3:30 pm in a far away land...

This is what the sky looked like at 3:30pm in a place North of Trondheim...30 minutes later and it got dark.  So nice to be in touch with simple, non transactional beauty. The short days also make you appreciate the beauty of light when we do have it... It is easy to take the vitality of the Sun for granted  in our daily lives, so full of buildings, emails, iPhone screens and other silly distractions.

Christmas flavors and more...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some images from the Christmas mood in this lucky yet simple land of plenty

Many shops offer coffee and cookies shaped as hearts

 Shaving advice needed!

Candles everywhere

Phones that brough childhood memories

Light and show playing together.

Oslo keeps expanding

I recently learned that Oslo is the fastest growing city in Europe. And if cranes are proxies for expansion then it is true that the city is growing each week.

This is the view outside the Oslo airport while we wait to fly to Trondheim. Construction does not stop even in winter days. So the airport is growing and so is the train station and the area near the port. New people. New buildings. New ideas.

I only hope Oslo will continue being Scandinavian in taste and spirit... Nowadays too many cities around the world are becoming too similar to each other. It can be boring.

My frozen stories

There was something powerful about this image. Frozen movement. Frozen energy.  It feels like something has been postponed.

Hmmm.

It made me think of my novel. 

My writing is frozen because I have been using all my energy for my climate work.  But just like the bike, it has movement and energy and is ready to roll again when the right time comes.  I am not going to give up on it.  My fiction is just in hibernation for a few months...  I am convinced the story is growing stronger in me.

More flavors of daily life...

Winter waters...

Pretending we can buy the stars...

Aquí van algunas imágenes de como la vida se transforma en el invierno...

I like the idea of small markets with hand made products. I am fed up of Malls and the intoxication one gets from the shop-til-you-drop approach to Christmas.

One of my resolutions is to buy less. And: have as many vegetarian days as possible.  I think it is one tangible way to improve my carbon footprint given that I cannot give up work-related travel...

So far, So good

This is my first winter in Scandinavia.  It is striking how many people have tried to scare me about spending winter in Norway: "Are you going crazy?"

I am famously stubburn but not crazy.

So...

I am determined to making the most out of it.

The day gets dark by 3.25pm and by the time it is 4pm then the darkness is here.  This new reality amazes me  - precisely - because it is not what I am used to it.  I never take novelty for granted.

The other difference is that it is still dark one I get out of bed.  It is bit hard - I admit it - to get out of bed, but then again, it is so unusual that I choose to enjoy it.

Nobel Peace Center around 3pm

A different kind of tree

A great hat for bad-hair days...!

4pm by the time we got to the main park

Finally, there is the snow. 

 like it more than it bothers me.  I enjoy it especialy when it is so white, so fresh and abundant that it changes the way my walking sounds...each step I make with my ridiculously comfortable boots, the snow gives me back a funny crunchy noise.  Those are the little pleasures I enjoy which can only happen in the silence of Oslo - one of the few cities left where we can listen to our own walking.

Almost there

Here is a photograph of the Qatar National Convention Center as COP18 approaches its final and most difficult hour: will there be a Doha deal? I hope and think so.

A mad British man - a climate skeptic - took the floor earlier today making an impossibly outdated speech questioning climate science. The NGOs booed...

Louise Bourgeois is alive...in Qatar!

What a surprise it was to see "Maman" - the iconic spider - in the halls of the Qatar convention center!

I have written about her earlier.

Her universality leaves me speechless. Would she have ever imagined (when only few people believed in her art) that she would be wanted in a distant place years after her death?

Climate talks in Doha: Going Nowhere or Somewhere?

 Sustainable?

I am part of my country´s climate negotiations team and that is why I will in Qatar for two weeks: to attend the international negotiations which start tomorrow.

Road to Nowhere?

The Doha Development Round with a focus on trade started in 2001 and has been a disaster ever since.  Now the name "Doha" is often used as a symbol for hopeless paralysis. Some wonder whether Doha in 2012 will mark the road to nowhere for the climate negotiations.

I do not think we will end in disaster.  Most countries take climate change very seriously.

It is time to challenge conventional wisdom that you have to choose between development and climate responsibility.  (Or that we are "too poor" to do anything, most middle income economies, including Costa Rica, can and must do more. The amount of wealth creation in developing countries is unprecedented and this is the time to avoid the mistakes that developed countries made in the past).

Here is the UNEP Emissions Gap Report explaining the gap between where emissions should be in 2020 and the lever they are heading towards even if we implement current climate pledges.  I was part of the Report´s Steering Committee and given how much work and dedication when into producing it, I hope it will make a difference - at least in terms of our moral imperative.  My personal opinion is that need to expand the boundaries of political imagination so we consider the stakes of failure more explicitly (and domestically) so we are held accountable visibly for not turning these meetings into a force for change.


Here is the official photo of the Convention center where we will be for the next two weeks.

The Power of Imagination

A time for reinvention in Qatar?

Ultimately, we need to engage with the Middle East on climate issues.  I believe it is a good idea to host the meeting in Qatar because it can open the door to a regional conversation in terms that work for the local constituencies.  Qatar has the funds and the imagination.

I love (the) London (Tube)

I was back in London for a very quick visit. In and Out. No time to see anyone.  That is my work life nowadays. 

Even though rush took over,  I had to stop and take pictures of these images below.

They were on a big wall outside Southwark station: the selected creative photos made by Londoners who celebrate the London´s underground iconic symbol (the red loop and a crossing blue line). 

Arguably it is most famous underground sign in the world...

"The Lamborghini of Dance"

 

I am stealing the sentence from the British newspaper The Independent who use it to praise the Nederlands Dans Theater 1. 

The came to the Oslo Opera House and their modern dance left me so energized, I can still feel it the effect two days later.

 

We saw two acts Sehnsucht and Schmetterling.  They have a formidable dance dialogue, a simple but sophisticated set design, for example a and revolving house. They made us laugh but they also made us melancholic.

 

Beethoven, Max Richter and The Magnetic Fields joined the party.

One of the best tricks came where about 20 men came out to the state wearing nothing but loose black trousers.  And little by little as they moved around you realized there were among 4 ballerinas in the group who passed by men but where dancing without covering their breasts - just like male dancers have done for forever.   (They reversed the trend in the second act when men and women dressed  alike, this time wearing black dresses).

 

 

Handsome moments

Ojos verdes

One of the things I love about art is that it sharpens our eyes.  Artistic places make it easier for us to find beauty in daily life.  I am very welcoming of these happy invasions of grace and color.  Especially in a world where beauty has become unapologetically transactional, I welcome any chance to find free handsome shapes.

So here are some fun pics that capture that state of mind. I took them during the break from the ballet that danced on Friday night at the Oslo opera house (separate entry).

Transparent Forest...

Twin brothers (or sisters?)

The Silent Walls

Nature Trapped in Plastic

For Kids only (cushions for children watching the show)

Zero (carbon) conference 2012

My pledge: I will buy less

Participants going to the Conference in green buses

Norway´s Prime Minister

Zero is pushing for electric cars

I attended the Zero 2012 conference in Oslo. They had a fu house and the hall was full of highly committed pro-solutions audience. For more info go to www.zero.no

Here are so photos of my personal pledge (buy fewer things) and of Norway's Prime Minister, of the Eco-friendly bus taking us to the conference venue (near the airport to avoid a long ride) and of the electric cars used and exhibited. Zero is very active in the promotion of electric vehicles. They do not fluff around!

David Blood, Kofi Annan, the Minister of Environment gave speeches. The one I liked the most was by the head of Zero. Challenging conventional wisdom in Norway and treating the challenge as political in nature. The problem is not technology or lack of money!

Pura Vida in Costa Rica

 

I have been in Costa Rica for work and today I had a free day and went to Krakovia Cafe.  Awesome spot.  They keep it very colorful and the food is tasty and healthy.  Here is a flavor of the energizing atmosphere!  The sculpture is by Herny Chacon, a local artist.  We had a glorious day today. The mountains surrounding San Jose looked spectacular.  The sky was the perfect blue skin that Neruda talks about in his poems. 

A Friday that lasted 48 hours...

When I am inside my private universe - writing, thinking, isolating myself from everything and everyone - I lose touch with the rules of the external world. I go at my own speed.

This weekend I spent Saturday convinced that it was Saturday. Very normal, right? Well, it turned out that it was not. Half way into my day I checked the weather forecast because I needed some fresh air and in Oslo checking the weather is a smart habit to keep.

So I saw that it said Friday 2 November.  Hmmm. It cannot be that was yesteday. Internet is probably down. I refreshed the browser and... It still said Friday November the 2nd.

Then I check other websites.  Hmmm. How odd.

How confusing it is to realise you must go back 24 hours back in time... I had to go back to the day before.

It was a happy feeling.  I got to rewind and have another Friday. Una vez más.  It took it as a time gift: 3pm Saturday becomes 3 pm Friday, I was forced to re-live my Friday and to have another Saturday.

If you think that cannot be possible, then think twice because it had already happened to me. 

One busy weekend I was working furiously on my dissertation. It must have been late 2005 or early 2006.  I had been writing in my office all night.  I had a mattress for such special occassions and I loved staying in the building by myself.  I woke up that Sunday (or "Sunday") and I came out of my office wearing my silly pijamas only to find a lot of colleages walking downstairs and staring at my colorful attire!

I loved such days of intense research, thinking and writing where you forget about everything else!

Perhaps this weekend I got back the day I had been stolen that weekend 6 years ago!  We are even now.

Oslo art scene is making noise...

Here is a link to an interesting article in the International Herald Tribute (IHT) about Oslo´s art scene and how it is making new waves.  

"Contemporary art in Oslo is thriving. Norway’s economy is booming — its rich North Sea oil reserves have helped isolate it from the global recession — and several of its largest companies have been investing in contemporary art collections. Some are focused mainly on Norwegian contemporary art while others also are buying up some of the big names on the international art scene."

Here is a photograph of the new museum taken from the article.  

As I mentioned in previous entries the museum is breathtaking. It was a product of Renzo Piano's imagination and was financed privately.  

This was built inside an increasingly fancy area of Oslo. Fortunately, the authorities had some regulation which declares that in order to get the concession in that particular part of town some percentage of the area must be open to the public (a great way of avoiding the 'luxury enclaves' you see in other cities where scare normal citizens away...)

So this museum is located right in the part part of town which in many other cities would only be areas for ultra expensive restaurants, shops and flats... 

Snow in October!

This is the first time in my life I see snow during the autumn!

Women in corporate boards...

Look at this graph.

It shows that Norway has managed to push for female participation in the boards. It was controversial to have a law that formalized a +40% quota for women.

Now similar debates are happening in Europe. Will they learn from Norway?

Why not?

A look at their rates of women's participation in European boards suggest that they could learn a thing or two from the Norwegians!

Some visual souvenirs from Bali

 

It was my first time in Indonesia.  And therefore I was very curious.

We spent most of the time inside a hotel during the meetings.  We went on a field trip on Saturday and got to see some of the markets, rice plantations and some mangroves.  On Sunday, I had time to be in front of sea.  The wind was spectacular and recharged me quickly and throughly.  

My toes were buried in the sand and I made some important decisions.  I love those moments of truth when the sea is in front and forces you into a crystal-clear state of mind.

The Budha who was witnessing my happy moment blinked at me. I am certain he did. He had closed his eyes by the time I press the camera's shutter!