Flickr. (2017). APs landsmøte – oljefritt Lofoten og Vesterålen. [online] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/naturogungdom/3458547891 [Accessed 4 Jan. 2017].

Cop21.gouv.fr. (2017). COP21 | #ParisAgreement: Points that remain in suspense. [online] Available at: http://www.cop21.gouv.fr/en/parisagreement-points-that-remain-in-suspense/ [Accessed 4 Jan. 2017].

Cox, J. (2006). Environmental communication and the public sphere. 1st ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

@politifact. (2017). Did Trump say climate change was a Chinese hoax?. [online] Available at: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/03/hillary-clinton/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h/ [Accessed 4 Jan. 2017].

Doyle, G. (2002). Media ownership. 1st ed. London: SAGE.

Fernández Buey, F. and Gray, N. (n.d.). Reading Gramsci. 1st ed.

Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of Justice. 1st ed. New York: Columbia University Press.

Fultner, B. (2011). Jürgen Habermas. 1st ed. Durham, England: Acumen.

Ipcc.ch. (2017). IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [online] Available at: https://www.ipcc.ch [Accessed 4 Jan. 2017].

Photograph Robin Hammond, P., NG MapsSources: USGS/EROS; P.S. Kench et al., G., Photograph Jocelyn Carlin, P., Photograph Koene/Hollandse Hoogte, R., Photograph by Patrick Aventurier, G., Photograph Jocelyn Carlin, P. and NG MapsSources: USGS/EROS; P.S. Kench et al., G. (2017). Will Pacific Island Nations Disappear as Seas Rise? Maybe Not. [online] News.nationalgeographic.com. Available at: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/02/150213-tuvalu-sopoaga-kench-kiribati-maldives-cyclone-marshall-islands/#/tuvaluatoll02.ngsversion.1426208427993.jpg [Accessed 4 Jan. 2017].

We have do things the way it is expected of us to do them. We also wish for things that we have been taught that will make us feel forfilled in our life if we get in our life. It is completely banal how all our ideas of how life is going to be lived, is so similar in all the people in our society. We have accepted norms that are unwritten laws that we all learn when we grow up. The way we have just accepted a lot and are just doing them without stopping and asking why is called hegemony.

”In the current epoch, which is one of multiculturalism, but which is also characterised by globalisation and the resurgence of nationalism and particularism, we can verify on daily basis the extent to which what is at stake in polemics which are ostensibly of a linguistic, philosophical, socio-linguistic or cultural-anthropological nature, is also a struggle for (cultural, economic and political) hegemony. ”(N.Gray 2015). What is being explained, is that with the way the world is evolving with globalisation hegemony is being challenged. There are different cultures that works in various ways, and who they get intertwined in multicultural societies we it raises the questions of why do we really do what we do the way we do.

As much as globalisation challenges hegemony, the environmental movement is also changing it. Before no one knew that the way we were treating the planet did have such big consequences. Now people are changing the way they have always been thinking to start being more ‘eco friendly’. Our ways of living has been surtaintees, but for every year there are solutions made of people.

Businesses are producing what people are buying. If the people stop consuming products that are causing a lot of pollution, and buy more of the eco friendly products, the marked will have to change. It is a hard transaction to start using different products, because we are not always aware of how familiar products actually is produced. Our generation has got used to buying without questioning the same way we have got used to living the lifes we are used to without questioning it. Hegemony is however being challenged, and the way lobbyists tells the public to challenge hegemony is by informating the public by creating public debate, and hoping for a change in the mindsets of the people in this world.

One one hand the importance of taking care of the environment should be something everyone should be aiming for, but everyone does not see the necersarity. ”However the link between scientific research and public policy is not always direct. Scientific findings in such areas as genetically modified organism,HIV-Aids research, or the use of stem cells in research, to name a few, often are not immediately accepted, because they challenge long-held beliefs or convictions” (R. Cox 2006). Science does not always come through to the mindset of the people, and their priorities in how to live their lives because it is a question if they believe in it or not.

Challenging cultural hegemony in how we do things the way we do is one aspect of saving the environment. We can say that when the people change, the world will change, but sadly it is not that easy. The biggest companies will listen to their costumers, because their costumers is what is keeping them alive. The government will facilitate for environmentally good solutions if that is what all the people ask for. We are lots of people in this world with different opinions, and challenging the way things has been done before, and making a change for saving the earth is just one opinion.

The public sphere works the way it does, and if it imperfect or not is to be discussed, but at the moment the united nations climate agreement from last year has not decided that to stop global warming completely is a to ambitious goal. There will be more conferences, and anything can change, and the public sphere works in mysterious ways. For those that have the opinion that science is right and the world needs saving, we can only hope that environmental organisations or someone can be heard in the public sphere.

For the lobbyists that does care about the environment, and are keeping their optimism, there has been cases where engaging has helped. There will be more cases solved in the future that is for the greater good of the planet. As a lot of people does not even believe that climate change is happening, or that it is happening, but it has got nothing to do with human activity, there are also more people than ever that does work to better the environment. More companies environmental companies are being made, and companies already existing are making more environmental choices to please the public.

The way the media works now puts more pressure on companies and politicians, and there starts the true story of Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja. 

Far up north, in one of the most northern countries, in a country called Norway there is a population that has got a lot of wealth because of they found oil. Yes the Norwegian people found a lot of oil, and because they had good politicians that used the money oil created to build good public benefits like free school and health care, it became a very good country to live in. They lived happily wealthy ever after. Or so they thought they could. 

They found out that science proved that the oil contributed to pollution that was harming the earth. Their oil was harming the earth. The politicians that used to be so wise tried to fool the people into thinking that their oil was the cleanest oil, and there was no other solution as good and officiant. They tried to scare the people into thinking that there would be no more wealth it they did not pump more oil. 

In Lofoten the energy company Statoil were looking for oil, and they found it. The nature in Lofoten is very vulnerable, and there was people that reacted on what was about to happen. More oil? There are other energy solutions, and there must be a limit for when there is no longer okay to drill for oil. 

A political debate was raised all over the country because the environmental organisation ”Natur og Ungdom” means Nature and Youth, would not leave the politicians, and the oil company Statoil alone. They got the people of Norway on their side, and oil this day they have still not drilled there. If no one reacted they would have drilled there, but because the organisation frequently all over the country demonstrated and got attention in the media, and used the public sphere for what they believed it could be, they got their will. Now the company Statoil can not do what ever they please just for profit. 

The organisation thought that if they got enough attention in the media, they would win, so Norway would not build a new oil rig where the nature was vulnerable, and maybe in the future they can stop relying on oil and look for better alternatives.

These are pictures from demonstrations against oil drilling with the organisation Natur og Ungdom. They are wearing fisherman hats to stand up for their jobs, they should not give up, witch they would have to do, if oil drilling started there.

The reason the environment and the public sphere is comparable, is because it is both something environmentalists have to believe in to keep fighting. That the public sphere works ideally would be that everyone gets heard and has the opportunity to make a change. The ideal of the public sphere is that those without power can also have valid points to bring to the public, create awareness of new solutions, create debate about what is not working, and just contribute to what society should become. People believe that if they demonstrate, and are visible in the media, that their case will get heard, even if they are just average people who is just fighting for what they think is right. In this case of oil drilling in Lofoten, Vesterålen, and Senja, that was the case.

Politicians with a lot of power disagreed about the importance of taking care of the vulnerable nature. The rich oil company Statoil made a lot of commercial for why oil is the best future for Norway. Regardless of stopping climate change, and saving the environment, there were powerful courses trying their best to make this place open for oil drilling. Environmentalists in the organisation Natur og Ungdom believed that media as a public sphere was an ideal, just as they believed in climate change, and the importance to make a change.

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Jurgennn Herbermas which wrote about what is being done with a public sphere, as in how it is a good concept that is existing. ”Moreover, the discourse theory of democracy posits a crucial role for the institutional apparatus of constitutional law and lawmaking, which feeds off the energy of uncontrolled debate in the public sphere and converts it, via the transformation of public opinion into influence and then into law, into a generalized communicative power”( B. Fultner 2011) writes about Herbermas theories. Later there has been more discussion of how it really operates, and it has been written a lot of theories if the concept of a public sphere is really working as Herbermas writes that it does.

Public sphere is an idea and an ideal of how public discussion should work. If the ideal has ever been in any time accurate in any society or culture is a question that has been discussed a lot. The ideal is that public sphere is that there is a platform where everyone can discuss anything openly and free and discuss different ideas and solutions to issues in society, and history, todays culture, great and bad things. The goal of how this would work is that there would be a civil discussion where everyone had a chance to be heard and then that could contribute to a fair society where the interests of the public would get acknowledged.

In the early theories of public sphere, they talked about a society or a country that had a platform to discuss issues. Now the world is more globalised, and even if we are not one global democracy where every human being participates, there are world meetings where there are representatives such as world leaders from the whole world. Now the world are facing the treath of climate change, and every year there are world leaders trying to make an agreement of how they can stop global worming. Climate change are an issue that concerns everyone on this earth, and the countries that pollutes the most has the most responsibility to cut their pollution. The discussion of how and              where to make the world more ecofriendly can be discussed locally in any society, or more globally.

Now that we face issues that are world wide, the discussion platform gets bigger.

‘’But private concerns are not always transferred into public action, and technical information about environmental subjects sometimes remains within scientific journals or specialised conferences. Therefore, it is important to note that at least two other spheres of influence exist parrarel to the public sphere. Thomas Goodnight(1982) has called these personal and technical spheres’’ (R. Cox 2006).

If everyone gets to say their opinion and get heard, and there is a perfect public sphere as we can dream of where discussion is free and open, there will still not be fair. The CO2 level in the apnosphere has always followed the temperature. Since civilisation came on this earth the CO2 level is higher than it has ever been before. Scientists says that if we do not reduce the CO2 level the temperature will follow, just as it always has done. The temperature increasing will have mayor consekvenses for all the life on this planet. One big problem with the public sphere is that when everyone is entitled to share their opinions, what science proves can also just be seen as an opinion that you can or can not agree with.

”Following the decision of the panel at its 43rd Session to accept the invitation from the UNFCCC, at its 44th Session, the Panel approved the outline of Global Warming of 1.5 °C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.
The report will be finalized in September 2018”

https://www.ipcc.ch

Globalisation makes the public  sphere something other than what it was. When something unfair happened in an other country we can get engaged even if that is far away. LGBT people all over the world can show support and mean something about the rights LGBT people do not have in Russia. The way black people have been mistreated by the police in the USA has made people demonstrate in the UK, for the black lives matter movement. It Is not only that we get entertained by the same television, films, texts, and music, but globalisation is also that we care about what we care about beyond borders.

”But its presence there as an implicit subtext betrays a point that Hermas has since made exploit: historically, the rise of modern publicity coincided with the rise of the nationstate, in which the Westphalian territorial state became fused with the imagined community of the nation.”(N. Fraser 2008). Fraser Looks at older theories about the public sphere end finds it that it has some flaws in the sense that the imagined community of a nation is not the only part that is concerned about a case.

Public sphere has earlier on been seen as where a community discusses problems and come up with solutions. The community could also be the nation, and there was media companies in different countries like the BBC in Britain and NRK in Norway,  that started and felt they had a mission to bring the nation together. Globalisation has made the world more connected and the community are no longer only the people around in your town our country, but the whole world is in one global community. There are issues that are concerning the whole worlds population, which therefor makes the whole world the community and therefor media companies are becoming more globalised to work as a public sphere.

The environment is a case that definitely has engaged people in the whole world. Both people in the countries that are rich and poor has ways to show how they want to make a change.”U.S. environmental groups are one of the frequently encountered source of communication about the environment, as the growing number of international conservation organisations. This diverse movement comprises a wide array of groups and networks, each with its own focus and mode of communication.”(R. Cox 2006). In these organisations they gather members with the same political view and they together try to make a change.

In an  environmental organisation will have lots of knowledge they try to spread out to the public. They have opinions based on what is happening to the planet and imaged solutions on how to solve it. To make a political organisation work well it is all about gathering information and knowledge and spread it to the members, and so on let the members spread it to recruit new members. Organisations in a way can also work as a public sphere, in the way they work. The way they change the organisations opinions is by voting within the organisation, and those who vote are the members.

However, this works in a way that only those who already agree with the organisation will be engaged and take part in that public sphere, and on the other hand it is not like the ideal of a public sphere that everyone gets engaged in. Again, the organisations are lobbyists that works hard to get publicity in the media, so those who disagrees will debate and get pursvaided to the way of thinking of the organisations. So an organisation in itself might not work as a public sphere, because everyone is not engaging in the organisation. Organisations lobbyism and the media together might however work as a public sphere in a sense. Political organisations covers a group of peoples opinions, and if they get media coverage, they will start debate with those who disagree.

Lobbyism is about changing the government polices, and by doing that you need the public on your side. To get them on your side you need them to see your point, and to get attention a common way for organisations to get attention is to demonstrate. Today as mentioned earlier we know and care about things that are happening on the other side of the world. We have a feeling of solidarity to other people beyond our own nations. Not only is it solidarity to people around the world that are inspiring people in different countries to take action and demonstrate. In the case of the environment, the consequences that will happen if we do not take care of it properly, what people does in one country will effect the  people in another country. People are not only lobbying with what that happened in their own nation, but what is happening in the global community.

In the latest years the United Nations have had a climate conference where the top leaders of most of the worlds countries attend. Based on science they try to make an agreement of how many degrees we can allow the earth to become,  how much each country are willing to cut in their CO2 consumption to make that goal of how many degrees happen. In the agreement from the last conference in Paris 2015 it was written ”Many countries, including island States that are threatened by rising sea levels, consider themselves in danger beyond 1.5°C, but such an objective would require considerable efforts by the major emitters, such as China and India, who are against such a threshold. In the text proposed on Wednesday, all options remain open, including only 2°C, only 1.5°C, or, very probably, a compromise wording reaffirming the 2°C goal, combined with “increased efforts” to achieve 1.5°C.” (With the AFP News Agency 2015).

When the the people has started understanding that there is things they can do about the future of other countries, the media companies has understood that too.”the ongoing globalization of media markets and convergence in technology between media and other industries (especially telecommunications and broadcasting) have caused many media firms to adapt their business and corporate  strategies accordingly” (G.Doyle 2002). News to people now are more the issues that they care about then it is only what happened in their local community.

People care about the whole human race, and the future of this planet. Not everyone agree on what is the best for the future of this planet. People have different perspectives, they have different values, and they have different subjections to solutions. The issues of the public operates beyond the community where people live, but the community the public cares about is the global community.”Globalisation has encouraged media operators to look beyond the local or home marked as a way of expanding their consumer base horizontally and of expanding their economics of scale.” (G. Doyle 2002). If the media is going to work as a public sphere, they have to contain the issues that the public cares about, and those issues are global.

The soon to be president of the United State has denied not only that climate change is human made, but he denies that it is even happening at all. He portrays global warming as a concept that is made up just to make profit. Donald Trump has a lot of unpopular meanings, and a lot of his opinions are criticised as being hateful to minorities, to women, to disabled, to immigrants, and the list is long. He has had a lot of negative attention among enormous amount of people on a global level. The fact that he thinks climate change is nothing to be concerned about is worrying,  because he has a lot of power for what america will do in the future about their pollution.

He was elected, and that means that majourity of the population of USA thinks he is a right choice, all though climate change is not something he considers as necessary to do anything about, because he does not believe science is truthful. USA pollutes a lot and has a massive responsibility to the rest of the world on how they should make a change so the earth has a chance. USA decides what USA is going to do about their pollution, even if USA’s pollution will have an impact on other countries. It might be democracy in the way that we have an impact on what happens in our own country when we vote, but not everything that has an impact on yourself gives you the opportunity to decide.

”Following the decision of the panel at its 43rd Session to accept the invitation from the UNFCCC, at its 44th Session, the Panel approved the outline of Global Warming of 1.5 °C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.
The report will be finalized in September 2018”

(https://www.ipcc.ch)

What most of the worlds countries have agreed on, the goal of how much they are going to try to let the degrees on the planet come to, is an agreement from the last leaders in this world. Since that agreement from last years climate conference, countries in this world has got new leaders, with different sentiments than the leaders before. The agreement that is made is already not ambitious enough to save a lot of countries that cannot adapt to the changes climate change will bring. The future of that this agreement will contain is really uncertain, but from USA’s vote, it does not look like the agreement will become more ambitious, if not less ambitious.

One thing is to make an ambitious agreement, but another thing is to keep the agreement that the countries decides. It might be that some countries politics decides that they are going to continue polluting, but the majority of the people get opposed to that, and therefor all the companies tries to satisfy their costumers and therefor they change to use environmental materials and energy sources. There are not only politicians that has great power, so it is not only by voting that the people can influence. Big companies also have power, so by buying the products that are made environmentally we support that product so the company that made it gets bigger. By not buying products that are produced badly, we do not make the companies that is polluting bigger and more powerful.

How the media works today gives everyone a voice, and those pursvaiding people into believing different things can happen any time. For those who are worried because Donald Trump won the american election, and never dared to think someone that was that inconsiderate about the environment could win, there is still hope. The same way that he managed to get such big influence on peoples minds so quick, the same thing can happen the other way around.

The earth does not have a voice. It cannot tell us its opinions. When the earth disagrees in the decisions made in politics it cannot write a eye opening blogpost, or a engaging Youtube video about the change we need to make and share it all over the internet. The earth has people that speaks its case, and that is people that believe we must be cautious with how we treat the planet. That to take good care of the earth is only an opinion, is therefor worrying when we think of a perfect public sphere where every opinion has just as much right to be heard. People can mean that polluting is not a problem worth looking into because their opinion can be that polluting has no bad effects on the earth. Regardless of that science proof that polluting is bad for the planet, people can still disagree with science just because they do not want to believe it.

Science say that a big part of the land surface will be under water if we do not stop global warming. Some countries are high above the vannflate and will not take notice of the raising of the water that much. Some countries are more prepared for this because they are richer and able to build and prepare. A poor country that climate change will have fatale consequences for, can stop polluting and build the most environmental society where all the energy comes from renewable sources. However it will be a drop in the ocean that makes a tiny difference compared to the rest of the worlds pollution. The point is that when it comes to global warming, every country and everyone in them has to agree that the 1: The planet needs saving, and 2: We will save it this way, If it is so that science is right and global warming is real.

Tuvalu is an island that would vanish under water if we do not turn around and make changes so the CO2 level in the aphnosphere is decreasing.  Tuvalu needs politics in other countries to change to survive. Making a change for the environment is more than anything about solidarity to those less fortunate. To give the earth a voice we need people to use their voice to speak its case. People that finds the scary global warming as an inconvenience, that might cost them profit because their company or lifestyle would have to adjust, might find it easier to not take it seriously, and go on like it is not a big deal. Maybe also it will not be a big deal for yourself as a member of a rich country, but if we look at everyone as one human race instead of them and us, we could all make the difference and save the world of those we are responsible for ruening the world for in the first place.

“The islands are going to fight back as the environment changes, and adjust themselves to new equilibriums. But there may come a point when they can no longer do that, and we don’t know when that point will be reached. The biggest fear island people have is not knowing what will happen beyond that point.”

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/02/150213-tuvalu-sopoaga-kench-kiribati-maldives-cyclone-marshall-islands/