Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.11.2019, Blaðsíða 13

was writing a story now, I wouldn't
write ‘and she took a Zoom recorder
with the two microphones looking like
a whiskey bottle.’ I wouldn’t write ‘her
laptop was half-open and in that was
a buzzing microchip.’ I would just say
‘they sat together and they were talk-
ing about grandmothers.’”
“It is sentimental,” he continues.
“I'm using pancake sci-fi. It's not about
them sitting in a kitchen with a screen
in front of them, some device devel-
oped in 2070. It’s about interactions
as humans. We sit in kitchens and eat
pancakes our grandmothers make for
us. Then you become a grandfather
and make pancakes for your grand-
child. That’s the kind of meaning of
life I am using. Pancake sci-fi.”
Damning
dreams
The kitchen table lacks pancakes, but
we continue our discussion anyway.
Andri Snær considers the new
book to have a more general appeal
than ‘Dreamland.’ “That book was
about a dam in the east,” he explains.
“I was playing with the lingo of start-
up creativity and what Iceland could
do to foster ideas. I used that versus
the grand-scale governmental 5-year
masterplan to aluminise Iceland. With
‘Um Tímann og Vatni!’, the scope is
much larger. I ask deeper questions of
what is holy and what is not holy, what
is rational and what is not rational.
What is pushing us off the rails?”
The dam in the east to which Andri
Snær refers is the Kárahnjúkar; its
development a controversial environ-
mental issue in Iceland. “People said,
‘We don’t want to hear about dams.’
‘Dreamland’ was about the future of
Iceland, our rivers and Highlands. In
that book, I don't mention the dams
until page 200. People think the book
is about dams, but they’ve been read-
ing for 200 pages and are like, wait,
where are the dams?”
The Kárahjúkar dam’s construc-
tion continues to provoke upset and
debate in Iceland, even more than ten
years after its completion. “I had to
explain why the pyramids in Egypt are
there before I could talk about about
the dam. Finally when I came to it, the
goal was not to have built the dam. The
goal was to be building dams. That is
a fundamental difference. To be build-
ing dams means you will gobble up the
Highlands and, in 20 years, you’ll be
finished. You’ll scratch your head and
ask, ‘why did I do it?’”
Extreme nature
‘Dreamland’ focused on the creation
of Hálslón, a large reservoir in the
East Highlands that resulted from the
construction of the Kárahnjúkar dam
in the 2000s.
“I have one chapter in ‘Um Tímann
og Vatni!’ where I write about the
same area as I did in ‘Dreamland,’”
Andri Snær recalls. “I found an old
travel book from 1939 by Helgi Valt"s-
son, who was born in 1877. He spoke
about nature as a poet and researcher
of reindeer. I look at how he describes
the land he is faced with versus how
our generation does. I am wondering
if it's progress or not.”
For Andri Snær, Icelandic nature
was primarily viewed in economic
terms, and more specifically, “the
brand value that nature would give
Iceland,” he states. “But in 1939, Helgi
goes up to this area and he explodes
emotionally! He evaporates into the
space-dimension of God. It's the most
extreme nature text I have ever seen.”
Holy cow
of Nordic
mythology
Andri Snær connects Helgi’s writing
with his own volley into storytelling.
“Helgi was drenched in Romanticism,
but still trying to build up the nation
of Iceland. I am also exploring those
ideas but I go more into mythology.”
Glaciers are a particular focus. “In
Nordic mythology, the world starts
with a frozen cow and from this cow
came the four major rivers that nour-
ish the world. I find that the holy cow
of Nordic mythology is a concrete place
that I can analyse. A myth that has
always been very bizarre as a source
of life makes perfect sense as a meta-
phor for a glacier. The glaciers in the
Himalayas are considered a life source,
milking cows of the region.”
Children of oil
From Nordic mythology, Andri Snær
swerves into his own story of creation.
“We are children of oil,” he contends.
“We smuggled ourselves into the
world by tapping into the Triassic
sunlight, a million years of dinosaur
summers. The Earth would never have
given birth to us.”
He swiftly links this to his own
nation’s ancestral tales. “In Icelandic
folklore, they always had this dream of
bypassing the human toil,” he explains.
“Sometimes they could make a deal
with the devil and the devil would
finish harvesting the field in a minute
instead of toiling the whole summer.
But later, the devil comes to claim your
child because that was part of the deal.
Suddenly, you’re in a big dilemma.”
“That's our dilemma now,” he
continues. “We're in this existential
crisis where we are not children of
nature. Nature cannot provide for us
in the traditional way. These super-
powers of technology—oil especially—
we have to reduce. We have to have
this super-fast-track to other energy
sources—sun and wind—to keep some
of these superpowers.”
River of oil
The difficult work of presenting this
existential crisis involved translating
statistics into relatable ideas. Take oil
production. “What would 100 million
barrels of oil a day be if it was a river?
It would be like Dettifoss,” he explains.
Global carbon emissions is another
example. “When Eyjafjallajökull
erupted in 2010, the carbon emis-
sions were 150,000 tonnes per day. It
closed down airspace from planes that
contributed 300,000 tonnes per day.
So it was the first ecologically sound
and socially responsible volcanic
eruption in human history,” he says.
“Human carbon emissions are equal
to 650 Eyjafjallajökull eruptions—not
only for 2 weeks like the one in Iceland,
but every day. Always. Open, full-blast
eruptions.”
Fire cult
“Anybody who thinks that humans
don't have an impact, that's like deny-
ing that volcanoes have an impact.
Volcanoes have impact and humans
are the volcano. But these human-
volcanoes have CEOs. If it were just
a normal volcano with no CEOs or
lobbying groups, then everybody
would agree that this was a problem.
But volcanoes with CEOs can make it
appear as though they’re not doing
anything. It’s complicated.”
Andri Snær picks pieces of wax
from a candle on the kitchen table as
we talk.
It is then he declares, “We are a fire
cult. We are run by fire. The gods were
right when they punished Prometheus
for stealing fire. We have now ignited
so much fire that it is bigger than the
biggest volcanic eruptions in geologi-
cal history. The current fires have been
cleverly hidden; the fire in our car,
we don't see it. It's not like we have a
campfire coming from the hood. We
see no difference between an electric
car or another car. We have fire in
airplanes. We have fire in the harvest-
ing machines. We have fire in the
ships.”
Spin the black
circle
In August, Andri Snær participated
in the glacier Okjökull’s funeral by
penning the memorial plaque. To
accompany this, he wrote an article for
‘The Guardian.’ This coincided with an
op-ed piece written by Iceland’s prime
minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, for ‘The
New York Times’ regarding Iceland’s
melting glaciers and the current
government’s plan to reach carbon
neutrality.
“That was an amazing week,” Andri
Snær recalls. Everything was aligned.
Greta Thunberg was in the middle
of the North Atlantic while we were
putting up the memorial plaque for
Ok. And all the Nordic Ministers were
in Iceland with Angela Merkel.”
He laments a missed opportunity
during that week, though, especially
given the confluence of Nordic Minis-
ters and the German chancellor being
in Iceland. On the slow pace of govern-
mental responses to the climate crisis,
Andri Snær asserts, “We're not acting
like it’s an emergency. In this situa-
tion, it does mean disruption. When
you have a strike, it disrupts some-
thing. It stops your everyday life. I'm
not sure that we can take an issue that
is so big and that involves so much
change and innovation and do that
seamlessly without any disruption to
our daily routine.”
“The Ministers believe you can keep
120 beats per minute,” he continues,
“and seamlessly phase the next song
in—DJ into the next record and keep
dancing. I think we will have to notice
a new song started, though.”
Firestarter
“When I talk to young people. I tell
them that we are in a paradigm shift,”
he says. “My generation was told to
follow your dreams, climb that ladder,
race with the others, don't be a loser.
But there was no deeper meaning.
It was all about this MBA language.
It didn't have anything about God
or nature or not even the nation. I
think this nationalism that is coming
up now is because people have been
starved of a higher ideal, and so it goes
into national populism. People tend to
want to have a higher meaning in their
lives.”
Andri Snær understands that the
younger generation now will have their
work life focused on carbon emission
reduction and issues related to the
climate crisis. “The UN has told us that
we have to get emissions down to zero
in the next 30 years. Every industry,
every working life, every ideal—every-
thing is about this for those who are 15
today until they are 45.”
Full circle
The conversation then comes full-
circle, as Andri Snær reflects on the
higher meanings of his grandparents’
generation.
“My grandfather was born into
extreme poverty,” he shares. “When
he was 11, he quit school and started
working for the family. Those condi-
tions that used to be here are in India
now. My grandfather took responsibil-
ity at a very young age. He was a social
entrepreneur, founding the Glacial
Research Society and the Flight Rescue
Squad. I’m looking at how I can use my
grandparents’ life stories, how they
volunteered for three weeks a year for
glacial research. They did things that
needed to be done.”
On running
for president
This can-do attitude is something
Andri Snær has carried forward into
his own life, ultimately leading him to
run in the 2016 presidential election.
“It was easier than writing the
book,” he laughs. “My idea was to use
that strange position of what the
president is to connect people on all
stages of society and start making
things happen quicker. But during
the election, the climate change issue
was hardly mentioned. I was too
dizzy to make known the gravity that
I thought was needed. So it was all
about nonsense actually. Then, I had
all this stuff that is now in the book in
my mind... Scattered fragments of the
book.”
He urges, though, that the book is
not a political pamphlet. “It is litera-
ture,” he asserts. “Of course it is the
same person who wrote the book that
ran for president. My ambition at that
time was to let science move politics,
because scientists have been very
modest. Scientists put it out and then
they wait for politicians to take it or
leave it.”
“Scientists haven't essentially been
activists. As soon as they become activ-
ists, they are thrown into a marginal
left party. That's considered to be left,
to measure CO2. That's what socialists
do. Right-wing people don't see it; they
produce the CO2,” he laughs again.
Watery horror
picture show
In addition to publishing the book, Andri
Snær is currently headlining a sold-out
performance, also titled ‘Um Tímann
og Vatni!’, at Borgarleikhúsi!. Working
with musician Högni, a thirty-member
children’s choir, video, and photogra-
phy, Andri Snær takes the structure
of the book and lifts it to the stage.
“I'm getting very strong and good
responses to telling the story. People
are not bored; they're not sleeping and
I get a standing ovation,” he laughs.
“It's very good.”
Two shows remain, being staged
on November 12th and 26th. While
this run is in Icelandic, Andri Snær
is considering adapting the show to
English. “I could easily do an English
version with a few minor twists. I have
had lectures in Harvard, Columbia,
and Keele University. There I was talk-
ing to scientists. That gave me confi-
dence that I was on the right track
because I was speaking to people who
are specialists in their fields.”
Here we
are now,
entertain us
On the appeal and necessity of dysto-
pian tales, Andri Snær paints a grim
picture.
“The story is also about entertain-
ment. You could write a story about the
Second World War or Stalingrad, but
you're always writing a story. As horri-
ble or grave as it is, the biggest crime is
to write a boring story. It is this strange
paradox. A story is about the most
serious things that we are facing, and
people finish it like a thriller and say it
was fun to read,” he laughs. “Well, 'fun'
is not the right word, but still…”
He takes one more sip of tea. “You
could say it's also a spoonful of sugar
to make the medicine go down,” he
concludes. “My book is the Forrest
Gump of climate change, using Mary
Poppins to become the Forrest Gump
of climate change.”
13 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 20— 2019