Sweden Switches Sides ( Dagen H (H day) #Swexit #PeakOil, Geo-Politics and False Narratives.

rogerglewis February 7, 2020 4 Comments

Dagen H (H day), today usually called “Högertrafikomläggningen” (“The right-hand traffic diversion”), was the day on 3 September 1967, in which the traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right.[1] The “H” stands for “Högertrafik”, the Swedish word for “right traffic”. It was by far the largest logistical event in Sweden’s history.[2]

However, the change was unpopular; in a 1955 referendum, 83 per cent voted to keep driving on the left

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1955_Swedish_driving_side_referendum
A non-binding referendum on the introduction of right-hand traffic was held in Sweden on 16 October 1955.[1]

The voter turnout was 53.2%, and the suggestion failed by 15.5% against 82.9%.[1] However, eight years later, in 1963, the Riksdag approved the change, following pressure from the Council of Europe[2] and the Nordic Council.[3] Traffic in Sweden switched from driving on the left-hand side of the road to the right on 3 September 1967 (see Dagen H).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p045wh07

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180417-a-thrilling-mission-to-get-the-swedish-to-change-overnight?referer=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2F

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-dagurinn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch_to_right-hand_traffic_in_Czechoslovakia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/730_(transport)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic

odinland13 from Two Raven Films on Vimeo.

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2020/01/24/163-tales-from-mount-incomprehension/

Here is an extremely interesting article which goes through the core topics of energetic economics, based on a research project funded by the Finish government, worth reading the summary and the complete report (link inside the article). An utter importance is given the concept of ‘debt exhaustion’, previously discussed here by Dr.Morgan.
Enjoy the read!
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8848g5/government-agency-warns-global-oil-industry-is-on-the-brink-of-a-meltdown

Reply ↓

drtimmorganon February 7, 2020 at 5:48 am said:

Good article (with the caveat that renewables aren’t a fix for this problem).

Fundamentally, the ‘real’ economy of energy-determined prosperity, and the ‘financial’ economy of money and credit ‘claims’ on that prosperity, have diverged beyond any sustainable relationship. The financial economy is like a car with no brakes and extremely faulty steering.
rogerglewison February 7, 2020 at 9:36 am said:

Nafeez Ahmed does not, in my opinion, do the report justice, he does link to the original document though.
http://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/70_2019.pdf
The report is 500 pages long but not text dense and an easy read and very good reference source, due to fantastic graphics of all of the data sets it analyses. The Report is very strong on the geopolitical and petrodollar aspects of the question and does not major on EROI although it does a good job of introducing the concept.
The report hints at Circular economy but does not go deeply into it, Embodied Energy concepts are absent and the difficulty of applying the Energy insights to an economy historically modelled in Financial metrics is quite apparent, I do not think the report successfully separates the two things out although it does highlight the apples and oranges comparison problem.