But something is adrift, the people are letting their government benefit big oil and mining companies to the detriment of human survival on the planet.
The glaring example is companies seeking to exploit Rosebank, North Sea oil.
It is time to leave the oil in the ground for the sake of future generations. The pollution and emissions damage this would cause do not bear thinking about.
We need the UK government to refuse the licence, but even better for Norway to call a halt.
Just this last week there have been two protests.
One on Tuesday outside the Fishmongers Hall, seeking to stop Norwegian salmon farms from provoking overfishing and famine in West Africa by bulk buying fish to feed the salmon.
And on Thursday, a protest outside the financiers Hartree Partners next to Victoria station here in London, asking them to talk to the campaigners who had travelled here from North Norway about divesting from the Nussir copper mine being constructed at Repparfjord.
The Norwegian protest was also simultaneously taking place outside Hartree Partners in New York, Oslo, Hamburg, Melbourne and Geneva.
Repparfjord is a nationally protected salmon fjord in the Finnmark, where the Sami indigenous people graze their reindeer herds.
There has been no local agreement to the millions of tons of toxic waste from a copper mine being poured into the sea.
Why would Norway destroy a beautiful fjord and pollute the sea and countryside for mining and investment company profit?
Now I am aware of the irony of this country, where the transgression is so much worse, pointing a finger at another country.
But Norway, you are better than this, humanity and the planet need you to step up and stop Rosebank, stop inflicting famine on West African countries, and absolutely stop constructing the Nussir copper mine at Repparfjord.
- Dorothea Hackman is the chair of Camden Civic Society.
