Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.07.2016, Síða 10

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 11 — 2016
10
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While it’s true that we
gave the supermarket
10-11 the accolade of hav-
ing the best cheap lunch
in our recent Best of Reykjavík issue, the
company is not a monolith. It has come
to light that some locations raise their
prices during evenings and weekends.
These price changes go into effect auto-
matically at the register, so they won’t
be immediately obvious. While 10-11’s
owner says this is done in response to
increased demand during these times,
consumer protection authorities are al-
ready investigating the matter. Caveat
emptor et cetera.
If you plan on traveling around the coun-
tryside, it is highly advisable that you
bring a garden trowel and found a well-
hidden spot (in lieu of a toilet) if you an-
swer nature’s call. Special “no outdoor
pooping” signs have been cropping up
around the country. Iceland is hardly
unique in this matter, as such signs can
be found in tourist-laden countries the
world over. No word on how this policy
is enforced, but it’s probably best you not
take any chances.
Staunch defenders of Iceland’s nam-
ing laws may want to rethink their po-
sitions, as a professor of the Icelandic
language has joined the chorus of those
calling for them to be abolished. The
learned professor points out that lan-
guage is a changing thing, Icelanders
are smart enough to adapt to foreign
names, and restrictions on naming are
possibly unconstitutional.
NEWS IN
BRIEF
It is an exciting time to be an envi-
ronmentalist in Iceland. Exciting, and
a bit confusing. Nearly two million
tourists will visit Iceland this year,
many drawn by the country’s impos-
ing and unspoiled wilderness. The
image of Iceland as a green paradise is
sold to folks abroad who thirst for ad-
venture beyond a vacation relaxing in
the sand with a pink cocktail you drink
from a coconut with a little umbrella.
It sounds too good to be true, and it
kind of is. Here are a couple of the hot-
button environmental issues facing
Iceland these days.
Power
Iceland makes more electricity per
capita than any other country on
earth. When it comes to electricity,
Iceland gets roughly three quarters
from geothermal power, and the re-
mainder is hydropower.
This abundant access to renewable
energy is attractive to foreign inves-
tors in energy-intensive industries
like aluminium production. Energy
here is so cheap, it makes sense for
the bottom line of corporations to
ship bauxite mined in Australia to Ice-
land for smelting. While most other
countries on earth agreed to cut their
greenhouse gas emissions in 1997 un-
der the Kyoto Protocol, Iceland has a
provision to increase greenhouse gas
emissions for heavy industry.
This mentality is behind the push
to dam rivers exclusively for use in
heavy industry, the poster child for
which is the much-disputed Kárahn-
júkur hydropower plant in the east of
Iceland, which came online in 2008-9.
That project made a lot of money for a
few people and opened a nationwide
discussion about how far Iceland is
willing to go to sell off its precious
natural energy resources. How do you
do a cost-benefit analysis when nature
is free? The debate rages on. Nobody
seems to wonder about how we will
harness hydroelectricity when all the
glaciers melt away because of climate
change.
Where’d the dirt go?
You wouldn’t guess by looking at it, but
900 or so years ago 60% of Iceland was
covered with trees. The Iceland you see
today looks really different than what
the first settlers saw. Those virgin
birch forests made life possible on this
cold rock in the middle of the North
Atlantic, so you can’t really blame the
people who settled here for chopping
them all down for fuel and heat. As an
added bonus, hacking the trees back
made space for grazing livestock. The
only trouble is that the native vegeta-
tion held the soil fast to the earth, and
all those centuries of whacking back
forests and grazing the land too hard
loosened the topsoil so much that the
wind blew it away. In some sensitive
areas, communal grazing is still a
problem despite efforts of conserva-
tionists and farmers alike to protect
the highlands. Throw in a few volca-
nic eruptions spewing ash across the
highlands and those sensitive little
plants don’t stand a chance.
Dangerous tourism
Here’s the real puzzle. Tourism has
recently become the biggest sector
of the Icelandic economy, overtaking
both fisheries and manufacturing/
aluminium for the first time last year.
Many of these tourists come to Iceland
to see unspoiled wilderness, but sadly
what they find is a “wilderness” full
of other people. We don’t know how to
solve this, and we don’t know how the
spike in tourism will affect the more
sensitive ecosystems.
Iceland has an export-driven econ-
omy. We export fish and aluminium,
and tourism is considered an export
as well. We are essentially export-
ing nature. When you account for all
those airplanes carrying people and
goods to and from Iceland, the result-
ing impact we have on our environ-
ment is abysmal. Even in spite of its
wilderness and clean energy, Iceland
has the highest ecological footprint on
earth, at 12.7 hectares per person. For
the sake of comparison, Saudi Arabia
needs 9.46 hectares per person.
But, there is good news as well, so
if any shards of your image of Iceland
as an environmentalist paradise still
remain intact, it is time to pick up and
reassemble the pieces of your broken
dream. Iceland is full of environmen-
tal warriors who are fighting every day
to keep this place healthy and intact.
Landvernd, Iceland’s nature conser-
vancy, is campaigning to protect the
highlands (you should give them some
money if you can). Recycling levels are
on the rise, as is composting food and
yard waste. There is a soil conserva-
tion strategy, a waste management
plan, a biodiversity strategy, a nature
conservation strategy, and research
is underway to find the best path to
develop renewable energy resources.
Overall, things are looking better
than they did a decade ago, but there
is a long way to go to until Iceland be-
comes the environmentalist paradise
you have been fantasising about.
Words
MARY
FRANCES
DAVIDSON
Photo
FABRIZIO
FRASCAROLI
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OPINION
Iceland, The
Green Enigma