Apr 19 2005

British MPs Support Our Campaign Against the Icelandic Dams

The Icelandic government and media tried to hush this story up by not reporting it for months! When environmental activist Olafur Pall Sigurdsson was being interviewed on a chat programme on the State Radio about hypothetical questions of civil disobedience he seized the opportunity and read aloud the whole of Doughty’s EDM. The programme presenter was seriously reprimanded by her bosses for allowing this.

British MP Sue Doughty has tabled a Parliamentary motion calling on the British Government to use its diplomatic links with Iceland to persuade the Icelandic Government to terminate the building of a series of dams in the Icelandic Highlands.

The Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Minister and member of the influential Environmental Audit Select Committee has given her backing to campaigners in Iceland calling for international support in their opposition to the building of the dams, which will have a devastating effect on the Icelandic wilderness.

29 MPs have already signed Doughty’s EDM. Below is the full text of the EDM.

EDM 883 DESTRUCTION OF THE ICELANDIC HIGHLANDS
09.03.05
Doughty/Sue

That this House is seriously concerned at the construction of a series of dams at Karahnjukar in the Icelandic highlands, one of Europe’s last unspoilt wildernesses, to power an aluminium smelting plant for the US multinational Alcoa;

notes that Iceland’s National Planning Agency rejected the project on the grounds of substantial, irreversible negative environmental impact;

further notes that an Icelandic court has ruled that the Environmental Impact Assessment submitted with the planning application for the Alcoa smelter is invalid;

further notes that the dam is being built on a seismic fault with significant risk to local populations and that the build-up of silt will result in dust storms damaging farmland and feeding grounds for reindeer and many birds species;

further notes that the principal subcontractor, Impregilo, is facing corruption charges in Africa;

regrets the decision of Barclays to provide a loan of $400 million for the project in breach of the Equator Principles which demand sound environmental practices as a financial prerequisite;

draws attention to plans to build dams in Thjorsarver, despite being protected by the RAMSAR Treaty, and in Langisjor, Skjalfandafljot and Skagafjordur region;

supports the Icelandic independent campaigners who have requested international assistance for the domestic opposition to the projects;

and calls on the Government to use its political and diplomatic links with the Icelandic Government to encourage them to terminate the Karahnjukar project and those at similar sites threatened by heavy industry so that the Icelandic Highlands are protected for the enjoyment of future generations of Icelanders and their visitors.”

Doughty’s answer to Mitchell’s “amendment”

No Responses to “British MPs Support Our Campaign Against the Icelandic Dams”

  1. Hywel Arnold says:

    C.I.R.E.S. ‘s Owen Cooper has reported on the density of pollution fromthe US carried thermally to Europe. The use of Carbon to distract from pollution (the excuse for which is commonly volcanoes) is relevant in that the Thermhalion North Atlantic Conveyor is supposedly disabled by freshwater. Buffon of the CI8th maybe reasonably assumed to be still influencing Climate Change attitudes; After all Putin is well known for his jokes?
    It has been my contension that the Carbon Emmissions obsession legitimizes despoilation of such as Rainforests, combine this with the primitive GMO crop promotion, the use of Carbon controls to infringe of what spare time the average west European may have and it seems to me the excuse for Aluminium exercise in Iceland (anti-depopulation) is a kind of final solution for the rich against the rest of us by removing the ecosystem.
    I find it difficult to believe, yet….

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