After spending a week in Italy, I’ve been struck by how different the everyday mindset is compared to back home.

People here use plastic without guilt, enjoy their meals without shame, and live without constantly apologizing for their existence. The intense Swedish climate discourse suddenly feels very far away.

Being here has made me reflect even more on the Swedish approach: for over a decade we’ve been bombarded with various forms of shame — flight shame, meat shame, consumption shame. We’re told our normal lives are morally questionable.

Meanwhile, the same politicians who lecture us often exempt themselves.

But the absurdity reached a new level when I remembered that Sweden is now building expensive facilities to capture carbon dioxide — only to bury it underground. All while our forests, which are the very reason Sweden has net negative emissions, actually need CO₂ to grow.

One example is the Beccs Stockholm project, which plans to capture up to 800,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year. We’re literally paying billions to pump carbon dioxide into the ground while trees stand ready to absorb it naturally.

It’s truly an upside-down world.

I still have another week here in Italy. And honestly, I’m in no rush to return to the Swedish guilt complex.

I’m not saying we should abandon environmental responsibility. But constantly shaming your own population while pursuing increasingly strange solutions feels both ineffective and detached from reality.

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This is a new post on the new dewlar.me blog.
You can find the old blog here: https://mrsdewlar.blogspot.com

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