A week away from blogging as we travel north through the hinterland and into the Arctic Circle for a Swedish Midsommar! With the midnight sun and consequent shortage of sleep I suspect I shall not be blogging much.
Midnight sun Photo: http://www.imagebank.sweden.se Tomas Utsi
It’s weather not climate of course.
But is it Global warming? or is it Global cooling? or just normal changes of climate which no so-called “climate scientist” understands or is capable of predicting.
Friday, 01 June 2012
On the calendar, today is the first of June which is supposed to be a real summer day. This means that we were supposed to have great sunshine and would be outside in our gardens basking – if not at work though.But such is not the reality if you live in the Swedish town of Långsjöby a couple miles from Storuman in Västerbotten. Here it has been snowing enough that a few centimetres of snow is visibly gathering on the ground now. Visitors to the town from places such as Stockholm were surprised to find snow and some thought that they had been travelling in a time machine.
image SvT
And yesterday on 2nd June the participants in the Stockholm marathon were met by a rainy, windy and cold day – the coldest in 84 years.
Stockholm marathon runners braving the coldest June day in 84 years image SvT
There has been a debate going on in Sweden over the last few days as to whether surrogate motherhood should be permitted. In following the various views I cannot help feeling that a fundamental ethical consideration is being avoided – perhaps intentionally. The Swedish Parliament’s Social Affairs Committee voted by a large – and very politically correct – majority to carry out an investigation into whether Swedish surrogacy laws should be changed.
The Local: Sweden took a step toward a possible lifting of its ban on surrogate motherhood on Tuesday, despite impassioned opposition from political parties on both the left and right.
The Riksdag’s Committee on Social Affairs voted by a wide majority on Tuesday to authorize the government to carry out an inquiry into surrogate motherhood.
Currently, surrogate motherhood is outlawed in Sweden.
However, the Christian Democrats and the Left Party both opposed the measure.
“The issue of childlessness shouldn’t be solved by having women’s bodies used to carry and give birth to children for other people. Women’s bodies aren’t a commodity,” the Left Party’s Eva Olofsson told the TT news agency.
Even if surrogate motherhood is allowed on a non-commercial basis, there is nevertheless a risk for a black market trade in surrogate births, argued Olofsson.
She said that legalizing surrogate motherhood would send a signal that would increase acceptance of the practice that would open the door to trade with surrogate mothers in other countries, citing India as an example.
“It’s possible that we need more regulations that would make it so that it’s not allowed in Sweden to buy a child that has been born this way in India. But that’s not how the proposal looks,” said Olofsson.
With all new medical procedures I think the fundamental ethical requirement is the informed consent of all those involved. And for surrogacy that includes the child-to-be. But much of the debate about surrogacy laws in Sweden has been focused on the “rights” of women or the gay community to have children (or not). There is more concern for the “convenience” of these groups rather than for the welfare of the would-be child. Of course the “informed consent” of the would-be child is not available. But it should not be beyond the wit of man to consider the views the child would have – if it could. (more…)
We have been down to -22°C over the weekend and it’s -10°C today. The cold spell is likely to last another 10 days or so. There are few clouds and day time temperatures are 10+°C higher than at night.
It’s only weather of course but a timely reminder that – anywhere in the world – daily temperature variations are of the order of 10-15 °C and seasonal variations every year are of the order of 30 – 50 °C. And this variation is entirely due to the effects of the sun and the winds and the cloud cover. The effects of carbon dioxide and climate scientology are insignificant. But it’s only weather.
An extract from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) for 4th February makes the point:
All of Sweden has had it much colder than normal for the season.
In parts of northern Norrland it was more than 20 °C colder than normal. It was coldest in Kvikkjokk-Årrenjarka in Lapland with a temperature of -42.7 °C, which is the lowest temperature recorded there since surveys began in 1888. It was 25°C colder than what is normal for the season where “normal temperature” means the average daily temperature between the years 1961-1990.
The reason for the extreme cold was the northern and easterly winds in combination with very clear weather. Without any insulating cloud cover night-time temperatures plummeted.
For the country as a whole it was a fairly even distribution of about 20 °C colder in the north to over 10 °C colder than normal in southern Götaland. At the Norwegian border, with Lakes Vänern and Vättern and along the Östergötland and Småland coast, it was between 8 and 10 °C colder than normal. It was mildest in southern Öland, with temperatures of only 6 to 7 °C lower than normal.
Sweden temparature anomalies on 4th February 2012 - SMHI
The greatest fear I have of getting old is not so much the pain or suffering or sickness or debilitation but the degradation one may have to undergo.
I have always perceived the care of the elderly (and children) in Sweden as being perhaps the most compassionate and advanced in the world – especially the care from the public sector. The best care anywhere in the world is no doubt when it happens – and it does not always happen – within the family environment. In times past it was the care of the elderly within extended family groups, where up to 4 generations lived together, which probably provided the best care possible. But as family groups have become smaller, the wherewithal for the best geriatric care possible has shifted to institutions.
But recent events within the Swedish system where the public sector has been outsourcing geriatric care to private enterprise are not pretty. In the chase for profit margins the level of degradation being meted out seems to have increased. The equation is no longer “the best care possible at the lowest allowable cost” and it seems instead to have become “not more than the cost absolutely necessary to avoid public complaints”. And in this new equation the level of degradation that the elderly are subjected to carries no weight. And the degradation is of relevance only if it leads to noisy complaints from others.
Something is not quite right and and it only reinforces my equating ageing with degradation.
The case of the private care company Carema has been the subject of a series of investigative articles by Dagens Nyheter and the latest episode of weighing diapers is not only degrading to the elderly patients but also, I think, for those being forced to implement Carema’s profit objectives:
Saab is on its last legs but it appears from an investigation conducted by Swedish Television (SVT) that Victor Muller has rewarded himself handsomely even while supplier bills have been unpaid. Muller has little substance in his history but a long track record of grand schemes and – it seems to me – very gullible investors. Employees in his various loss-making companies have continued in the false hopes that Muller is so good at building up. They would seem to have a misplaced loyalty to their brands but instead have actually been relying on an unreliable Muller.
SVT (free translation):
SVT Report has investigated the complex transactions between Saab, Saab’s parent company and Victor Muller’s private companies. His compensation through bonuses, salary, equity, and professional fees add up to 18 million Kronor. This is at the same level as Leif Johansson the former CEO of Sweden’s largest company Volvo Trucks, where Volvo Trucks has about 90,000 employees while Saab has fewer than 3000 employees.
Saab has also paid Victor Muller’s invoices even while supplier’s bills have remained unpaid. Saab’s annual report details consultancy fees of 4 million kronor including a bonus of 1.76 million to a company that Muller controls – Latin America Tug Holding registered on the island of Curacao in the Caribbean. ….. Saab’s parent company has paid consultancy fees of €550 000 and an additional bonus of €508,571, making a total of about 10 million kronor to Victor Muller. He has also received 120,000 shares that he has sold for nearly four million kronor.
Beyond that, Saab’s parent company has bought services from companies affiliated with Victor Muller for nearly seven million. Victor Muller also has very attractive interest rate agreements for the money his company has lent to Saab. The interest on loans is set at EURIBOR plus 6 -10 percent. This means that Saab could have paid him around 12per cent interest on the loans.
Swedish Television have not been able to reach Victor Muller.
Sucking blood from a dying company.
Related: https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/saab-being-pimped-around-the-world-by-victor-muller/
Weather is not climate but winter is just a little early this year – again!
From the Local:
The season’s first winter storm walloped northern Sweden on Thursday night, dumping more than 10 centimetres of thick, wet snow, snarling traffic, and prompting warnings from police.
Between Sorsele och Arvidsjaur in Norrbotten Thursday night: image Aftonbladet
Kiruna on Friday morning: image Aftonbladet
“This is full-blown winter. I’ve been stuck for two-and-a-half hours,” truck driver Peter Härdfeldt told the Aftonbladet newspaper. A low pressure system moving across Sweden left parts of the far north covered in white on Friday morning following a night of gusty winds and wet snow.
Police in Norbotten urged drivers who had yet to change to winter tyres to “do so as quickly as possible” adding that “the snowploughs are on their way”. ….. On Saturday night, frost and below-freezing temperatures are expected to put a chill across much of the country. “It’s going to be one of the coldest nights this weekend,” meteorologist Lovisa Andersson from SMHI told Expressen.
The k2p blog 