More and more I become aware of the materialistic, capitalistic, narrow minded politics of the Norwegian government of this moment. This government, under the supervision of Erna Solberg, does not show any real interest in nature and the suffering wilderness, other than the role to serve the human greed. Too many Norwegians do not know what is going on in their own Arctic, they do not even know that a catastrophe takes place there. Almost all Norwegians ignore the rules -it is forbidden in Norway- about (to name one of the points that I have noticed myself) idling their cars, when waiting, or when shopping, even in summer!! The Norwegian government even stimulates the use of fossil fuels, instead of finding ways to stop the still increasing CO2.
Fortunately I hear also other voices and I like them: from political party De Grønne. Rasmus Hansson is the spokesperson of the party.
Rasmus Hansson
Rasmus Hansson
(born 4 September 1954) is a Norwegian biologist, civil servant, environmental activist and national spokesperson for the Green Party
. He led the Norwegian chapter of
World Wide Fund for Nature
from 2000 to 2012. In 2013, he was elected to the
Parliament of Norway
as the first representative for the Green Party.
Activism resulting in imprisonment
As a student he was among the environmental activists that protested the construction of a
hydroelectric power plant
in the
Alta river
in
Finnmark
during the
Alta controversy
. He and a fellow student (Jørn Thomassen) were convicted of sitting down on a road meant for "construction traffic".
In court he was sentenced for civil disobedience, and he spent 30 days in
Oslo kretsfengsel
.
Career
Hansson has a
Cand. real degree in biology from the
Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He wrote a master's thesis (hovedfag) on polar bears.
He has worked as an adviser in the Norwegian and been a researcher for Norwegian Polar Institute and Norad. He led the Norwegian chapter of World Wide Fund for Nature from 2000 to 2012. Since 2012 he has been leading the Oslo Centre for Interdisciplinary Environmental and Social Research (CIENS).
Parliamentary Election
In the
2013 Norwegian parliamentary election
Hansson candidated for the first spot on the party's Oslo ballot against the party's national spokesperson
Hanna Marcussen
and narrowly won.
The party got 5.6% of the votes in Oslo in the election 9 September 2013 and Hansson was the only person from the Green Party who got a seat in the parliament as the national result was 2.8% and below the 4% threshold for
levelling seats
. It was the first time that the Greens got a representative in the parliament.
Political Priorities Hansson argues that consumption in Norway needs to be reduced in order to cope with the environmental challenges. During the 2013 campaign for the Greens he suggested that it would be a good idea if the economic welfare was brought back to the level it was in the 1980s, about half of the current level.
Among his political priorities are more focus on
wind power
and saving the polar bear.
