Having been to both countries I fully agree.
However the GP had a point in that the public image of Norway is hydro power and 90% EVs nowadays. The fact that they are a major oil and gas exporter is not as widespread.
Comparing oil to heroin is beyond stupid. It's an essential good responsible for 30% of the world's energy needs. If oil disappeared from the earth tomorrow, entire nations would grind to a halt and millions would die.
Opium does not save lives, it's a painkiller. And it is not the same at all. If millions would die if people stopped selling medical opium, I am sure you would argue it unethical to stop production of it before there was anything to replace it.
I would say a better analogy is selling alcohol to an alcoholic because you can't just cut off the supply right away because they could die from the abstinence symptoms. You need to get them off their dependency slowly. In this case, you need to decrease their dependency on oil and gas slowly and replace it with clean alternatives, which are currently way too expensive for the developing world.
Countries would literally go to war tomorrow if they lost their supply of oil and gas.
Smug westerners love to say that stuff, and yet people in Saudi Arabia are much happier than Norwegians. The rate of suicide is double in Norway what it is in Saudi Arabia. I guess there's more to a country and people's worth than their willingness to fly LGBT flags?
Saudi Arabia age distribution got absolutely nothing to do with it obviously. Nor does the taboo on suicide can possibly lead to suicide being reported as accidents...
