Saving Iceland

According to a new Gallup poll 58% of the Icelandic nation want at least a five year stop to more heavy industry projects. People were asked if they wanted a five year “pause” in heavy industry projects. Just under 33% wanted no pause. Read More

From Iceland Review
04/11/2007

The Confederation of Icelandic Employers (SA) presented the results of a new study yesterday.

According to Fréttabladid, the Institute for Academic Evaluation (Námsmatsstofnun) conducted the study for SA. In 2000, 2003 and 2006, 15-year-olds in Iceland were asked what kind of a job they expected to have at 30.

Interest in becoming specialists has increased steadily. Most participants in 2006, 58 percent, want to become professionals of some kind. Currently, only 14 percent of Icelanders work as professionals.

Only one percent of participants want to be office workers or manual laborers, none want to operate heavy machinery, two percent want to become farmers or fishermen, ten percent want to become craftsmen and 11 percent want to work in the service industry.

The teengers did not seem impressed by growth in heavy industry or increased smelter construction either. Only a handful is interested in working on construction sites or in factories.

Ragnar F. Ólafsson from the Institute for Academic Evaluation said he is not surprised or worried by the results. “I feel the results coincide with the emphasis on university education in society.”

“I believe we can be optimistic about the future. The girls delivered especially good results. In 2000, 22 percent of them wanted to work in service, but now they want to become professionals like dentists or doctors,” Ólafsson said.

See also: Alaska rattled by melting ice
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18324601.900.html

Melting ice cap triggering earthquakes http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/08/climatechange

Iceland Review
04/10/2007

Oddur Sigurdsson, an Icelandic geologist who has undertaken studies of Iceland’s glaciers, said the nation’s glaciers are melting at record speed and may disappear completely after 200 years due to global warming.

“It is obvious judging by the data that we have that it is first and foremost caused by the heat in summer, which has increased considerably, especially in the last ten years,” Sigurdsson told RÚV.

Sigurdsson said he believed global warming is the gravest problem the human race has ever faced.

French geologist Jean-Marc Bouvier, who has undertaken studies of the Greenland ice cap, explained to RÚV that once the Arctic glaciers have disappeared the ocean surface will be nine meters higher than today and flood an area which is currently inhabited by one billion people.

Bouvier described this situation as a “meteorological time bomb” and said “the wick has already been lit.”

How was it that the saying goes… “Can’t see the forest for the trees”?
And exactly what sort of tree species would we be looking at… the manicured, sterile, non-indigenous corporate greenwash type? Maybe the time has come for a new botanical category? Perhaps a little research into ALCOA’s track record in forestry would be the place to start: http://www.wafa.org.au/articles/alcoa/index.html
Read More

Iceland Review
04/07/2007

Geologists suggested on March 24 that a volcano park should be established on Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland, which has the potential to become a major tourist attraction.

According to geologist Ásta Thorleifsdóttir, a volcano park on Reykjanes could be larger and have more variety than a similar volcano park in Hawaii, which attracts 3.3 million tourists every year, making USD billions in profits.

“We have much better access on Reykjanes. […] We have the international airport beside it and all these villages that can offer accommodation, entertainment, information, guidance, scientific knowledge and everything else that comes with it,” Thorleifsdóttir told RÚV.

Thorleifsdóttir has researched the volcano park in Hawaii, which is the largest of its kind and is considered the most noteworthy volcano park in the world.

Thorleifsdóttir said the geology of Reykjanes peninsula is unique. There is a lot of volcanic activity with numerous shield volcanoes, volcanic fissures, craters and hot springs.

“There are few places on earth like it. Only us who live close by don’t realize that if we want to show foreign tourists something unique we don’t have to go further than to Kleifarvatn and Krýsuvík,” Thorleifsdóttir said.

01/04/2007

The residents of Hafnarfjörður voted yesterday in a referendum over whether their Alcan aluminium smelter should be more than doubled in size, to make it Iceland’s largest aluminium smelter. Read More

Iceland’s path as either a wild green masterpiece or a mid-Atlantic industrially polluted backwater is to reach a significant junction tomorow, Saturday the 31st of March. Residents of Hafnarfjordur, SW of Reykjavik, will vote on whether they want their Alcan (Canadian Aluminium) smelter expanded into by far the biggest aluminium smelter seen in Iceland to date.

The smelter, which lies in the vicinity of Hafnarfjordur, in Straumsvik, currently has a capacity of being able to produce 180,000 metric tonnes of aluminium per year (mtpy.) Alcan wishes to turn this into an unbelievably massive 460,000 mtpy smelter.

Iceland’s current largest smelter asside from this, being built in Reydarfjordur, can produce a gigantic 322,000 mtpy of aluminium and is to be powered by damming the Central-Eastern of Icelands: the infamous Karahnjukar project.

If the smelter in Hafnarfjordur is to be enlarged then we will be facing the destruction of Iceland’s Central Southern Highlands – Langisjor, Kerlingarfjoll, Thjorsarver, the nether region of Thjorsa not to mention the geothermal fields in Reykjanes and so much more.

To anyone who has the opportunity to vote in this referendum, please vote to keep Iceland a wild and green masterpiece.

At the moment, the party’s organisation counts seven individuals, including environmental crusader and former TV reporter Ómar Ragnarsson, who has been temporarily nominated as the chairman, former Liberal Party manager, Margrét Sverrisdóttir as vice-chairman, and Jakob Frímann Magnússon who seceded from the Social Democratic Alliance in February.

The Icelandic Movement will place the main emphasis on environmental issues. At the press conference today, Ómar Ragnarsson explained that the party will focus on keeping the environmen in the spotlight and fight against further heavy industry projects as well as emphasizing on innovation, general welfare, equality and increased democracy.

The party’s policy will be introduced in the next couple of days.

The Independent
21 March 2007
Richard Hollingham
Read More

Saving Iceland
20 March 2007

Campaign group Framtídarlandid (‘Future Land’) have pulled off a herculean stunt by finally managing to rally the Icelandic bourgeoisie to the defence of Icelandic nature.

Representatives of the group presented the pact ‘Gray or Green’ at a press conference last Sunday and asked Icelanders to sign it to put a stop to further heavy industry projects.

The pact, which can be read and signed on Future Land’s website, encourages the government to:

“Secure a varied and vibrant society in Iceland, where ingenuity and creativity of individuals is celebrated for the benefit of themselves and others.

To respect future generations by creating law to protect nature before further projects to harness energy for industry are undertaken.

To take responsibility in times of climate change by following international agreements on the reduction of CO2 emissions.”

The pact says Iceland should make decisions which coincide with its identity and image rather than become the biggest aluminium manufacturers in the world.

If the smelters in Straumsvík and Hvalfjördur are enlarged, new smelters in Helguvík and Húsavík constructed and aluminium production in Reydarfjördur is begun, energy comparable to three Kárahnjúkar power plants will be required, the pact states.

Finally all Icelandic MP’s are invited to make a clear statment in favour of environmental protection by commiting themselves to the pact.

Andri Snaer Magnason and actress María Ellingsen presented the pact yesterday.

The press conference was also attended by Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the former president of Iceland, who is the pact’s official patron.

Supporters of the ‘Gray or Green’ pact include such prominent luminaries as Bishop Sigurbjörn Einarsson, writer and vice-director of Time Warner Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson, former Prime Minister Steingrímur Hermansson, professor in philosophy Vilhjálmur Árnason and film producer Sigurjón Sighvatsson.

Saving Iceland welcomes this initiative because, as they say; better late than never.