Saving Iceland

Active pools in the Hengill area (where Bitruvirkjun is planned)

From Fréttablaðið
26 November 2007

Ólafur Áki Ragnarsson, the Mayor of Ölfus, says the overwhelming negative stance of the town of Hveragerði will not have definite influence on whether the Bitruvirkjun power plant goes ahead. The power was earmarked for an Alcan Aluminium smelter in Helguvík. Read More

7/11/2007

Prime minister Geir H. Harde has revealed his opinion that Iceland should negotiate for another special deal on carbon emmissions in the upcoming 2012 Kyoto agreement renewal. Read More

By Lowana Veal, Inter Press Service, 19 November 2007

“I am of the opinion that Iceland should not ask for a repeat of the Iceland Provision in the upcoming climate change negotiations,” says Iceland’s environment minister Thorunn Sveinbjarnardottir.
The Iceland Provision was the exemption given to Iceland when the Kyoto Protocol went into effect in 2005. Because Iceland derives 72 percent of its energy needs from renewable energy and had little heavy industry at the time the Protocol was agreed, the country was allowed to increase its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent from their 1990 level, rather than decrease emissions by at least 5 percent like most of the other signatories are required to do.
During the first commitment period, 2008-2112, the Iceland Provision allows for emissions averaging 1.6 million tonnes annually of carbon dioxide from energy-intensive industries that had not existed prior to 1990.
Read More

On Friday night the 9th of November a dramatic and theatrical action took place outside the Icelandic parliament, in which politicians who voted for the environmentally disastrous Kárahnjúkar project, were ridiculed and cursed. The event marked the turning on of the power station and first turbines in Fljótsdalur on Monday the 5th, and serves as a reminder to the Icelandic government that we have not forgotten their corrupt behavior towards this unrivaled magical wilderness. Read More

Mines Minerals and PEOPLE Excellent news section.

Photos from everyday life and resistance in Kashipur

www.kashipur.info

Geothermal waterfall at Klambragil in Reykjadal, Hengill area

Saving Iceland
8 November 2007

A new national record in criticizing a power plant has been set.

Following negative reports from environmental engineers, objections to the Bitru and Hverahlíð geothermal power plant expansion have grown to over 678. Residents, scientists and town authorities are concerned with how close the power plant is planned to be to the town of Hveragerði. They are also afraid that it will harm future tourism, and obstruct land for outdoor activities. Read More

photo by Tom Olliver

Saving Iceland
7 November 2007

Only two days after the glorious inauguration of the turbines at Kárahnjúkar dam, further structural problems are already emerging.

Icelandic paper Morgunbladid revealed today that severe leakages in the tunnels leading to the turbines are releasing 200 litres of water per second onto the ground surface, forming a swamp currently about a third of a hectare in size. When asked to comment on the situation, Kárahnjúkarvirkjun spokesperson Sigurdur Arnalds said the water loss was of no consequence.

Regardless of whether or not we should believe Arnalds, the revelation that tunnel water is reaching the ground water breaches one of Siv Fridleifsdottir’s [ex-Minister of Environment who pushed through the project] fundamental stipulations (no. 14):
That Kárahnjúkarvirkjun should NOT interfere with ground water levels. Read More

 

At Saving Iceland we are very aware that our presence in Iceland is surrounded by mystery, rumours, spectacle and a general otherness. We feel like we are as weird and wonderful as anyone else but we recognise that being interpreted by the TV and bloggers means that we can seem quite strange.

For this reason we decided to hold monthly old fashioned coffee evenings in Reykjavik where you can meet some of us, meet each other, meet other people who have opinions about dam, aluminium, heavy industry, etc. Read More

Dettifoss

In an interview on the radio program ‘Spegillinn’ on 23 October geophysicist Páll Einarsson said that an eruption in Upptyppingar would probably disrupt the flow of the immense glacial river Jökulsá á Fjöllum. Upptyppingar volcano lies on the bank of Jökulsá á Fjöllum. Einarsson said that the first effects of the eruption would be that the river would evaporate from the heat of the lava. Running lava would block the course of the river so that when the river would materialize again it would collect in a lake that would then overflow with unknown consequences.

This flood could pose a great danger to the surrounding farming communities and hikers, who will be almost untraceable in the great wilderness. Eight hours notice would not be enough time to warn people and secure the wilderness say rescue services.

So, it turns out that the Kárahnjukar project, which so far has entailed the complete destruction of two of Iceland’s major glacial rivers, Jökulá á Brú and Jökulsá á Fljótsdal, just to run an aluminium smelter owned by arms manufacturer ALCOA, is in fact likely to destroy the third major glacial river, the magnificent Jökulsá á Fjöllum.

Members of parliament have repeatedly claimed that they wanted to protect the whole of Jökulsá á Fjöllum, even ALCOA have paid lip service to the proposal.

Jökulsá á Fjöllum hosts Europe’s most powerful waterfall, Dettifoss. The river runs through the protected canyon of Jökulsárgljúfur National Park and past the magical area of Hljóðaklettar, much loved by tourists. All this is now threatened by the man-made eruption.

Some would say that this is vandalism of catastrophic proportions.

See also: >Imminent Man-Made Volcanic Eruption Courtesy of ALCOA and Icelandic Government

Saving Iceland
17 October 2007

The Directorate of Immigration has decided that they will not grant the request of the Icelandic police and deport SI activist Miriam Rose.

The Directorate confirmed this tonight speaking to the Icelandic National TV news program Kastljos.

So far we are not aware of any legal reasoning for the decision. But it was clear already some time ago that the police had lost the propaganda war almost from the beginning. The “…serious threat to the fundamental values of society” claim, in the letter requesting that Miriam Rose was to be deported, was for example something that the Icelandic public was just not going to swallow so easily. Instead the deportation request caused great alarm with the public about the state of civil rights and democracy in Icelandic society, not without reason.

It has not passed unnoticed here in Iceland that even if the police are used to getting away with all sorts of power abuse most of the time, they have frequently got so carried away in the heat of the moment that they have repeatedly shot themselves badly in the foot. This website has reported a considerable number of such instances when it comes to SI protests.

Now that the police have finally exhausted the bogus threat of deporting environmental protesters they should maybe pause for some reflection.

Instead of constantly making fools of themselves with thuggish persecution and illconceived plots, perhaps the time has come that they do something sensible for a change. Like turning their attention to the corruption that is ripe in the Icelandic energy companies and not least the multinational corporate criminals they have tried so hard to protect from legitimate protest.

Miriam Rose is a co-author of ‘Aluminium Tyrants’, an article published this month in The Ecologist. /?p=1021

The decision of the DI finally spurred the Kastljos editors to transmit an interview they recorded three weeks ago with Miriam Rose. This had obviously been kept off the air in order not to further Miriam’s cause:
http://dagskra.ruv.is/streaming/sjonvarpid/?file=4365527/3

About the deportation case(s) see also:

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