do it too, and finish people who live and inhabit those same landscapes also build relation to bears. Our nationalistic perspective would tend to say, okay, so there's something that is somehow essentially an inherently Norwegian, But when you actually look at Norwegian animisms, you find that they're very closely aligned with Sami animisms. I think Norway is blessed with very rich animists tradition
that has survived comparatively for a very long time. I'm sometimes astonished when I'm in Norway and I'm engaging people up there of how alive some of these things are there. Also, Norway has a nationalist heritage. There's a tradition of valorizing the old stuff. There is a preparedness to engage with these things also often in very renewing ways, where these things are being pulled in and sort of being playfully made into something very contemporary.
For Aruna, revisiting these older worldviews isn't about longing for the past. It's about recognizing what still lives within Norwegian culture today. Because in a sense, we've come full circle. As we heard in the first episode of the series. Norway built its national identity around a revival of the Norse kingdom, its myths, its heroes, and its deep connection
to nature. Those stories helped define what it meant to be Norwegian, and as sociologists carry Norguard emphasized, those same narratives about nature, relationships, and identity continue to shape how Norwegians understand their place in the world and their response to the climate crisis. So when Runa speaks about Nordic animism, he's not reaching for something distant or mystical. He's revealing a continuity, another thread that runs from ancient beliefs through
the founding of modern Norway to the present day. It's a reminder that the resources for change aren't just technological or political. They're also cultural, rooted in the stories that built the nation itself. And among those old stories, one stands out to Runa as especially relevant today, a myth about destruction and renewal, about the possibility of starting again. That story is Ragnarok.
There are nodes in the animist way of thinking that a build to reach a lot of people. These are stories, they're made to be retold for millennia. That's why they're still here because they have an incredible resilience and capacity to speak to our deep cognition. So if you have a story like the Ragnaroch story from the Nordic mythology, which is a story I think about how lost connectivity ends up in ecological and social collapse, that is an apocalyptic story. It is written in one of the most
monumentally impressive, beautiful poems ever written. It has a lot of capau to speak with that story. When you talk about climate change and what have the people been doing, They've been writing two thousand pages long you and climate reports that are filled with topsoil erosion and methane beliefs, coefficients and ocean acidification. Nobody reads them, nobody understands them, and they have not changed a hair in how the global communities relate to the world. Now that that is
a failure of storytelling. We have not been able to produce motivating narratives that can basically reach people and motivate them, interchanging how the world actually works. This material has that potential.
Stories like Ragnarok and the animist narratives that Runa describes are lessons in connection, balance, and consequence. Throughout this series. We've heard myths that justify the status quo, stories of progress and pragmatism that keep oil at the center of Norwegian life. But Ragnarok points in another direction, towards renewal
and the courage to begin again. Runa explains how this story told thousands of years ago can still cut deeper than the latest climate report, and that's a strong reminder that facts alone rarely moves societies. Imagination and emotion have a major part to play too. For a country like Norway that places such faith in reason and innovation, it's a reminder that change is also a matter of meaning, of what people value and the stories they choose to
live by. In this episode, a pattern has emerged tackling the paradoxes at the heart of Norway's identity aren't just about technology or emissions. They're also about culture, from people speaking up to journalism that holds power to account, confronting fossil influence in sport and the arts, to embracing different ways of engaging with nature and community. The threads of change being spun here are many and interconnected, and the work to weave them into something bigger is already underway.
Communities and organizations across Norway are already imagining what it might mean to live without the influence of fossil fuels. The Beyond Oil Conference in Bergen celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, convening leading minds to explore alternatives. Oslow's recent Citizens Assembly explored new forms of governance that reflect what
people truly care about, and local initiatives. Gatherings and symposiums all over the country are experimenting and building movements around practices that prioritize well being, stewardship, and collective care rather than profit growth and endless consumption. From conferences to culture halls, think tanks, to political parties and beyond, these developments show that there is a deep hunger and a powerful capacity
for change. Modern Norway was born from imagination, reviving an ancient kingdom, revitalizing its connection to the land, and writing
its people into legend. Throughout this series, we've heard how that vision helped shape Norway's sense of self as a nature loving nation and a force for good in the world, and how that all now comes into tension with the realities of a fossil fuel economy that's accelerating the climate crisis, But as sociologists carry nor Guard reminds us, the courage to take on daunting challenges and perilous conditions has always been part of Norway's story, and we've already heard plenty
of that courage from those who raise questions, speak out, take action, and imagine doing things differently. Pushing back against the influence of oil and gas. In Freeloft sleeve the outdoor life at the heart of Norwegian culture, one of the core tenets is they are at ing and scum or snooth. There is no shame in turning back or changing direction when the conditions demand it, and the conditions
have changed. Oil is no longer essential to Norway's prosperity, and continued production undermines the country's own ideals of fairness, care and responsibility. By pulling out the black thread oil and curbing the influence fossil fuels have over its politics, culture and daily life, Norway can begin to shape its next chapter, life after Oil. The Black Thread is a
collaboration between communicy In Climate Change and Klimacule Tour. It was written and narrated by Dick and Bonvickstone, produced and edited by lever Solid Schulearud and the executive producer was vigdis Bonvickstone art work is by Anya Jimushkevich. For more information, see the show notes