Saving Iceland

As if the situation in Iceland was not ‘heavy’ enough these days, a profiteering ambassador (Olafur Egilsson) has come forth with plans to endanger the environment of the Icelandic Westfjords with a giant oil refinery. Not only is this incongruous in view of the recent announcement by the local authorities in the Westfjords that the area is to stay clean of all heavy industry but also because the perpetrators of this project are trying to sell it as “green” “high tech” industry, cunningly trying to avoid the ugly name heavy industry has with the majority of Icelanders.

There is nothing new about this sort of attempts of greenwash by the enemies of Icelandic nature, but this time INCA has exposed their lies.

In a statement released by INCA (Icelandic Nature Conservation Association) they have pointed out the inaccuracies in Egilsson’s and the Mayor of Isafjordur Halldorsson’s arguments in favor of the oil refinery. Egilsson, trying to sell his personally lucrative heavy liquid idea to the nation on a TV show, said that the pollution from oil refineries was only 1/100 compared with that from aluminium smelting and Halldorsson said that it was only 1/10 of the pollution from smelters.

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17 April, 2007

A strange seal was spotted on the shore by Straumur near the ALCAN aluminium smelter. Its front flippers were deformed, so they looked more like dog feet.

“I have turned sixty and I thought I knew a thing or two about animals, but I never knew seals could have feet,” eyewitness Gunnar Örn Gudmundsson told Fréttabladid.

“I could hardly believe it when I took its picture. They looked like feet on a Labrador dog” Gudmundsson said, adding he believed the seal had been very tired and was resting on the shore.

“I was only about one meter away when it started hissing at me, it was probably completely exhausted,” Gudmundsson explained.

Is it surprising that the poor animal would be feeling a lot less than well and normal after having to swim in the polluted waters of a 240.000 tonnes aluminium smelter?

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Also known as ‘Illvirkjun’ (Evil Energy)

16 April, 2007

The conservative Independence Party concluded after the party’s general meeting last week that it would like to evaluate the advantages that would come from privatizing the national energy companies.

Not that the Independence Party is exactly known for its concern about equality in Icelandic society but it did conclude that it could be advantageous to shift the ownership of the energy companies from the state to private parties, especially considering competition and equality.

Furthermore, the Independence Party believes Icelandic specialized knowledge and ingenuity will bloom once the energy companies are privatized and enter foreign markets… ehhh… or foreign companies enter them…

This is nothing new. When the conservatives took over Reykjavik Council last year they hurriedly sold the 45% that Reykjavik owned in the National Power Company to the State. This was clearly done in order to prepare the privatization of Landsvirkjun. All in keeping with their policy of robbing the ever sleepy nation of its assets and give them to their rich friends.

But which rich friends of the Independence Party would benefit from dominating the energy industry in Iceland?

Why does the Independence Party still refuse to be transparent about who pays into their party funds?

When are the Icelandic people going to wake up and do something about that they live in a banana republic?

In the build up to the 2007 parliamentary elections, The Reykjavík Grapevine asked representitives from each of the political parties to answer questions regarding the most pressing issue; Heavy Industry.

Issue 4, 13 April, 2007
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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
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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