CeSAM Seminar Series: Nature, Pollution, and Decision-Making in Norway

Justifying Environmental Harm: Nature, Pollution, and Parliamentary Decision-Making in Norway

How have ideas about nature—and about what counts as acceptable environmental harm—changed since the late nineteenth century? This talk traces shifting parliamentary justifications for industrial development and the evolution of environmental legislation in the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) from 1888 to 2025. Particular attention is given to the post-war period, when many of the principles and governance instruments that structure contemporary environmental management were consolidated.

By reconstructing how environmental harm has been made legitimate in different historical moments, the analysis sheds light on the distinctive ways in which today’s intertwined nature and climate crises are understood—and governed.

The talk draws on research from the ongoing Ecologic project (external link), as well as Chapter 6 of the open-access book Parlamentets Natur (external link) (available in Norwegian only).