Around Christmas 2023, an eruption forced people from their homes in the fishing port of Grindavik. One year and six eruptions later – the townspeople are back. But another eruption nearby is spewing lava into the car park of the famous Blue Lagoon. By the time you hear this podcast, that eruption could be over… or much worse.

Yet despite all the risk and uncertainty, many Icelanders would say they live here because of their volcanoes not despite them. Why? That’s what this podcast is all about.

Credits

Thanks to Easyjet for flights – direct to Reykjavik each weekday from Edinburgh. 

I travelled to the Westman Islands in a Europcar vehicle (complete with winter tyres) from Keflavik airport, took the dual fuel Herjolfur ferry (government owned and council run) courtesy of Business Iceland and stayed at the family run Hotel Vestmannaeyjar thanks to Visit South Iceland.

Accommodation in Reykjavik was kindly provided by podcast listener Scott Riddell. 

Big thanks also to interviewees – 

Laufey Sif Lárusdóttir who runs a pizzeria and Ölverk brewery using geothermal steam in Hveragerði with husband Elvar. She's also mum to three small boys. Respect.

Páll Zóphóníasson was once Mayor of Heimaey (main town on Westman Islands) and town engineer at the time of the 1973 eruption. Tax office staff, Jóhanna Kristín Gunnlaugsdóttir and Ròsa Sveinsdòttir were just children back then.

Kári Valgeirsson is Science Communicator at the Hellisheiði power plant – one of the largest single-site geothermal power plants on the planet. Daily tours available.

Thanks also to Limma and Gudrun Hannesdottir, 

Researched, recorded and produced by Lesley Riddoch

Edited by Pat Joyce

But though shipbuilding was down, Gothenburg was not out.

The City Council bought the empty shipyards for one Swedish krona – that’s 2 pence - financed new house-building, new secondary schools and linked up with Chalmers University to set up Lindholmen Science Park. It attracted the Swedish mobile phone maker, Ericsson who created a cluster of ten thousand people in other IT companies around its new HQ. This inter-dependency helped the sector survive the dot.com crash.

The biggest advance though, followed the biggest setback, when Sweden’s innovation agency, rejected a big bid for an open research area at Lindholmen. Undaunted, the Science Park owners (council and business) went ahead without state funds, seconding thirty people for one year to fine tune their plans. 

Now, 375 companies operate on dockland that wasn’t worth tuppence thirty years ago, Gothenburg has become Sweden's R&D capital and more people are employed today in tech jobs on the docklands than ever worked in the shipyards.  Local car-maker Volvo is planning to go fully electric by 2030 and 100 billion Euros is being invested to connect both banks of the river. As the city shapes up to celebrate its 400th anniversary this year, recalling the part played by Scots in its phenomenal success, the excitement is almost palpable.

Nordic Horizons Director Lesley Riddoch visited the city in May 2023 to find out how Gothenburg has turned itself around.
More info https://goteborgco.se

Thanks to

Christian Borg of Business Region Gothenburg 

Jonas Eriksson Head of Gothenburg Green City zone

Jessica Vialleton, Hotel Eggers

Hjördis Fohrman, Jonsered Museum

Stepping up Sustainability West Sweden

Eva Lehman Goteborg.com

Now other countries are looking to learn from Finland’s strategy.

Jussi Toivanen is a former adviser to the Finnish PM on media literacy and was recently appointed Head of Communications at Finland’s National Cyber Security Centre. He believes the country’s cyber security success is due to something deeper; it is a cohesive ‘superpower’ - a society with high levels of trust in institutions and the media, plus a strong sense of identity rooted in human rights and the rule of law. He offers an unexpected insight – ‘the first line of cyber defence is the Kindergarten teacher’…

We also hear from Chris Silver – a researcher and PhD student on memory and the Scottish press - and Claire Elazebbi, a member of the Scottish Government's cyber security team. 

There, most knowledge of Finland ends.
Which is a shame.

Because a staple of Finnish life could offer a permanent solution to supply crises in Britain – if we could learn to rely on cooperatives not corporations to deliver. 
The picture shows composite wooden hand-basins and baths - a unique feature of the Solo Sokos Hotel in Lahti- part of a larger S-Group cooperative with more than 3 million members. How can such a massive coop give its local hotel managers freedom to make their own decisions? Lesley Riddoch went to Finland's seventh largest city to find out. 
With thanks to Risto Turanen, Kari Huhtala, VisitFinland, Finnair and Sokos Hotels.   

So why did NH start and is the Nordic focus still relevant? Has the group made any real change to Scottish Government policy? What next?

Here's a short podcast with online editor Chris Smith in the driving seat and Steering Group members Mike Danson, Dan Wynn and Lesley Riddoch.

Many thanks to the Sibelius Festival, Finnair and Visit Finland for making the trip possible. Thanks to Maarit Kytöharju for permission to use her image of Dalia Stasevska in full flight and to Chris Smith for editing the audio material.   

It’s high time Scotland joined them, because all the evidence shows children learn vital soft skills like sharing, communication, cooperation, creativity and confidence through play long before they can finally control motor functions sufficiently to sit still and start formal education. The urge to stuff the three R’s into 4 and 5 year-old brains may be understandable in a competitive, dog-eat-dog world – but it’s not rational, helpful, productive or kind. It prompts social, emotional and mental health problems in some children forced into formal learning prematurely and 'failing' tests simply because they aren’t ready. Certainly, at five and seven Britain’s ‘force-fed’ kids are ahead in literacy. But by 9, play-based European kids are soaring ahead – and stay ahead for the rest of their school careers and lives.

Added to that, many Norwegian kids attend outdoor kindergarten. Here NH Director Lesley Riddoch talks to Turid Boholm who set up the Bukkespranget Barnehage (literally ‘child garden’) with support from local parents in Arctic Tromsø. Lesley visited in the winter darkness of January to see how kids ilearn, play and eat outdoors, even in the freezing Norwegian winter. Turid describes how the kindergarten brings parents on board and produces confident children able to take care of themselves and of one another.

The event was chaired by journalist and Nordic Horizons Director Lesley Riddoch, who co-edited this podcast with Chris Smith.

The EU average council has a relatively meagre 10 thousand inhabitants. And Vágur, on the isolated southern Faroese island of Suðuroy, has just 1377 folk. But they’re doing pretty well after self-building a Sports High School and a 50m swimming pool to honour their local swimming champion and witnessing a population boom after 70 years of decline. All pioneered by their ultra local municipality. And although the Faroes is tiny (just 55k population) and has its own devolved parliament (the Løgting), there are 28 other local councils – one with just 80 inhabitants.

It’s a similar story in Norway with 356 councils – a total set to rise as municipalities forced to merge by the recent Conservative Government, are starting to separate again. But in Scotland no change is proposed in our 32 ‘local’ authorities. Even though Highland Council is the size of a small European state.

So big or small local government – who’s got it right?

Dr. Hans Mouritzen, Senior Researcher, Foreign policy and diplomacy, Danish Institute for International Studies:
Dr. Johanna Vuorelma, Centre for European Studies, University of Helsinki,
Dr. Iver B. Neumann, Director, Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway
Professor Lynn Jamieson, Chair Scottish CND,
Chaired by Lesley Riddoch, Director Nordic Horizons.