Coolcation without a Return Ticket

We complain about the influx of tourists to Norway - but soon they will arrive with moving trucks instead of suitcases.

Cool nights in July are becoming increasingly difficult to find. The world is getting brutally hot, with temperatures in Spain and Greece more and more often creeping towards the 50s.

In New York, public cooling centers have been established in museums, cinemas and shopping malls in recent summers, while tarpaulins hang over sidewalks to provide shade.

Not everyone can afford indoor winters in the summer.

A steadily rising number of people are fleeing the explosive heat, and the Norwegian tourism industry is rejoicing. We have been working on this for a long time. Not just through shiny campaigns to lure tourists to cold rivers, chilly rivers and glaciers that may be singing their last verse.

Norway has also made a solid contribution to global warming – because we are pumping up more and more oil and gas.

We happen to be among the worst in the world when it comes to climate emissions per capita. We just don't know it, because oil-related emissions are not included in the statistics since the black gold is extracted outside our country, on the Norwegian continental shelf, before most of it is burned as fuel elsewhere.

Pollution is raising temperatures so much that newspaper readers traveling south are getting advice on how to stay alive in Crete, the Costa del Sol, and the Riviera. There's not much to brag about after vacations in the South anymore.

But who cares? Because incredibly, we are in the process of turning the tourist flow northwards. Not many people believed that before the turn of the millennium.

Unfortunately, Norway is not available for everyone. The increase in the number of cold-hungry SAS passengers from Italy, Spain and France is dramatic from last year, something which drives prices up and excludes people who have thinner wallets. They have to sweat, or jump into a local sea.

The climate crisis is not for everyone.

In the Western world, some people buy their way out of the devil's grip. Through plane tickets to colder regions, construction of swimming pools, or purchasing air-conditioners.

Besides, we still get hod of everything, even if the goods cost more, are less accessible, or are harder to find.

For example, if bananas can no longer grow in the Guatemalan heat, we'll just rather import them from China.

I traveled to 21 countries along the equator and the polar circles in my latest book, looking for answers about how climate change is affecting ordinary people. I spoke to those who live where it's really burning - literally.

The married couple Sharlem and Mami are farmers in the village of Boya 3 in the Congolese rainforest. Over a year of extreme flooding has reduced their family's annual harvest from 20 to 8 sacks. A catastrophy for the parents of nine children.

On the other side of the Atlantic, mathematics professor Eduardo is also troubled by a problem of the opposite nature.

For two years in a row, many of the tributaries of the Amazon have dried up completely, forcing indigenous people into modern cities and a lifestyle they neither know nor want. Dry riverbeds, access to drinking water, food, medicine, and transportation are all but disappearing.

Common transport on the Amazon River.

There are not enough helicopters in Brazil to help everyone. Even the main river is shrinking significantly, but with an up to 90 meters deep main course, it is not yet a full crisis for those who live near it. But not even here seasons come when they should.

"Everything's going straight to hell!" Eduardo despairs. And it's not his fault.

Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo account for 1.2 and 0.009 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, respectively. The latter country is home to 110 million people and is the same size as all of these countries combined: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

No country emits fewer greenhouse gases per capita. But every single Congolese feels the climate crisis firsthand.

There is no running water, electricity or access to fans in the rainforest villages, and the nearest shop is usually far away.

Despite the fires in Los Angeles and the asphalt melting around the Mediterranean, we as Westerners, who have caused almost all CO2 emissions, can buy ourselves out of the effects of climate change. The fact that we hardly need to see nor experience the crisis is anything but deserved.

As if that weren't enough, we still enjoy pleasant summer temperatures, in the land of the Northern Lights.

We are proud to see foreign celebrities and the world's richest people vacationing in the Sogne Fjord or on the Lofoten Archipelago. They ensure that international magazines with a high gloss factor publish both boastful selfies and paparazzi photos of beautiful, made-up people - in even more beautiful, and totally make-up free, nature.

Ironically, it is coolcation that is making Norway hot. Suddenly, the tourism industry may also overheat. The potential for mass tourism is great, and we should consider containment measures.

Because do not imagine that tourists will be satisfied with a vacation week or two under the midnight sun in the long term, when the heat waves at home develop into long-term extreme conditions.

It is only a matter of time before it will be congested with northbound moving-vans, with enormous demand and pressure on space, resources and infrastructure.

Our nature is wild, beautiful and relatively cool. The monopoly on living in it will not last forever.

The threat is unlikely to go away because we are not addressing the underlying causes of climate change. It simply does not hurt enough for us to understand, or want to understand, the seriousness of it.

I fear Eduardo is right . The course we have set out on is leading straight to hell.

This opinion piece originally featured on the website of Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.