On grand halls and global warming

So here I am back again in the capital of Scandanavia, Stockholm, for a pleasant surprise.

I have been busy last week with the death of Ingmar Bergman, Sweden's notorious director, covering the funeral for La Tercera, Chile's only privately owned daily newspaper. Bergman's melancholic perspective as a director has inspired me long ago before I stepped on the shores of this beautiful land, to learn how to look at it, slowly and thoughtfully. The 3 oscar winner, died a peaceful death, in a small and insignificant farm house on a small and insignificant Baltic island, all alone with his archives.

But the good news came later this week, when I was back in Sven Åsberg's charming flat for a week long deliberation on water, sanitation and global warming along with 2000 global experts, politicians and business people from 140 countries, and we all were there to learn how a woman in rural India built her own toilet, which design she found on the internet.

In this age where internet penetrates societies with water systems less sophisticated than those the Roman's had two thousand years ago, what is mostly frightening is the inequalities that are not only causing harm to the countries that are challenged with them, but also for all the rest of us. India, China and the US, are by far the biggest causes of global warming, as Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrick Reinfeldt suggested in his opening remarks at the World Water Forum in Stockholm, which I wrote about here.

His 'moderate' government intends on making these countries commit to act on global warming, otherwise, in a few hundred years, Stockholm will drown, being built on 18 islands, connected only by bridges and tunnels. But fear not, Stockholm's mayor says, they have a 100 year plan to raise the city ground levels at a faster pace than that of global warming raising the levels of water.

The theme this year is pretty focused on the lack of sanitation as 2.8 billion people around the world do not have adequate sanitation or enough funds to solve the epidemic problem. A number much larger than that accounts for people without potable water to begin with. With technology and market mechanisms, and re-engineering rural technologies, many options are placed on the table here.

One of the pleasant surprises is that I was invited by the Lord Mayor of Stockholm to a reception at Stockholm's City Hall the very exact place where the Nobel Prize ceremony is held. The inside of this grand hall is yet more marvelous than its outside, with certain walls painted with shades of gold and embroidered with paintings that are a story of their own, the wine there was so good that I had to put the notebook and camera away, mingle with the delegates and let it be for the evening.

The next day it was an even more pleasant surprise (while a bit hungover) to finally see Crown Princess Victoria delivering the Stockholm Junior Water Prize for outstanding student projects, typically, the only participating student delegation from the Middle East was the Israeli, who came up with their own design for a desalination plant.

Wrapping up, I've left Sven's apartment for a room close to the central station and a final evening at my favorite Stockholm outings, Medusa and the Vampire Lounge, before I head back to Örebro for the simple lovely life, away from the woes of the world (or not really).