“The nature of scientific thinking is critical, rebellious and dissatisfied with a priori conceptions, with reverence and sacred or untouchable truth. The search for knowledge is not nourished by certainty: it is nourished by a radical distrust in certainty” (Rovelli, 2016)
Norway has high hopes (and high stakes?) in terms of oil and gas production in the Arctic waters. In 2015, the Norwegian government opened new blocks for oil exploration in the Barents Sea as part of the 23rd licensing round – this was the first time in twenty years that the government offered new blocks for exploration. Furthermore, it was the first time that drilling blocks were opened as far North as in the 74th parallel. These openings were further followed by 10 additional blocks in the 74th parallel by the subsequent 24th licensing round.
My on-going research examines oil spill risk governance in the Barents Sea. In November 2017, I will be interviewing participants from different fields in Norway and with the use of visual tools (Bayesian causal networks), the aim is to compare how the different participants frame the problems in terms of petroleum production in the Barents sea: the questions relate to the main threats/ impacts of petroleum industry as considered by the participants, the perceived goals of risk governance and the ways these goals could be achieved. Proper problem framing has the potential to improve communication, learning and discussing and developing effective management measures. The study seeks to find new, effective ways of governing complex risks and examines the need for alternative governance measures as well as the need for co-production of knowledge on risks.
Here I will be noting down some of my thoughts that are more-or-less related to the research topic.
Even though the study focuses on oil spill risks, the impacts in terms of climate change cannot be ignored. What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic, so to what extend can the opening of any new oil fields be justified? Greenpeace Norway and Norwegian Nature and Youth organisation have filed a law suit against the Norwegian government: the organisations consider that the government is breaking its own constitutional law, which guarantees every citizen the right to healthy and diverse environment. The court case starts on the 14th of November.