The irony

Big business is trying to pick up on "The Green Wave" in all the wrong ways. From today's interesting package, "This year's IT event will focus on environmetal friendliness and [economic viability]" with furter details about how you become more economic by using less paper, don't have to travel round half the country to have a meeting and save on work hours. "It even becomes cost effective."

This is from the invitation to the Ementor Community 2007, October 23rd. In order to participate and "show" how much I care about the environment, I'm asked to fly across the ENTIRE country to meet them in Oslo. This is printed on bleached 350g paper with glossy finish, accompanied by a 52 page A3 catalogue of products that they have started to send me on what seems to be a monthly basis. The catalogue and the invitation came with an additional A4 letter and wrapped in redundant plastic wrapping.

Now, why do I find it so difficult to take these people's "environmental stand" seriously?

Larger fines

Norway is well known for its large fines for breaking the law. Especially speeding can cause very large fines. Some fines, however, are not quite as well known.

Norwegians who decide to fall in love with a foreigner does not automatically have the right to a family life. He or she has to pay a fairly large fine for littering the Norwegian racial gene pool. Last year, the fine was NOK 800 (ca €100). January 1st 2007, the fine increased 37.5% to NOK 1100 (ca €138). Only six months later, on June 1st 2007, the fine made another 173% jump to NOK 3000 (ca €375), which results in a 275% increase over only six months. I wished my own salary increased this fast.

Well, the Norwegian who doesn't keep the race clean basically has two choices: Pay the fine (equivalent to driving 75 km/h in the 60 km/h limit) four years in a row and maybe keep your family or get the heck out of the country.