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Summary: It talks about how difficult it is to support an aging population. It shows how a substantial amount of money is diverted to supporting the elderly(Roughly 40%). It then gives the rankings on where the best places are for growing old and how Norway supports their elderly.

Geographic Concepts: This ties into Unit two by bringing up how Norway's finances are tied into their high elderly population. The article shows that the ways Norway deals with their high elderly ratio is by funding organizations for the elderly, a strong state welfare, and striving for a high public awareness of these needs and benefits

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But a third of countries are not meeting the needs of their growing aging populations

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Summary: Because of rising tides and global warming, it has increased negative conditions. Because the tides are rising, it decreases the living space avalible and washes out soil and nutrients into the sea. It also can hurt or ruin housing and structures made near the sea.

Geograhic Concepts: As dicussed in module one, there are certian conditions that cause people to live in a certian place, and conditions that cause people to leave. In this specific article, it highlights how because of the rising tide/flooding, the changing ecosystem, and strinkage of the island or living space, many people have left/emmigrated from the island.

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"H OW DOES a nation survive being swallowed by the sea?" So went the tagline for "Anote's Ark", a documentary film following Anote Tong, then president of Kiribati, as he toured the world warning that his islands were drowning. In 2014, he bought 20 square kilometres of land in Fiji, for Kiribati's 120,000-odd people to move to as a "last resort".

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"Anote's Ark" came out in 2018, two years after Mr Tong retired. The government that succeeded his was unimpressed. "It's a drama, like a Star Wars film," says Teburoro Tito, Kiribati's ambassador to the UN. "The story is very convincing, but I must say, it's not true." The land in Fiji is being turned into a commercial farm.

Mr Tito has a point. In research published in 2010, Paul Kench, now at the Simon Fraser University in Canada, measured the size of 27 atolls over a period of decades and found that while 14% had shrunk and a couple had disappeared, 43% stayed the same size and another 43% became bigger. Many of the ring-shaped coral reefs have been able to adapt to sea-level rise, changing shape as sediment is eroded and pushed around. Tuvalu's land surface, for instance, increased by 3% between 1971 and 2014 despite a rise in the local sea level of 4mm a year, twice the global average for that period. Mr Kench describes Mr Tong's tale of sinking islands as "largely an emotional narrative".

Such narratives have their uses. Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, low-lying archipelagoes deep in the South Pacific (see map), are among the first countries to face the full onslaught of climate change. Stories like Mr Tong's help capture international attention and much-needed funding-seven of the world's 15 most aid-dependent countries are islands in the Pacific. But there are other, more immediate effects of climate change that threaten the lives and livelihoods of the citizens of these countries. They are less arresting, harder to explain and, as in the changing shape and size of islands, sometimes counterintuitive. But the upshot is the same: the countries may soon become uninhabitable.

Start with the phenomenon of shape-shifting islands. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a consensus-building body on climate science, warns that the natural adaptation of coastal ecosystems may be only temporary: faster rates of sea-level rise, stronger waves and a growing human population may reduce their capacity to adapt.

That is one risk. Another, more urgent one stems from even small rises in the sea level. These can cause exceptionally high tides to briefly but entirely inundate the narrow strips of low-lying land that comprise most atolls. Such "king tides", as they are known, are becoming more frequent. The saltwater can kill crops such as banana and papaya and seeps into groundwater, making it unfit to drink. Desalination plants are pricey and, like all machines, can fail. "The islands are not drowning," says Michael Walsh, a former economic adviser to Kiribati. "But, humans and plants alike, they may well die of thirst."

Changing weather patterns are another factor that could make low-lying islands uninhabitable long before most of them disappear. Last year, Cyclone Harold damaged 21,000 houses in Vanuatu. Cyclone Pam in 2015 was one of the strongest ever to hit the South Pacific. Cyclones and tsunamis in the region are predicted to become ever more intense.

Many islanders have picked up and moved. Some 30,000 Marshallese, or more than a third of the country's people, have migrated to America, many in the past two decades. Yet few cite climate change as the reason for their move. The Marshall Islands Climate and Migration Project, a research outfit, notes that the main reasons given are "education, health care, work, and family connections".

Already poor and dependant on aid, Pacific island countries have been particularly hard hit by covid-19. Travel restrictions have decimated the tourism industry and curbed seasonal migration to Australia and New Zealand.

Pacific leaders have ideas to revive their economies. Tuvalu makes lots of money from licensing its .tv internet domain (along with Vanuatu, it also sells passports to rich people). It now wants to set up an internet banking system and offer more services online. There are also ways to keep islands habitable: Kiribati plans to dredge its lagoons and use the sand to raise the surrounding islands higher above the sea. Tuvalu has embarked on a land-reclamation project. But the spectre of climate change makes it harder to drum up investment for such schemes. "I am trying to change the minds of the many people who say, 'We cannot invest in your country, you're finished'," says Kiribati's Mr Tito.

The depressing long-term solution, as in Mr Tong's last resort, may be to move. The Marshall Islands hopes to renegotiate its post-colonial "Compact of Free Association" with America, which expires in 2023, to ensure a permanent right of residence in the United States for all Marshallese. Tuvalu has no such option. Maina Talia, a climate activist, thinks that the government should take Fiji up on its offer of a home where Tuvaluans could practise the same culture rather than "be dumped somewhere in Sydney''.

Earlier this year, the government of Tuvalu, which until recently insisted that there would be no Plan B, established a new UN initiative. Its aim is to work with "like-minded countries" to figure out how and where such countries could be relocated, how they could continue to function ex-situ, and whether they could still lay claim to vast exclusive economic zones if their land disappeared under water.

Relocating a country would raise other big questions, too, for both the international system and the way in which people think about statehood. "How to prepare to move a nation in dignity, that has never been done before," says Kamal Amakrane, a migration expert whose ideas helped spark the UN initiative. He is confident that countries would be able to retain all the elements of statehood, but says that the world needs to start planning now. "This is happening," Mr Amakrane warns. "We have 10-15 years to prepare for it." ■
For more coverage of climate change, register for The Climate Issue, our fortnightly newsletter, or visit our climate-change hub
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Moving story"

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Pacific countries face more complex problems than sinking

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"H OW DOES a nation survive being swallowed by the sea?" So went the tagline for "Anote's Ark", a documentary film following Anote Tong, then president of Kiribati, as he toured the world warning that his islands were drowning. In 2014, he bought 20 square kilometres of land in Fiji, for Kiribati's 120,000-odd people to move to as a "last resort".

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Summary: the article talks about how because of the negitive side effects of fossil fuels, Norway has been attempting to shift to renewable resources. This is a difficult shift due to the fact that economically there is a lot of profit for the citizens of Norway in the oil industry. There is much debate on wether or not to make the shift, both in the political parties and citizens.

Geography Concepts: In unit one we dicussed the concepts of sustainability and non-rewable resources. Due to global warming because of burned fossil fuels and a fossil fuel dependant economy, there's debate on wether or not to move away from fossil fuels onto renewable resources, such as hydro energy.

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North Sea oil and gas has helped make Norway one of the wealthiest countries in the world. But as Norwegians head to the polls on Monday, fears about climate change have put the future of the industry at the top of the campaign agenda.

The ruling Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Erna Solberg, and the opposition Labor Party, which is leading in opinion polls, both advocate for a gradual move away from the fossil fuels that continue to underpin the economy.

But the larger parties rarely rule alone in Norway; smaller players are usually required to build a majority coalition, and they can have an outsize influence on the government agenda. Some are demanding a more radical severing with the country's dominant industry and income stream.

"Our demand is to stop looking for oil and gas, and stop handing out new permits to companies," says Lars Haltbrekken, climate and energy spokesman for the Socialist Left party - a likely coalition partner for Labor. He claims that after eight years in charge the government is protecting a status quo at a time when the country is thirsty for a post-oil future.

A report in August from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicting global floods and fires created a wave in Norway that has crested throughout this election campaign.

It is also forcing Norwegians to wrestle with a paradox at the heart of their society.

With their hydro-powered energy grid and electric cars, they are among the world's most enthusiastic consumers of green power, but decades of exporting oil and gas means this nation of 5.3 million enjoys a generous welfare buffer, and sits on the world's largest sovereign wealth fund.

Tina Bru, the Oil and Energy Minister, says it's unthinkable that the country should force an end to the country's biggest industry, which is responsible for over 40% of exports and directly employs more than 5% of the workforce.

"My question is always: What happens after you stop? What else are you going to do to make sure the world reaches its climate goals? It might affect our own climate budget, but it's not going to make a difference globally," she says.

She agrees with a report highlighted by the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association, an industry group, that says an end to Norwegian production would have a net negative effect on global emissions. Demand would stay the same, and cleaner Norwegian production would be replaced by other countries with higher emissions, she says. She prefers a longer-term approach that focuses on demand.

"It is kind of disappointing in this campaign where we see the only way to discuss policy and have credibility on your will to cut emissions is to stop producing oil and gas. It is such a more nuanced issue involving other things like agriculture and transport."

Some 70% of all new cars sold in Norway are electric, with consumers continuing to benefit from government subsidies, and the government has signaled that environment taxes will rise. Earlier this month, it also proposed a tweak to the existing tax regime, where some explorers will have to shoulder more of the risk of searching for oil.

Labor supports the approach and admits that it charts a similar future for the industry. But it has promised a more interventionist industrial policy that will funnel support to new green industries, like wind power, "blue hydrogen" that uses natural gas to produce an alternative fuel, and carbon capture and storage, which seeks to bury carbon dioxide under the ocean.

However, any post-election horse trading is likely to be fraught for Labor. The Socialist Left says it won't offer support lightly, and the other probable partner, the Center Party, is also demanding a more aggressive approach to the energy shift.

"Right now our plan is to run together with our two old friends from these parties," says Espen Barth Eide, Labor's Energy spokesman. "We still think this works. But if their opening position is to end exploration, that is not going to happen. ... We will try to have a mature dialogue about the next phase of the oil industry."

Most of the country's oil and gas still comes from mature areas in the North Sea, but most of the untapped reserves are in the Barents Sea, above the Arctic Circle - a red line for environmentalists. Mr. Eide says a possible compromise might be found by focusing on where oil exploration can be carried out in the future.

However, Mr. Haltbrekken, a former chairman of Norway's Friends of the Earth, a climate charity, says the new government needs to be more urgent. "The IPCC report made a huge impression on the population. But there is one thing I fear more than what was in the report, and that is that apathy and hopelessness will take over. People could think this is such a huge problem that we cannot do anything. But we can. We can do a lot to solve it. It just has to start now."

Election forecasts will be released when voting closes at 9 p.m. local time on Monday. The final official tally for the 169-member parliament, usually comes at some point overnight, but experts believe the results could come quicker this year with a record number of people having already made their choice in advance voting. More than 78% of eligible people in this nation of 5.3 million voted in the last national election.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.

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Norway is wealthy because of oil. Can it give up fossil fuels?

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Norway, a country known for its environmentalism, owes much of its wealth to vast oil wells. On Monday, voters who are increasingly concerned about the climate crisis take to the polls in an election that could shape the future of the country's energy supply.

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