Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.03.2017, Blaðsíða 18

CITY SHOT
Punk's not dead . . . it's just a bit chilly.
Photo by Varvara Lozenko
Words
MARY
FRANCES
DAVIDSON
Illustration
BLOOMICON
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GPV.IS/CAR3
Ah, the poor electric car. It has been
a long road for you, hasn’t it? Clunky
batteries that take a full day to charge
and need frequent, costly replace-
ment. Prices so dear that only the
super-rich could even look at you.
Tiny driving range. In one movie I
saw back in 2006, Martin Sheen said
somebody even tried to kill you. But
you certainly seem to be in good shape
these days, more affordable and reli-
able, and taking off all over the world!
As per usual, Icelanders are fashion-
ably late to the party, but they are
here now and ready to get moving.
I love it when a good idea takes hold
of humanity and refuses to let go. Elec-
tric cars are one such idea. Consider,
for a moment, choices an individual
can make to combat climate change.
The most effective are probably eating
locally produced food, cutting back
on meat and animal products, buying
used stuff, and reducing the carbon
footprint from transportation. (As a
side note, if you are one of those people
who don’t “believe” in climate change,
I am sorry and I hope you read more.)
The move away from fossil fuels
is coming, and it will take off expo-
nentially over the next few decades.
How do I know? Peak oil. Imagine
that you are sitting in a pub with a
beer in your hands. You sip away at it,
and you like it. It feels good, and you
smile because you are so pleased that
you have this beer. Then you realize
that it is half gone. The pub doesn’t
have any more beer. Neither do any
of the other pubs in town. Neither do
any pubs anywhere in the world. This
wonderful thing you discovered is
half gone, and no more exists on the
planet. It is the same way with finite
resources like oil, and we have already
taken the half that’s easy to extract.
Plug into Iceland
By all logic, Iceland should be leading
the world in electric car use. The ener-
gy in Iceland is produced almost exclu-
sively through renewable sources, with
about 70% coming from hydropower,
and 30% from geothermal. Aluminum
smelters and other have industries
have caught on to the economic ben-
efits of the cheap, clean energy they
find here. So have those people who
thought it would be a brilliant idea to
build a giant cable across the ocean
and export Iceland’s energy to the UK.
Icelanders themselves are sometimes
blind to the benefits they can get from
cheap energy. We crank up the heat
and leave the windows open and don’t
think about how weird and cool that
is. It is high time Iceland invests in an
energy project that will actually ben-
efit the people who live here and not
just big foreign companies who export
their profits without paying fair taxes
(I’m looking at you, Rio Tinto Alcan!).
The gauntlet is thrown
Like in a lot of small countries, noth-
ing moves Icelanders to action like
the prospect of being the Best in the
World. Moreover, nothing lights a fire
under the Icelandic populace like sit-
ting at the grown-ups’ table with an-
other Nordic country and coming out
on top. Well, Norway has a plan to stop
selling fossil fuel cars by 2025. So far,
our boring, oil-producing, ski-every-
where, weird-sweater-wearing, cau-
tious, EU-resisting big brother is kick-
ing our ass in the electric car market.
Dear ruling
political elite
We know about your love affair with
big business. Electric cars could ac-
tually be the biggest business oppor-
tunity you see in your lifetime. The
change is inevitable, and you want to
be on the right side of this one. People
with more power and influence than
me need to muster the political cour-
age to prioritize infrastructure and in-
centives. We need a network of charg-
ing stations all over the country, and
incentives to switch to electric trans-
portation. Reykjavik has a plan to add
80 charging stations over the next few
years. Let’s plug in and get rolling.
OPINION
It's Electric Car Time
SHOW ME THE MONEY:
Cod and
Capitalism
Until the mid-to-late 19th century,
most financial transactions in
Iceland were conducted in vaðmál
(homespun wool). However, since
1922, Iceland has issued its own
currency, the króna. Iceland never
being the best at economic stabil-
ity, the króna has lost significant
value significantly every decade
since its initial issue, and in 1981
we decided to cut a couple of zeros
from it, introducing the current
króna. So, let’s meet the…
1 króna coin
Fishing is one of the main indus-
tries in Iceland, so no wonder
they’ve chosen to depict various
fish on all their coins. On the 1 kró-
na piece is the humble cod. Great
with chips (the fish, not the coin),
cod makes up the majority of Ice-
land’s seafood export and is there-
fore the country’s most economi-
cally significant fish. Which begs
the question: why is the fish that
makes Iceland the most money,
worth the least? Well, that’s capi-
talism for you, folks.
So, what’s it worth?
I’m willing to bet that the major-
ity of tourists leave Iceland with
about two hundred of these little
blighters weighing down their
pockets. Currently 1 króna would
get you $0.009, €0.008 or £0.007.
So can you even buy anything with
it? The answer is no. But you can
make little towers with them and
count them out like a medieval
king, which is pretty fun, and fun
is priceless*.
- Joanna Smith
* “Fun” is not an accepted currency
and has no actual monetary value.
18 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 03 — 2017