Damnation screening in Helsinki and a seminar at the parliament about the future of our rivers
An exhausting but still very motivational day at the Finnish parliament listening to politicians and scientists about the future use of our rivers and hydropower as a “green” source of energy. We have many local struggles with hydropower and dams which I’m not going to dig in to at this blog but in short there has been talk about opening our free flowing rivers to building of new dams which is pretty absurd in a flat country like Finland which on top of that already has damned almost all of it’s rivers and destroyed many internationally remarkable salmon and trout populations.
We also had the pleasure of having Matt Stoecker, co-producer of Damnation, explaining why USA is breaching dams instead of building them . People really should stop referring to hydro as a green source of energy because it just isn’t. It blocks migration of fish, reservations take over large pieces of land, other parts of the rivers occasionally dry up, they have big methane emissions which is far more effective greenhouse gas than CO2 etc.
After the seminar we went on to a screening of Damnation document with Matt having a q&a afterwards. Really enjoyed the movie and listening to a guy who is enthusiastic about what he does and well educated on the matter.
