Musées de la science et de la technologie en Finlande : un accent mis sur la spécialité, l’enthousiasme et le régionalisme

Collecter, préserver et exposer le patrimoine industriel et technologique a été un phénomène dispersé et spécialisé en Finlande. La principale raison en est que l’État finlandais ne s’est pas intéressé à la création de ses propres musées des sciences et des technologies et n’a pour ainsi dire mené aucune autre politique que celle d’accorder des subventions financières aux institutions dans ce domaine. Les musées finlandais des sciences et des technologies ont été établis et sont détenus par des fondations privées, des associations, des entreprises privées, des municipalités ou des universités. L’article examine les principales catégories de musées de sciences et technologie en Finlande ainsi que leurs centres d’intérêt et leurs spécialités. Beaucoup d’entre eux ont été fondés par des acteurs privés qui ont fait vivre leurs musées principalement grâce à des dons ou des subventions régionales. Bien qu’il existe des musées de technologie relativement importants dans les grandes villes, un musée de technologie finlandais typique est une institution raisonnablement modeste

Finland: Environmental History in National Languages

For some time, the journal Environment and History has published Notepad surveys on the development of the research on environmental history in the national languages. I was asked to work out a review of the recent trends in Finland. In this survey, I attempt to relate to the current developments to my earlier observations on the Finnish printing industry since the 1840s presented in my Licentiate thesis. This theme touches upon the debate ongoing for almost two centuries over which languages are mature enough for scientific expression and what scientific expression requires from a language. Diverse scientific publishing activities are considered a strong indication of the sophistication of the language. This essay focuses on a rather narrow sector both thematically and temporally: on environmental history books published in national languages around 2013-2020. The article states that the predominant language of environmental history in Finland has changed from Swedish to Finnish in recent decades, while the topics of environmental history have expanded and the writing community has diversified. Nowadays, non-professional historians publish a great proportion of books on environmental history. During the period under review, the main themes in Finnish environmental history have been forests, water, climate and weather, animals, conflicts of interests and the conservation of nature.</p

Are there policy tunnels for China to follow?

According to the controversial “environmental Kuznets curve” –hypothesis (EKC), some pollution would follow an inverted U-curve related to incomes, increasing at low income levels and decreasing at high income levels. Mohan Munasinghe argues (in a gerschenkronian way): “that developing countries could learn from past experiences of the industrialized world by adopting measures which would permit them to ´tunnel´ through the EKC, providing a possibility to avoid the most serious damage to the environment by avoiding the peak before a downturn of the emissions...” In our presentation, which is based on a comparison of Denmark’s, Finland’s, Sweden’s and Switzerland’s carbon dioxide emissions; we will examine China´s possibility to tunnel through its emissions of carbon dioxide. With cumulative carbon dioxide emissions over the period 1870–2003 half that of Denmark’s or two thirds of Finland\u27s or Sweden’s, Switzerland seems, at a first glance, to be a fine example of a munasinghean policy tunnel. Switzerland’s carbon dioxide emissions per capita were, however, in 2003 around 30 thirty per cent higher than global average and up to fifty per cent higher than those of China. As, in fact all industrialized countries are emitting carbon dioxide in quantities which can be considered well beyond their fair share of what can be considered as a sustainable global emissions level, there is at present no examples for developing countries to follow in order to tunnel through. Thus, our paper supports unilateral cuts in greenhouse gases, such as those agreed during the Spring Council meeting of EU heads of government in March 2007. The attractiveness of the Swiss model depends also whether nuclear energy is considered desirable. The Chinese Three Gorges Dam – project, displacing over a million people, also shows that even hydro power can create large problems. If China would consume as much electricity per capita as Switzerland and produce it with the same means, this would require around sixty three gorges dams with an capacity of 85 TWh/a and six hundred medium sized nuclear power plants producing 7 TWh/a. In other words, China would need to build more new nuclear power plants than is at present in the world in total. It is also questionable whether a Swiss development path is possible worldwide, as its low energy consumption is due to a production of highly specialized and expensive products. At least it is not achievable with present consumption patterns in developed countries

Eesti-Soome uurimisprojekt: võrdlev pilguheit kahe naabermaa 19. sajandi ajaloole

A research project on Estonia and Finland: Comparative survey on the history of two neighbours in the 19th century (Title in English)</p

Cosmos Coffee

The consumption of coffee varies a lot nationally. One might search reasons for the differences from latitude, climate, culture, history, living standards, habits of everyday life and technology. Presumably, there is no single factor explaining these discrepancies.  Generally, the Nordic countries are among the biggest consumers of coffee per capita. Perhaps in those countries, there are reasons which encourage drinking coffee.   In 2017, an average Finn consumed 9.9 kg coffee per year. To put it in relative terms, an ordinary Finn drank 1,400 cups annually – that is three or five cups per day. Consequently, the Finns drink coffee more than any other nationality. The Norwegians, Swedes and Danes are near the top, as well. In the Nordic countries, cold climate, short daylight and long darkness in wintertime can be depressing, and people regard coffee as an invigorating and warming stimulant. In the 19th and 20th centuries, stoves and ovens were in winters heated several times a day. As a result, energy was frequently available for roasting coffee beans and brewing coffee. Especially in the countryside, firewoods were cheap. Moreover, these countries were sparsely populated, the industrialization of roasting and grounding of coffee started late, as well as coffee houses and restaurants were scarce. These factors encouraged roasting, grinding and brewing manually in households. Still nowadays, in these countries, most of the coffee is drunken at home. Drinking coffee became in a social habit and developed into a particular social culture, which was assimilated in national social institutions. Finland is the only country in the world that has nationwide, established coffee breaks in workplaces. According to the mutual agree­ments between the employers’ and employees’ unions, there must be two coffee breaks for employees on each workday of six hours or more.  As a result, the bunch of coffee drinking workmates is the core of social fabrics in Finnish working places.   In Finland, neither the industrialization of roasting and grinding coffee nor electric coffee­makers have disturbed the position of coffee culture. The Finns tend to choose coffeemakers by which they can brew large quantities of coffee at the same time.  Therefore, filtered coffee is prevalent in these countries. The paper claims that technology has not been the dominating factor in the development of the Finnish coffee culture. However, technology has facilitated changing trends in con­sumption habits. The adaptation of coffee making technology has made possible the develop­ment of the Finnish coffee culture and kept the consumption of coffee on the highest level in the world for decades