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Just don’t look up at the glacier
This past weekend, Iceland’s foreign minister gave a speech at the United Nations in New York. Amazingly, only a small part of the speech dealt with Iceland’s current economic woes – the rest was devoted to climate change.
It is great to hear a prominent member of our government is concerning himself with climate change. Great because it has seemed a definite non-issue in Iceland over the past few years. Granted, in the past 12 months Iceland has had some other pretty serious issues to contend with, such as a full blown economic and political crisis – so it’s perhaps not all that surprising.
But I don’t think it’s just the crisis. I suspect a major reason climate change hasn’t got much press in Iceland is because, so far, well – we kind of like it. I mean – what’s not to like? Our summers are warmer now, so we can do things like sit outside at cafés, lounge by the poolside and work on our tans, even swim in the ocean. Things that used to cost us a fortune when we had to travel abroad to do them.
Summers have definitely changed around here. Whereas in the past we’d only get a handful of good days every summer, now we frequently have many days of blissfully gorgeous weather in a row. Farmers are happy, too. They get a longer growing season and are experimenting with new types of crops, like wheat and barley.
Winters, too, are much nicer than they used to be. In the past the winters would be long and harsh and filled with snow; these days they’re usually characterized by balmy temperatures and just the occasional blizzard.
And yet, the trade-off for this new level of comfort is visible right in front of us. The beautiful Snæfellsjökull glacier, visible from the capital area on clear days, is melting right in front of our eyes. Even though it is located hundreds of kilometres away, across a wide bay, when we look closely we can see the ice cap is far thinner than was even ten years ago.
Even closer to home, there’s Mt. Esja and the snowdrift. Mt. Esja is located on the other side of an inlet from Reykjavík and watches over the city like a sentinel. It holds a special place in the hearts of most Icelanders. Most Reykjavík residents grew up with special character of its slopes right in front of their eyes, which up until a few years ago had a perpetual white dot right near the top, even in the height of summer. The white dot looked like this:
That snowdrift has been permanent on the slopes of Mt. Esja for as long as anyone can remember, except for the odd year [maybe five over the past century] when there was little snow during the winter and the summers were exceptionally warm. For the past nine years, however, the snowdrift on Mt. Esja has melted completely, every year.
So – we know. We see it. It just hasn’t started to become painful yet. Climate change is still a welcome development in Iceland – as long as we can view it out of context, and don’t look up at the glacier.
[Photos: Esja with dot courtesy of vovchychko; Esja without dot courtesy of s.chivers; Snæfellsjökull courtesy of RamjetDK.]
Comments
And that is about it. In any climate change some regions gain and some lose. It is like someone says: “So far you have had fine climate. Now it is our turn.” If we stop climate change we will help some regions. And hurt others.
It might be and interesting story. To see thousands of Icelanders demonstrating in December 2009 in Copenhagen. “If you fight against climate change, you fight against Iceland” or “We love you, climate change!”
Although I am pretty concerned regarding the climate change, I have to point out that the “white dot of snow” on Esja has been visible during the whole summer - it has never disappered. Believe me, as I have a very good view to Esja from very I live in RJKvik.
Hey, great to see you found my picture of Esja useful!
claus - just had another trawl through the Internet and, according to this blog, the snowdrift did disappear around the middle of this month.
http://sigrunsighv.blogcentral.is/blog/2008/9/25/ekki-vetur-enn/
Also, I’ve just checked a short video I filmed from Perlan yesterday and it’s definitely not there.
Interesting post!
You may like this recent study done in the States:
http://www.good.is/post/most-people-think-global-warming-wont-affect-them/
Pertinent to what you are talking about Iceland.
I also talked about the need to spread information amongst people. That indeed it is them who are going to be affected:
http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think2/post/anyone_for_a_revolution
In this case, Iceland is also a part of the global economy and if it could be explained that climate change will affect people much more than they think it will, they would perhaps take a little less warmth from the warming weather.
@Vitezslav - I don’t agree at all. Of course, different regions are affected differently, but in the end everyone will have to find new ways of adapting, new crops to grow etc. And most of all we must stop the warming - otherwise the new crops will be obsolete in our new new climate once we find them…
I am looking forward to the adaptations we must do. “Per aspera ad astra”. Climate change always forces animals/humans to adapt, to invent new solutions. This is called EVOLUTION. Improvement. I welcome evolution.
If natural environment does not change, species stick to their old habits. Because they are lazy.
Read somethinig about Eldredge and Gould’s “punctuated equilibrium” theory in evolution. It is a MUST read for every darwinist.
I think this is more of a revolution than an evolution.
In deed, nothing is stable for ever. What is special about this period we have ahead (no matter if it is caused by sun spot or CO2) is that is faster and more dramatic than what we are used to, and that we already use almost every resource on earth.
I think we need to drastically decrease our use of resources, do our best to mitigate temprature increases and eventually adapt as good as we can. Maybe it will make us wiser, but it will not be pleasant for anyone, not even for icelanders.
Why do you think it will not be pleasant for the Icelanders? It already is.
Also, it already is pleasant for agriculture in Britain. In 20th century they were able to resume growing vine - after 4 centuries of cold, when it was impossible to grow vine there.
Why do the environmentalists hide the positives of global warming from us? How can they be trusted then, if they always talk just about the costs, never of the benefits?
They talk like: “Never buy shoes! Beware! They are expensive and they can pinch!!” OK, but wearing shoes is a pleasant thing.
Why? First of all I don’t belive that the effects will be so benign on Britain or Iceland. If we let the temperatures rise, we start feedback, for example by emitting metane from the permafrost, causing even higher temperature rises etc… I don’t know what will happen, but that’s exactly why I want o be careful.
Secondly, as always, the effects hit the poorest people the hardest. Maybe Icelanders and britons look forward to 2 degrees warming. But I don’t think the people in India, Bangladesh the Phillines or sub-saharan Africa will be glad about it.
What i was wondering after reading your post several times over, is how about an idea where we get a global dialogue going?
What if people who are most affected can talk to people who are least affected. As friends. As humans. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to raise awareness.
Maybe we need to put science and cold facts aside and talk in a language we all understand - humanity!
The people in poor countries do not worry about climate change. It is just a saloon hobby of the rich overeating Europeans. In poor countries they do not worry about Polar Bears. They have REAL problems.
The Third World has this view: “The pinskins got rich thanks to fossil fuels. And now they want to stop us from doing the same. Seems like they do not want to share the fossil fuels.”
@Vitezslav It’s interesting how you stamp the title ‘third world’ on say a good percentage of the world.
Well, we do care about climate change.
We do care about polar bears.
Because we understand that these are related issues. our ‘real’ problems are created by climate change and overconsumption.
The view you say is of the third world, is actually a narrow view of some of the people.
At the conference we were shown an editorial, who’s afraid of 2 degrees. THAT is the view of the educated third world, if I may.
http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/blog/who’s-afraid-2°c
I think, it isn’t about first or third worlds. It’s about the planet as a whole and everyone has an equal responsibility.
The idea, that “overconsumption” or consumerism, are evil, is an absurd child of rich overeating countries. Maybe, Hemant, you are one of the lucky ones, who belong to our global overeating class. But if you tell to a hungry person in a famine stricken region, that “overconsumption” is a problem, he will not understand, what you mean.
Poor people are not afraid of overconsumption. They hope to achieve it.
@Vitezslav I don’t think you and I should discuss what people in the third world think or not. Obviosuly there are many opinions among the billions of people who live there. I apologize if also simplified. My point was that Britain and Iceland will not be the hardest hit, and that adaptation is much more difficult for poorer countries - as you can see now when floods strike the Phillipines.
But I don’t think that critizising over-consumption is something only rich people do. I have met lots of not so rich people, who see the shallowness in consumer society. We are not talking about starving here, but a moderate consumption compared to wasting resources. Explain to the hungry why we need to produce iphones and throw away food, and I am shore he will tell you that overconsumpion in the west is also one of his or her problems.
But in the end, nothing of this is relevant. the relevant question is not what rich or poor people think, but “Do we consume, too much”. Yes we do.
Look, Daniel, Europe is actually also one of poor hungry underdeveloped regions. We are the one, who got out of that. Very recently. Setting example for our fellow poor brethren.
The reason, why we produce i-phones and throw away food is that Homo Sapiens is a tremendous evolutionary success. We can produce more, than we consume. Amazing! Overproduction is a success, not a problem.
Try sking some skinny hungry guy in a famine stricken region “Do we consume too much?” But be sure to bring a first aid kit. For yourself.
Great post, Alda. It’s a kind of Hvalsey in reverse. Then it was the snowpatch not melting in summer and getting bigger each year. The horror of snow falling on unmelted snow. Did I ever send you the URL? If not here it is:
http://we.thinkaboutit.eu/profiles/blogs/the-old-woman-of-hvalsey
Best wishes - Peter
Interesting that you should frame things in this way and try to bring personal experience to what is, for so many people, a rather abstract issue. I’ve been observing one particular area that previously was a persistent snow field above my city for the 40 years that have elapsed since my only direct encounter with your nation. (That was 2 hours on the ground at Keflavik on a low overcast afternoon in late April with a 30+ Knot wind and the temperature slightly above 5 Celsius.) I’m in another sea port, about 3 degrees further south and nearly 130 degrees to the west from Reykjavik, that buts against a range of major mountains.
http://images.travelnow.com/hotels/ANC_MILL-exter-2.jpg
My interest in this particular terrain was assessing the potential for summer skiing in very close proximity to my city’s population, and it was conveniently centered in a large eastern facing window in my home. Up until the mid ‘90s it remained white most years, at least in its upper reaches and always at the base of the avalanche courses on its edges. Every year now, the avalanche piles are gone sometime in August, and the sloping bowl is quite green by mid July, before turning brown in early September, and receiving its first coat of white “termination dust” near the Equinox.
The water in the foreground of this night image is a lake less than a kilometer from the ocean and 30 meters or so above the high tide line. I think the season is mid to late May. The light colored objects on the right, just above the trees are houses that extend nearly up to 600 meters elevation. Perspective is foreshortened by a telephoto lens, but this is the first one I found on the net, after more than a few pages of searching.
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Nature is beautiful as possible here!