Category: Climate

Swedish election, no surprises

.Reading time 7 minutes.


Also published on DiEM25 official website and Democracy Chronicles

Sweden goes to parliamentary elections on September 11.

And you recognize the run up to the election as all too familiar. The media, think tanks and party leaders present yet another circus with the usual main attractions: who is going to win; which political side will be victorious; which parties might gain possible seats in government; what the latest polls say and the usual predictable interviews with the leaders of the eight parliamentary parties.

The eight parliamentary parties and their support right now according to the latest opinion poll:  Left (10%), Green (5%), Social Democrats (30%), Centre party (liberal) (8%), Liberals (5%), Christian Democrats (6%), Moderates (conservative) (16%) and Sweden Democrats (nationalists) (21%)

An even settlement between the left-wing bloc, which includes one of the liberal parties, and the new right-wing alliance with the Sweden Democrats. The fact that a liberal party supports Social Democrats, the Left and the Greens, is because they refuse to get involved with the Sweden Democrats. Over the last five years, other bourgeois parties have slowly, slowly accepted the nationalists, even though they probably won’t be allowed to sit in government. Despite the fact that they are currently the second largest party in Sweden after the Social Democrats, yes, you read that correctly!

Can any of these parties break the usual political deadlock? Definitely not!

It is the status quo that applies and the usual oligarchy of established politicians, financial families, think tanks and a media that, with few exceptions, takes care to normalize society’s problems and avoid all conceivable course changes. System criticism doesn’t exist. The increase in mental illness is rationalized to an individual level, the situation in the EU and the influence of the banks are dead issues. Sweden’s accession to NATO is hardly questioned. After an intense intimidation campaign in the media, the entire Swedish population was browbeaten within a month or so by the political establishment. Two hundred years of neutrality and international respect were lost. But perhaps worst of all are the climate problems which, after the ravages of the summer in Europe, should generate panic. It is dedramatized and instead converted into factual questions about whether or not nuclear power should exist, about green future investments, or green technology. All so that the wheels of society can continue to turn and the debate can be kept to the approved and elusive long-term view. The system is thus preserved and no politician needs to risk anything before the election.

Climate scientists debate, write articles and wonder “politicians, what is it that you don’t understand?”; XR blocks streets in the middle of Stockholm, climate activists storm the stage of Sweden’s most popular entertainment program broadcast live on television. Personally, I have been centrally involved in the newly–formed movement Climate Alliance consisting of former left-wing party leader and Swedish political icon Gudrun Schyman, religious representatives, climate activists, defected Green party members and people with an environmental interest from all sorts of organizations. An alliance where I have been able to represent DiEM25 in person. A movement with a single issue, to create a climate crisis mindset, a non-ideological alliance, which aims to put activists in Parliament, characterized by non-careerism: complete disinterest in political careers and pragmatic settlements in the corridors of Parliament. The Climate Alliance is a political anomaly, a mutation in the Swedish political landscape that the other parties obviously try to avoid with classic gatekeeping but which is guaranteed to have reason to return and grow as more dried up rivers, record temperatures, water shortages and climate refugees await us in the future.

Most Swedish parties are part of the basic neoliberal overarching ideology that seeks a continued view of man as primarily an economic, materialistic consuming component of society. Nothing must disturb this. Nor does the Swedish left, which certainly fights for justice in several ways, want to disturb the order. As soon as measures to slow fossil fuel emissions come up, conceivably threatening the industry, they step into the overarching ideology and defend the status quo just as they are critical of calls to stop traveling for the sake of the climate. They believe that people have the right to relax and go on holiday and drive as they please. The climate comes second or third. The other parties stand even further away from the climate problem. The electoral debate is characterized instead by how to deal with violent gang settlements, petrol prices, electricity prices and integration issues.


The Greens like to talk climate but do not have the trust of voters or those with a green ideological profile. They have too many other issues to consider and political pragmatism that erodes their ability to pursue green and climate radical politics. Years of climate problems have not given them any more support which is an unlikely failure. Instead, they have teetered on the brink of being able to remain in parliament.
We truly have an international task as I believe that what I relate here is largely recognizable regardless of where we live in Europe. The parliamentary elections in Sweden will be, as usual; an evening in front of the television and a politically correct national championship in politics with tacos and snacks: an existential sleeping pill and continued tribute to our techno-feudal culture. The problem is not that we are walking on thin ice that will crack at any moment, the problem is that the longer time goes on the worse the consequences will be.

Mats Sederholm
Coordinator Stockholm Local Collective
Member of DiEM25 Press Team
Writer and active for Klimatalliansen

Hypocrisy in Green

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Also published at

To date, Greta has been recognized as a great inspiration by almost all political camps in the Western world. However, her opinions on system changes have been met with total silence.

A three-degree meteor – bringing massive-scale refugee movements, water shortages, wars over natural resources, the extinction of more animal species and the destruction of our natural environment – is heading straight for the earth. It will strike if there is no radical change, but our economic and political rulers have no radical changes to offer. They still try to market themselves as authoritative, knowledgeable and with big green investments and optimism because “the technology exists”, right?

The presumption is that it is major green investments and innovations that will solve the climate issue. But the tendency in industrialized countries is that companies have stopped investing, that they increasingly hoard their profits according to the IMF. The latest trend is so-called “superstar firms” such as Blackrock, Google and Apple that buy up smaller companies, creating technology monopolies, thus replenishing their savings without investing. Capital is stockpiled instead of being used to contribute to solving inequality, climate injustice, lack of trust which could all lead to a breakthrough in the climate negotiations. In the US alone, $4 trillion dollars is kept in the large companies’ “cash vaults”. We see no political will to change these structural problems either in the US or Europe. But for the public, everyone wants to cuddle up to Greta and appear progressive.

The latest example is the EU climate initiative Green Deal marketed as Europe’s equivalent of “putting a man on the moon”. The EU will, supposedly, “stimulate and facilitate”, raising €1tn within ten years, which will lead to CO2-reducing initiatives. It may sound ambitious, but you have to ask where the real priorities are. Is it the climate or big companies and banks that are being protected? A €1tn to save the world can be compared to the four times larger amount of €4.2tn spent to save the banks between 2009 and 2013. The flaunted €1tn is not money set aside, it is a promise to banks to underwrite private investment. Thus, the public takes the risks of the bank loans while companies use the financing and top up their savings. What is actually taken from the EU budget is not €1tn, but only €7.5bn, which can be compared to the €29bn that is being invested in an environmentally harmful gas infrastructure. The “moon landing” is nothing but smoke and mirrors and hypocrisy!

The climate correspondent and Swedish public-service journalist Erika Bjerström recently classified Greta Thunberg as a left-wing populist despite Greta’s clear references to climate research. Her argument is that Greta raises justice issues – that she points out that in reality it is “public opinion that runs the free world. In fact, every great change throughout history has come from the people” – and consistently criticizes our economic and political leaders and thus, as Bjerström puts it, does not give people any hope. Instead, she would prefer Greta to bless the EU’s Green Deal.

No, it is not people’s protests or activism that we should support or young people’s demands for system changes we should believe in. Instead, are supposed to continue to rely on a combination of what is increasingly evolving into a centralized capitalism with executive politicians in green makeup, on banks and technocrats. As an individual, you must instead deal with all the concepts of guilt and shame. We should not even have children because they, like halogen lamps, consume too much energy. Life itself is to be sacrificed while visions of an essential new social order must at all costs be undermined and its critics side-lined. The governing bodies will not budge. They will not work for system changes that give us a society where people have the right to take action and the right to a healthy planet. On the contrary, the Davos crème de la crème, parliamentarians, authorities, journalists and think-tanks will meet such thoughts with resistance.

The climate protest movement Extinction Rebellion (XR) was labelled by the British liberal think-tank Policy Exchange an extremist organization aiming to break down liberal ideas. Furthermore, the British group National Counter Terrorism Policing Network considers XR to be an extremist organization alongside neo-Nazis and Islamic terror groups.

How long will it take before Greta and Fridays For Future are targeted? How long will society allow a younger generation to be happily liberated from the poisonous realism of the establishment, openly and disparagingly speaking their mind about the rulers?

Would a peace prize to Greta have caused a political crisis?

.Reading time 7 minutes.
Stockholm 2019 September 27
Photo: Mats Sederholm

Also published on Democracy Chronicles

On December 10 the Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded, and many have wanted Greta Thunberg to be the recipient. But would the world’s leaders really have been able to take in Greta’s message? Few would probably realize that a battle has to be fought before her visions come to fruition.

Greta:

We cannot save the world by playing according to your rules, because the rules must be changed.

And if solutions within our system are impossible to find, maybe we should change the system itself. We are striking to shake the system.

This is just the beginning. Change will happen – believe it or not.

Young idealistic dreams to take with a pinch of salt? Or does that, perhaps, just reflect the disillusioned and befuddled judgements of the older generation? The quotes are true, but not because it is Greta who pronounced them, but because all creations have an expiry date, even the society that our western world wants to call the most adult and noble we can ever dream of.

We should understand that it is time for an upgrade when our civilization has evolved to steal resources from future generations, from those who cannot defend themselves. We should acknowledge the abuse we have inflicted and our collective normalization of dishonesty in order to maintain our way of life.

• Our economy, the lifeblood of our society, is based on the idea that we steal from the future. Our life force, economic growth, is financed by money that banks create out of nothing, for a debt that we can only pay off in the future.

• We are stealing from our future communities by constantly consuming more than the planet can deliver.

• We are stealing resources and not really being true to ourselves when every day is spent in the pursuit of more ‘stuff’ because society expects us to participate in this addiction and destruction.

The nuts and bolts of our way of life are based on abuse. We live in a dream state, in a consensus trance that an increasing number of people are breaking out of. The world is programmed. The way forward is about de-programming.

But system change is not a utopia, it has happened before.

During the 1930s, the world faced gigantic political and social problems, not least in the United States after the “Great Depression”. President Roosevelt gradually carried out what became known as The New Deal, which entailed a comprehensive reform program involving investments in the public sector and business regulations that resulted in falling unemployment and social reforms. The nightmare was broken, optimism increased, and society rose up again for the benefit of all citizens as it led to the welfare societies of the western world. The ensuing culture of consumption would, ironically, be the beginning of the nightmare into which we have now been seduced.

This time, however, we cannot lobby and negotiate in the same way. Mother Earth does not bow to demands for a realistic transition or a smooth exit.

A peace award to Greta would demand the politicization of her message. The struggle over who will be allowed to carry out the economic, democratic and social adjustments required for this system change will lead to a political war. We are talking about an Extreme Green New Deal beyond the visions of American Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and European DiEM25, with not only green investment but also with demands for reduced consumption. Mother Earth’s more intense convulsions will force politicians and experts to drill ever deeper into the ground of our civilization as they plan for a transition. When they find that hundred-year-old political and economic paving stones must be blown away, we will have a near-existential struggle with progressive forces on one hand and the established and conservative on the other.

The hatred against Roosevelt from isolationist forces during the 30-40s is basically the same as what Greta has to endure today. It comes from those who are embittered, scared and worried; the conservative realists without alternatives. But the end of the coming battle is a given “believe it or not”.Much indicates that Greta will receive next year’s Peace Prize. The climate problem will then be more established, with more insights and greater desperation. It would be the Nobel establishment’s cry for help: a cry for structure and clear efforts. The luxury trap must be disabled and all those who do not want to put an end to the theft and corruption of our civilization should not be allowed to influence our society. In a reclaimed parliament, politicians will be able to enact laws and sort out the parts of society that benefit everyone. What is actually there in the wallet is what we have; what the earth can afford today is what is offered. People should be able to live in the present without being burdened by the financial yoke that the future forces them to bear. Shopping on credit will again be thought of as a disreputable practice.

A Serious Green New Deal

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Also published on Democracy Chronicles

The idea of a Green New Deal (GND) is rapidly sweeping across the western world right now. GND is the concept that aims for a radical effort against the impact of climate change. But it might well end with further political rhetoric, using the climate issue as a hook.

Many have wanted to fill this GND goodie bag with their own political ideals, painting it green hoping that this will bring good luck … to their own ideology and its popularity. Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, the US Democrats and most recently, the victorious Spanish Social Democrats (PSOE) are among those who have tried to add this concept to their campaigns.

GND was originally (2007) a purely “green-investment-and-job” concept inspired by Roosevelt’s New Deal but has since been expanded to include social reforms and subsequently been approved by greens, social democrats and the European left.

The only question is whether or not GND is a new American feel-good story in which economic growth looks green instead of blue, sprinkled with some minor social conscience concessions for those worst off. Or does it actually imply the total conversion of society that is necessary?

According to the autumn message from IPCC, we face the challenge of ending 200 years of fossil fuel use within 30 years. We must halve the emissions by 2030 and reduce them to zero by the middle of the century. Presuming economic growth continues, our energy consumption will triple during that period. Limited fossil fuel emissions, green investments and jobs, clean technology, environmental know-how or the homely intention of Roosevelt will not stop the climate threat. But there also needs to be less consumption and depletion of the Earth’s resources. And with such a solution, the number of GND politicians would probably shrink considerably, as the popularity factor would drastically drop!

The word growth, implicitly economic, is what the whole western world is based on. We are told that unless we have growth, we will go under. And since most, perhaps all, of Europe’s politicians (for whom climate conscious Europeans are due to vote in the European elections on May 26) choose the road to destruction, it is important to voice the unvarnished truth. The radical change in society needed to decelerate climate change requires a radical policy. The politicians standing alongside the polling stations with seductive claims about welfare and job opportunities, as well as saving the planet, constitute a jokers’ market.

What is needed:

A New Social Structure – A New Economy – Massive Green Investment – A Renovation of Democracy.

In France, the Yellow Vest protests have left Macron politically isolated. Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood – that is the social knot that must FIRST be untangled before green taxes would be accepted. Inequality is about to erode the whole of Europe with immigration problems, poverty and distrust in its trail. Planting green politics in such poisoned soil is the hopeless proposal politicians offer us today.

A serious climate reversal cannot build on financial markets and banks that continue to make money out of nothing by lending and thereby gaining control over entire economies without conscience or democracy. A new economy must be able to withstand less consumption and smaller loans. Stop making things that break in the interest of profit. Stop bombarding people with advertising, creating dependence on lifestyle and status. The whole treadmill must slow down. The economy must adapt to people, not the other way around. A climate reversal requires composure, not rush.

We are faced with an existential crossroads. Not: “And we also need to think about the environment”.

Today, everyone loves the climate activists, but it is only a matter of time before the support will subside. Already today, there are mutterings from the right about the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. As time goes on, protests will also come from liberal politicians, the media and the business community, and perhaps also from the conservative left, when the inevitable debate about a serious New Green Deal will gain momentum and the issue is becoming an architectural and cultural one for society and not a political makeover.

The election for the future is not a party issue. It is about choosing between fear and conservatism or courage and progress. Maybe even a choice between activism or politicians who do not want to change until they suffer from the panic Greta Thunberg wishes for.


“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
A Davis