Lill Rastad Bjørst

Climate Testimonies and Climate-crisis Narratives. Inuit Delegated to Speak on Behalf of the Climate

Abstract The empirical data analysed in this essay will focus on several Greenlanders who were invited to the COP15 parallel event Klimaforum09, held in Copenhagen in December 2009, as well as their experiences with the venue and the dilemmas they confronted as both local and global witnesses. This essay challenges the use of climate testimonies in the international climate-change debate. Specifically, what is drawn upon in these personal experiences with the environment, and how is it useful in a public, political, or scientific context? In the conclusion of this article, it is argued that dominant climate-crisis narratives have framed “the Greenlandic case” in a certain way, which consequently freezes arguments and possible agency. However, at the same time as there is a global framing of climate change and a specific position in this narrative for “local witnesses”, there is also room for an alternative empowerment and ways of engaging in and talking about global and local natures.

Steaming up or staying cool?: Tourism Development and Greenlandic Futures in the Light of Climate Change

The complex relationships between climate change, tourism, and societal development are remarkably palpable in the Arctic as documented and projected consequences of global climate change have reinvigorated—rather than decelerated—the prospects of economic development in this region. This is reflected in the increased tourism activities to remote circumpolar destinations such as the Ilulisaat Icefjord in Northern Greenland. Drawing from this example as well as the exhibition on future scenarios of Possible Greenland, this article combines insight from arctic studies, tourism studies, and science and technology studies in shedding light on the complex relationship between climate change, tourism, and development in Greenland. By showing how these three phenomenon interfere in the visions of Greenland as a “cool” and “hot” place, we seek to critically engage with some of the often entangled and paradoxical discourses, configurations, and practices of climate and the social that coexist in the Arctic today.

Uranium - the road to “economic self-sustainability for Greenland”?: Changing uranium-positions in Greenlandic politics

How did the government of Greenland in just a few weeks take on a clear pro-uranium position in the eyes of the industry? I introduce a case study of the production of tolerance towards the mining of Greenland’s uranium as developed in the recent political debate about resource development, and particularly, uranium, and to the knowledge practices which help to legitimize varying arguments in the debate. The concept of sustainability is often mentioned in the debate but is given radically different meanings by different actors. In this study I question how these different meanings inform various political strategies, in the context of increased global attention to the possibility of the industrial development of one of the world’s last underground treasures.