The issue of whether to drill for oil off Lofoten and Vesterålen has, over the past fifteen years, become a battle for the soul of Norway. The stakes are high and the forces are powerful. On the one side is a state machinery lubricated by oil money, and a population indebted to and embedded in oil culture. On the other are Norway’s perception of itself as a green nation – devoted to a secular religion of nature, committed to reducing global temperature rise and to fighting climate change – and its ancient identity as a fishing nation. Point 112 of Norway’s constitution declares that ‘natural
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