Saving Iceland

Alcoa is clearing Western Australia’s old growth Jarrah forests at an incredible rate. Vast areas of State Forest within an hour’s drive south east of Perth, Western Australia, are being devastated by bauxite mining. Jarrah forests are unique and under threat from many areas. They need to be preserved, not cleared. Alcoa’s present mineral lease covers 4,898 sq km of State forest. The current lease extends from Wundowie to the Preston River, south of Collie, plus a pocket at Julimar near Bindoon. Alcoa’s lease allows them access to the bauxite from 1961 to 2044. The Darling Range bauxite is the lowest grade ore mined on a commercial scale anywhere in the world. At present the royalty Alcoa is required to pay is just 1.65% on the value of alumina sales. Alcoa’s refineries at Kwinana, Pinjarra and Wagerup produce some 16 percent of world demand for alumina. Read More

Olga Galacho, The Herald Sun, Victoria, Australia– Aluminium titan Alcoa may pump more carbon into the state’s lungs than most companies. But it would have Victorians believe they can start breathing easy again after yesterday’s announcement that it has been recognised as a sustainability leader in its home country, the United States. The opening of its first new smelter in 20 years, in Iceland and powered by hydro-electricity, has cemented Alcoa’s position in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, it seems.

The index tracks the financial prowess of “leading sustainability-driven” companies, and this year is the seventh in a row that the highly energy-intensive Alcoa has been included.

The news might be a relief to those who were considering investing in portable oxygen tanks after the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) last week named and shamed Alcoa as one of 11 power generation owners doing “zero to reduce their emissions”. Read More

Very positive sounding news from South Africa. Rio Tinto-Alcan’s plans to construct a smelter 20km away from Port Elizabeth seem to be cracking as the countries largest energy provider, Eskom, announce the need to review their ability to supply Rio Tinto-Alcan with energy. It seems that delaying the project of purposely building Rio Tinto-Alcan a new power station until 2013 and paying them the subsequent breach of contract fines would be cheaper than going ahead with the project now. This following Rio Tinto-Alcan’s investment to date of over $200million in the ‘Coega’ project and their CEO Tom Albanese having stated only two months ago: “To describe the project as having tremendous momentum would be an understatement.” Read More

Activists Attilah Springer (left) and Lerato Maria
Maregele (center). SI conference July ’07.

Mimi Sheller is a visiting associate professor in the sociology and anthropology department at Swarthmore College. She attended the Saving Iceland conference in 2007.

I grew up in an aluminum-sided suburban house. I carried a colorful aluminum lunchbox to school, with a sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil. Like everyone I know, I drink from aluminum cans, travel in cars, planes, and bikes full of aluminum parts, and cook in aluminum pots and pans. This versatile, ubiquitous material is all around us, all the time, but seems almost invisible because it has become, literally, part of the furniture (even the kitchen sink). The surprising story of this mercurial metallic fabric of everyday life – in our homes, skyscrapers, cars, airplanes, utensils, fasteners, cosmetics, space ships, and bombs – encapsulates the making of global modernity, the creation of multinational corporations, the rise of the U.S. as a world power, the modernization of warfare, and the invention of suburbia, science-fiction futurism, and the American Dream.
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Interview with Siggi by Kristin Burnett
Strip Las Vegas Magazine
August 2007

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Iceland Review
11/27/2007

Minister of the Environment Thórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir says that every nation needs to be responsible after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012 and that special needs will not be relevant.

According to her, Iceland should not apply for further exemptions.

Post-Kyoto negotiations will take place at the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, between December 3 and 14.

When the Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon, Iceland was given a special exemption to increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by ten percent while most other nations were obligated to reduce their average emissions by 5.2 percent, Morgunbladid reports. Read More

On the 12th of September 2007, the Global Day of Action Against Heavy Industry, people in South Africa, Iceland, Trinidad, Denmark, New York, Holland and the UK protested against the heavy industrialisation of our planet. This marked the first coordinated event of a new and growing global movement that began at the 2007 Saving Iceland protest camp in Ölfus, Iceland. The common target of these protests against heavy industry was the aluminium industry, in particular the corporations Alcan/Rio-Tinto and Alcoa. Read More

Western Austalian Forest Alliance – Alcoa Clearing Jarrah Forest for bauxite mining

Community Alliance for Positive Solutions Inc. – A group representing communities whose health has been seriously affected by ALCOA’s pollution.

The 12th of September has been called as a day of international action against heavy industry.

In the 2007 Saving Iceland protest camp, people from five continents explored the similarities between their fights against common enemies, in particular the aluminium industry, and were empowered by the enormous strength of the global movement they were creating. From there, this global day of action was decided upon.

We call on activists from all over the world to join in with creating a locally based yet global movement for planet and people that kicks heavy industrial corporate greed off this earth! Read More

In this exhaustive text, Felix Padel and Samarendra Das give a thorough analysis of the situation of the aluminium industry in India, its history as a global force of destruction intrinsically linked to the arms industry and its links to genocide. This is required reading for anyone with an interest in the aluminium industry, peace, and the desperate situation of the people of Orissa, India. Read More