The tragic climate paradox: - More oil and coal to save the countries that are threatened by climate catastrophes? Click picturess for info Climate change Norwegian plattforms CO2 and temperature Emma, Sonia and Terje Letters to the King Sonia and minister Jens Stoltenberg Greta Thunberg Will we all drown? The world's climate scientists agree that we have a man-made global warming due to our over-consumption of fossil fuels such as oil and coal. And they have for many years warned that this could lead to more frequent extreme weather and more dangerous extreme weather. Now we see that climate catastrophes affects many places in the world. Yes, researchers are now afraid that it could be worse than predicted in the climate models. More tax? It is quite certain that my home-country Norway will help those affected. The question is in what way. Will the government give the countries money so that they can have the economy to fight the climate catastrophe? Most likely. And where will Norway get the money from? Should we pay more tax? Undoubtedly that will be the government's first plan, but the voters will definately not agree. So then the solution will probably be to extract and export more oil and gas. Money from exactly what has created the climate change! Totally nuts? Sure, but I would not be surprised if that is exactly what will happen. Changed name Another country that probably wants to help is Australia. But even though they have experienced climate change with higher temperatures, extreme droughts, floods and fires, the country still extracts and exports large amounts of coal. The youth protested strongly against the Indian-owned coal company Adani, but after it changed its name to Bravus, the protests have somehow subsided a bit. The same thing happened in Norway - here Statoil became Equinor in 2018. And then the corona pandemic and the Olympic Summer Games took over the media's interest. Economical growth For many years we have now get used to that economic growth is so important. Why? Does having more money in the wallet make us so much happier? The happiest time I had in my life was when I lived on a desert island in Tuvalu. Several years without a penny in the wallet. Fished, collected seafood, picked breadfruit and had a small garden. Then came climate change with hurricanes in a country too close to the equator to have hurricanes. We rebuilt our house three times, but during the last hurrcane my wife and me looked at our daughter. We could not risk her being washed to the sea. Tuvalu is a country of flat atolls - and our three-meter water tank was the island's highest point. We moved to Norway. The world's first climate refugee I was called the world's first climate refugee by the media, and in December 1995 my daughter handed a letter to the King in which we asked him to urge the government to limit Norwegian oilproduction. The letter stated, among other things:     "We fear that the country's government no longer has a real opportunity to manage Norway's interests in a way that is in line with Your Majesty's motto" All for Norway ", and ask that Your Majesty suggests to the government that it should prioritises decisions that ensure the well-being of the kingdom's inhabitants in the future as in the present. The reason why we are writing to Your Majesty is that we have had to flee our home in the Pacific due to climate change, and we have felt what wrong priorities can really mean. Climate change is something far more than poor skiing. Increased oil production from Norway and other countries will mean that people will die. First in the low-lying atolls under the equator, then elsewhere. In Norway, too.»     All the largest environmental organizations supported my letter, but I did not get any reply from the King, only a letter from the Poyal Palace that the letter had been forwarded to the government. On the anniversary of the first letter, I wrote a new letter to the King, - with the same result - no reply. In 2005, daughter Sonia handed over a bottle to the government on behalf of the small island countries in the Pacific - without any response. Catch-22 Why would the government not do something, when it according to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was aware of climate change? Well, one can sense that it was caused, and still is, that the government was a so-called Catch-22 situation. If it does something to reduce Norwegian oil production to save the climate on the planet, it will lose the opportunity to do so because it will not be elected by voters always wanting more money - or defeated by a no-confidence motion. Greta Thunberg Swedish Greta Thunberg got attention through her school-strike and speech at the UN, but now she probably experiences the same thing as me: That the adults' own prosperity/money is more important than the living conditions of one's children and grandchildren.     In Norway, people will probably not react until the Gulf Stream collapses or is forced to the southwest due to global warming. Then it will get as cold as in Siberia since Norway is on the same latitude. Not even a such dramatic climate-event does have to mean that everyone will wake up, they might say: - We just move to our winter house in sunny Spain or the apartment on the Canary Islands. Too hot Folk's of Norway and Australia: We do not need more money. We have more than enough. So why should we not vote for the politicians who take climate change seriously and want to reduce, or preferably stop, Norwegian oil production and Australian coal-production? For what if we will not have a government that will act - until it is too late?     Might be we will have climate catastrophes that kill thousands, maybe millions of people? Or what if the temperature on the planet will get too hot for us homo sapiens? Terje Dahl 9. august 2021 (terje@sydhav.no)