Young voters contributed to a wave of support for green parties at the EU elections in 2019. Large climate demonstrations, Greta Thunberg and school strikes characterized the news picture. Generation Thunberg became the nickname for the generation of young people who in 2019 demonstrated for climate. Photo: Reuters But this year’s EU elections showed that much has changed since then. The far right is becoming increasingly popular among young people, while the climate parties are losing support. Sigrid Elise Høeg has long been involved in the climate issue, and during the pandemic she also started to get involved with those who rent housing. Høeg believes that many young people feel that they are now sitting and watching the world burn from a small flat, and that this is causing them to lose faith in democracy. Høeg believes young people are angry with good reason. Photo: Alexander Slotten / news – People do not believe in a system that fails to meet their material needs. I think that is completely obvious, says Høeg. There is record dissatisfaction with democracy among young people all over the world, shows a major survey carried out by the University of Cambridge in 2020. Never has a generation had such low faith in democracy. – You are being exploited in a system that does not work for you. And then you don’t believe it, says Høeg. The UN warned at the beginning of May that the housing crisis would contribute to increased support for the far right in Europe. Research shows a clear connection between increased rental prices and the number of people who vote for the far right, writes The Guardian. “My lousy apartment” In Norway, one million people rent their homes today. Especially in the big cities, it is very expensive. This year alone, the rental price in Oslo has risen by 10.6 per cent. At the same time, 2.4 per cent of the homes in Oslo are possible for a nurse to buy. Together with the collective Reduser Husleia, Høeg collects stories from dissatisfied and frustrated tenants. In 2020, Høeg, together with the Reduser husleia collective, created the Instagram account @min_drittleilighet. The account collects people’s horror stories from the rental market. Min_dirtleilighet has 28,000 followers on Instagram. The account helped create debate about housing policy during the pandemic. – We have seen through our Instagram account how angry young people are at being taken advantage of by their landlords. We pay insanely high rent and get crumbs back, and that should somehow be ok. She believes that little has been done to improve the situation of tenants, and that people are angry with good reason. – Nothing has happened. And the prices just skyrocket. And the line that everyone should own homes and have a large loan, it continues. Climate and housing in conflict Professor of philosophy at UiO, Arne Johan Vetlesen, believes that the housing crisis and the climate crisis are connected. Vetlesen believes there is a lack of political leadership that can tell young people what they know to be true and present solutions. Photo: NTB – The housing crisis among young people can be experienced as so acute that climate concerns come in a completely different order in one and the same person, and that they allow short-term concerns to have greater importance in how they act instead of long-term concerns, he explains. Vetlesen believes that the housing crisis experienced by young people is a main explanation for the political shift towards the far right and increased support among parties that also have a great distrust of the established parties, the authorities and the state in general. – They are unable to stand up for young people and are unable to meet the basic needs and rights that young people have, he says. – The far right can exploit this distrust. Desperation among climate activists Cornelia Reichmann has been a climate activist for four years. news meets her at the cafe Pust in Oslo. Reichmann is worried about what desperate climate activists can come up with. Photo: Alexander Slotten / news – I think this generation loses faith in democracy when you experience that our most important issues are not heard, she says. She herself is not a supporter of violence as a means of action, but she fears that this is a logical next step for many. Several experts are concerned that the growing desperation and powerlessness young people feel in relation to the climate issue could lead to more violence and radicalisation. Reichmann participates in demonstrations that use nonviolent civil disobedience as a means of action, and has received several large fines that she is still paying. Photo: Private – For my own part, I can say that I have very little faith in the state and the political systems’ ability to handle the climate crisis. Afraid of more extreme measures – I think that it is very natural that if peaceful and non-violent demonstrations do not lead, then the logical next step is to escalate in one way or another, and for some it may be to resort to violence, she says. – I think there is a risk of violence when people reach a certain level of desperation. But it is not relevant for me personally. Reichmann does not support violence or sabotage in the climate fight. Photo: Alexander Slotten / news Some argue that sabotage and destruction of property can be justified in the name of the climate. But most activists and experts believe this type of policy will harm the climate cause and make it easy to demonize climate activists. – In the worst case, it ends with violence and sabotage and more powerful measures, says Professor Vetlesen. He believes there is a real danger of radicalization when you get a feeling of desperation at the same time as you have given up belief that you can use the usual democratic channels. Vetlesen warns against the consequences of using violent means. – If someone does something drastic, it can generate a lot of media attention. There may be political opponents who will use it to their advantage by exaggerating the danger of eco-fascism, or say that activists are anti-democratic and blow it out of all proportion if you get that kind of action, he warns. – I think it will be a minority, and it will be very controversial and there will be great opposition to it in the large climate and environmental movement, he says. In the book “How to blow up a pipeline”, the Swedish climate researcher Andreas Malm argues that sabotage should be considered as part of the fight against climate change. In PST’s security assessment for 2024, it is stated that climate, environmental and nature conservation issues have the potential to radicalize, but there is little indication that violence or terror is imminent from such environments. Reichmann is involved in Extinction Rebellion, where she engages in non-violent civil disobedience. Extinction Rebellion does not support violence or sabotage, but constantly resorts to civil disobedience. Photo: AFP – I think I have campaigned maybe twelve times. I get quite a lot of fines every time I do it. They accumulate, and then it’s time to pay them off. What do you pay per month then, in such a down payment? – It has been NOK 1,000 a month. Extinction Rebellion is an international movement that uses non-violent civil disobedience to raise awareness about climate change. Extinction Rebellion blocked the entrances to the Storting last summer. This is one of many non-violent forms of civil disobedience the group uses to draw attention to the climate issue. Photo: NTB Reichmann believes that non-violent civil disobedience is a democratic tool that can be used when all other democratic processes have been tried and have not worked. Young people are underrepresented – The research is not completely agreed on whether young people have less faith in democracy than older people, says Mari Skåra Helliesen. She is a researcher at the research institute NORCE and has written a doctorate on the climate issue in representative democracy. Her doctorate shows that young people generally have higher support for climate policy than the rest of the population, and that young people’s preferred preferences for climate policy are clearly underrepresented among politicians in Norway. Young people support civil disobedience in the climate fight more than older people. Photo: NORCE – If young people continue to have different preferences and attitudes to climate change and politics than other groups, and they continue not to be heard, while they continue to be underrepresented, one can assume that they may lose faith in their own opportunity to to influence politics, she says. Helliesen refers to figures from a new survey she has carried out, which show that young people in Norway have greater support for civil disobedience in the climate fight than older people. The survey also shows that both the young and the elderly have little faith that the political system in Norway allows them to have an influence on climate policy. Lack of political leadership – Politicians depend on people’s trust, and that people believe in the vision they present to society, says Reichmann. Reichmann believes young people lose faith in democracy when they are not heard. Photo: Alexander Slotten / news She is supported by Vetlesen. – What is missing is leadership. The young people do not see political leadership being exercised, he explains. He believes the politicians are not clear enough about what is required to actually do something about the climate crisis. This helps to weaken young people’s trust in them. – The whole societal model must change, he says. – It is not possible to grow to heaven forever. We have far too high consumption and too large a footprint per inhabitant. But no political leader says that. He explains that this threatens trust in the political system among young people because many feel that this is the truth and that this is what the researchers say. The climate roar that silenced Vetlesen does not believe that the concern related to climate change has disappeared, despite the fact that fewer large-scale demonstrations have been seen in the years following the major climate demonstrations and school strikes in 2019. School strikes characterized the news picture in 2019, but since then little has been seen of this enormous involvement in the public. Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / NTB – It sits very deep. Those who were involved in school strikes four or five years ago and were very concerned about this have not stopped being concerned about it. In 2019, school pupils and students all over the world held demonstrations in the hope of changing climate policy. The movement was started by the Swedish school student Greta Thunberg who went on strike every Friday for the environmental cause. But in the years since, this commitment has been more absent from the public eye. Vetlesen believes that the type of passivity or indifference seen among young people in recent times is a reaction to the disappointment that nothing happened after they worked so hard. – So you adapt to it in a way. You dare not hope for anything more and become disillusioned. Young people withdraw and develop psychological problems because their worries become so strong and their anxiety about the future so great. Climate anxiety is depoliticized – This is how this is handled in psychology and in the therapy room. Then it is the individual 17-year-old who is treated individually behind closed doors. This means that the problem is individualized and depoliticized. Climate anxiety is being moved from the public and into the psychologist’s office, according to the philosophy professor. Illustration: Alexander Slotten / news It therefore becomes invisible what kind of scope this has in the wider public. – The result is that the individual, who is troubled by this and loses energy and optimism for the future, has to find means to get back on their feet, explains the professor. – Then you are more inclined to take part in the radical.
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Watching the world burn from a “crap apartment” – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
