Náttúra in Reykjavik

photograph: Jonas Bendiksen (see Iceland gallery here)

Björk and Sigur Rós took part in a free environmental awareness concert in Reykjavik, to be webcast live from Iceland today but I couldn't get the player to work.

From Náttúra: "The event will raise awareness of the destruction of Iceland’s cherished natural landscape (the largest unspoilt wilderness left in Europe), through increasingly invasive aluminum smelting activity, and a new book by Andri Snær Magnason, Dreamland: a self help manual to a frightened nation, that details the destructive behavior from an intelligent point of view and suggests what can be done to rectify such massive problems."

From IceNews: "Iceland attracts aluminum companies due to its abundance of clean renewable electricity – as aluminum smelting is extremely energy intensive, and the companies are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprints.

However, the energy production often comes at a high cost to nature, as rivers are dammed or geothermal boreholes are drilled. One such dam, Karahnjukar, is the biggest in Europe and was constructed solely to power the Alcoa smelter in eastern Iceland which opened last year.

The dam was severely criticised by environmentalists, as it flooded a 57 square kilometre area of the pristine Highlands. A public protest rally in Reykjavik just days before the new dam was due to close its sluices for the first time was the biggest in the country’s history."

From The New York Times: "Smokestacks in a White Wilderness Divide Iceland"

National Geographic: "Power Struggle"

Saving Iceland

Interview with Andri Snær Magnason