Loving the fall

This last week was just wonderful. Things are falling into place at work and elsewhere. Now that I have a break from classes, every evening is filled with all the activities I was putting off....long hikes, movie nights, seminars and new clubs. There is catching up with friends and re-involvement in various environmental groups around town. On Monday my environmental group (FIVH) co-hosted a debate about the oil in the North Sea, which turned out to be excellent. We had impassioned representatives from an oil company, a major political party, the largest youth environmental organization in Norway, and an author of a popular book. Norwegians seems to really enjoy public debates, opinion columns and debate shows. It starts to get interesting when temperatures rise and participants really get at it and loose a little bit of their Scandavian "cool".

On Tuesday it was the first film showing for an environmental documentary film group. We had a few screening at my apartment last winter, but it is great that my friend Ricky has taken up the ball, organizing the meetings at a plush seminar room at the University of Oslo. Thanks Ricky!!!! "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" is now my favorite documentary....an excellent story, uplifting theme and engaging narrator. Five stars. Great pick.

Wednesday night I persuaded Matt to try out a Norwegian folk dancing group that meets just ten minutes from our front door. We almost doubled over in laughter. Some of the dances, especially from Sweden look incredibly funny, from our perspective. But they are just as amusing to try, and the group welcomed us with open arms. Next week were carpooling to a larger dance event over in a neighboring district where a few groups are meeting and dressing up. Next I have to find buckle shoes and a place to rent a bunad, the traditional Norwegian dress. If it all works out, and we can manage to learn the routines, we might be able to perform at the folk museum down the street or on visiting cruise ships!

Friday night was icing on the cake, a lecture by the science philosopher Daniel D. Dennet. As part the 100-year anniversary of Darwin's "Origin of Species", Dennet was invited by SUM (the Center for Development and the Environment) to speak about evolution. Perhaps because Norway is a country of atheists, or perhaps because of Dennet's reputation, the venue was packed to the gills. People were lining the hallways and pressing into the overflow room. But luckily my friend and I found a spot right in the front, squeezing in near the slide projector. Dennet is a master of an orator, and strangely enough, looks just like photos of Darwin. Though, he may cultivate the white beard to capitalize on the resemblance.

So many of his main points struck a chord that I have to look up more of his work when I have time. It wasn't necessarily that he said anything entirely new, but it was way that he pieced together ideas in a new light, and it would take more than this blog post to go into it all. Here are just a few themes he touched on:

• The difference between creation/ the creative process from a top-down and bottom up approach.
• How unthinking organisms can create structures that are far more sophisticated and complex than thinking humans. How intelligence, understanding, and reasoning are completely separate from competence. Evolution is thrifty, only traits are passed down, without any need understand "why" they are the way they are.
• How often scientists attribute un-founded, anthropocentric "reasons" to animal behavior.
• Morals and ethics as a common understanding and social agreement that allows the most individuals in a population to co-exist.
• An interesting statistic: 10,000 years ago, before advent of agriculture, humans and their pets, animals and plants comprised less than one percent of the total biomass (not including insects and microbes). Today, it's 98%.
• Our dependency on electricity and the Internet. How computers and the tools we use are in-effect extensions of our mind and how we are lost without them.
• The problems facing the development of human-like, walking robots.

Whew. It's quite a bit to chew on.

Today was the final harvest day for the farm, a turning point for the year. My friend Judith and her sister Elisabeth (both from the Netherlands) came along to help with the work. About 30 members pulled up the last carrots and potatoes, deconstructed the greenhouses, cleared the old plants, and covered the herb garden for the coming winter months. There is talk of possibly investing in chickens next year. If I have time I hope to join Kurt, the main farmer and a few other members on a visit to some nearby farms with chicken houses to see what it takes. Øverland backs up to the open woods, so we would have to build serious protection against burrowing foxes and hungry wolves.