But who are the faces behind Alcoa? From big pharmaceutical chiefs, to Bilderberg attendees, Iraq profiteers and a Mexican president, Alcoa’s board remains one of the most influential and shadowy of the mining and metals companies. Use the links to Powerbase’s profiles in this article to find out more.

Current Alcoa CEO Klaus Kleinfeld has been an Alcoa board member since 2003. He is also a director of Bayer, the pharmaceuticals and chemical company which grew out of the Nazi company IG Farben, responsible for the medical experiments at Auschwitz. Bayer is now famous for it’s GM and crop science business and was named one of 10 Worst Companies of the Year by Multinational Monitor in 2001. Kleinfeld is associated with all three of the most influential and private ‘global planning groups’. He attended the Bilderberg conference in 2008 and is a member of the Trilateral Commission and Director of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum. He is also a Director of the Brookings Institution, one of the USA’s biggest think tanks, and the third most cited in Congress.

Kleinfeld was CEO of Siemens from 2005 to 2007 after spending 20 years with the company. He resigned amid a corruption scandal which saw the US Department of Justice investigating the company for charges of using slush funds of €426m (£291m) to obtain foreign contracts, and funding a trade union to counter existing Union action against them. Kleinfeld resigned just hours before the news broke to the media. In 2009, after a lengthy investigation, Kleinfeld and four other executives were forced to pay large compensation sums. Kleinfeld allegedly paid $2 million of the $18 million total collected from the five, though he still denied wrongdoing. Kleinfeld is also on the boards of the finance giant Citigroup and the U.S Chamber of Commerce.

Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo has been on Alcoa’s board since 2002, and chairs the Public Issues Committee. Zedillo is a prominent economist and another member of the big three elite think-tanks sitting on the World Economic Forum and the Trilateral Commission with Kleinfeld, and attending the Bilderberg conference in 1999. Like Kleinfeld he is also a director of Citigroup. Zedillo also sits of the International Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations, an American foreign policy think tank based in New York City who carry out closed debates and discussions and publish the journal Foreign Affairs. CFR played a significant part in encouraging the war on Iraq, and helped plan it’s economic and political aims alongside the US Government, particularly how to gain oil contracts after the war. He directs the Club de Madrid, a right-wing/neoliberal focused group of former government officials, think tankers and journalists involved in pushing reactionary policies to terrorism (referring to the Madrid bombings).

Mr. Zedillo was Mexican president from 1994-2000. He was appointed by Secretary General Kofi Annan to be the United Nations Special Envoy for the 2005 World Summit, and chaired the World Bank’s High Level Commission on Modernization of World Bank Group Governance in 2008. He is a director of JPMorgan-Chase, Proctor and Gamble, BP, Rolls Royce and an advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He directs the Center for the Study of Globalization at Yale University, which puts out influential reports and papers edited by him.

A fellow member of the Council on Foreign Relations is Alcoa board member E.Stanley O’Neal. O’Neal is a Harvard graduate and investment banker who served as CEO of Merrill Lynch from 2002 to 2007 and is a director of the New York Stock Exchange (now NYSE Euronext), the Nasdaq Stock Market and BlackRock – a key investor in the mining and metals industry. According to Forbes he was awarded $22.41 million in 2006. Mr O’Neal is also a trustee of another shady organisation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a private group led by John J. Hamre, former deputy secretary of defence which ‘provides world leaders with strategic insights on — and policy solutions to — current and emerging global issues’. CSIS provided propaganda materials used by the CIA to destabilise the Government of Chile in the run up to the 1973 coup.

A third Council on Foreign Relations member sits on Alcoa’s board. James W. Owens is Chairman of the Business Council of the CFR, CEO and Executive Chairman of Caterpillar from 2004 to 2010 and Alcoa board member since 2005. Caterpillar are famous for their tendency to profit from war-induced contracts including in Israel and Iraq, just the sort of thing that the Council on Foreign Relations are interested in. Owens is also a director of the International Business Machines Corporation and Morgan Stanley and a senior advisor to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, a global asset manager working in private equity and fixed income.

Indian mega magnate Ratan Tata has been a director of Alcoa since 2007 and is currently a member of the International Committee and Public Issues Committee. He chairs Tata Sons, holding company for the Tata Group, the family business which is one of India’s largest business conglomerates including telecoms, transport, tea and now one of the biggest steel companies in the world after they bought Corus outright in 2007. As well as his directorships of most of the Tata companies, he is also a a former director of the Reserve Bank of India, and advisor to NYSE Euronext (the New York Stock Exchange), and JP Morgan – one of the largest shareholders of the London Metal Exchange who set metal prices worldwide and enable banks to stockpile and futures trade aluminium. Mr Tata is also trustee of Cornell, Southern California, Ohio State, and Warwick Universities, a director of the Ford Foundation and a member of the UK Prime Minister’s Business Council for Britain.

A fellow member of the Ford Foundation, and Saving Iceland favourite most-wanted, is Kathryn Fuller. Ms Fuller chaired the Ford Foundation from 2004 to 2010 and has been a trustee since 1994. However she is most famed for her contradictory positions as World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Chief Executive (1989-2005) and Alcoa board member (since 2001). Newspaper Independent on Sunday claimed she joined Alcoa in exchange for a $1m donation to WWF US and allowed Alcoa to join WWF’s exclusive “Corporate Club”, a claim Fuller has found hard to refute. Despite publicly opposing the highly controversial Fjarðaál smelter project, Fuller abstained rather than voting against the project in Alcoa’s boardroom. Elsewhere she has claimed that Alcoa holds “a strong commitment to sustainability, including energy efficiency, recycling, and habitat protection.”

Compared to these heavyweights Alcoa’s other current board members may look like small fry, but they still command an impressive and worrying influence across a number of boards.

Sir Martin Sorrell is founder and chief executive officer of the £7.5 billion communications and advertising company WPP. He has been a NASDAQ director since 2001 and was appointed an Ambassador for British Business by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Before founding WPP, Martin Sorrell led the international expansion of famed UK advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi. He calls himself ‘a money man’ saying: “I like counting beans very much indeed”.

Arthur D. Collins, Jr. is a big pharmaceuticals boss. He is retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic Inc. who he had been with between 1992 and 2008, and previously Corporate Vice President of Abbott Laboratories from 1989 to 1992. He also sits on the boards of arms manufacturers – Boeing, and bio-tech giant Cargill.

Michael G. Morris has been Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of all major subsidiaries of American Electric Power since January 2004 having been a company executive since 2003. He is also a Director of the USA’s Nuclear Power Operations and the Business Roundtable (chairing the Business Roundtable’s Energy Task Force) as well as the Hartford Financial Services Group. He was listed 158th on the Forbes Executive Pay list in 2011 and received a total $9 million in 2010.

Finally, Patricia F. Russo, is a Director of asset management group KKR & Co, General Motors, Hewlett Packard and drug manufacturers Merck & Co, who’s arthritis treatment Vioxx induced heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths in 27,000 people between 1999 and 2004. Merck were exposed for trying to bury negative evidence and distort drug trials to hide the known cardiovascular effects of Vioxx. Litigation following the scandal is ongoing and will be part of the business of Ms Russo.

Coming back to Iceland there is another former director of note. Norwegian national Bernt Reitan was Alcoa Executive Vice President from 2004 to 2010 and a director of iron alloy and silicon company Elkem from 1988 to 2000, putting him in the centre of the development of Iceland’s Hvalfjörður Elkem plant, and the Fjarðaál aluminium smelter. Elkem subsidiary Elkem Aluminium was sold to Alcoa in 2009. Reitan broke the ground at the massive Fjarðaál smelter in Reyðarfjörður in 2004 alongside Valgerður Sverrisdóttir, then Minister of Industry, and Guðmundur Bjarnason, Mayor of Fjarðabyggð. In view of his influential position in Iceland Reitan sits on the Icelandic-American Chamber of Commerce which was formed by the Iceland Foreign Trade Service in New York and promotes trade between Iceland and the USA.

Mr Reitan is also a Director of the International Primary Aluminium Institute and a former board member of the European Aluminium Association as well as Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, Yara Internation ASA and Renewable Energy Corporation ASA.

The combined power of these Alcoa Directors reaches deep into the political and corporate structures of the USA and Europe. In this light it is a mean feat for Alcoa to be ejected from Húsavík, but we can be assured that Alcoa’s aluminium claws are still dug in deep in Iceland – a small country with such cheap and abundant hydro power. 

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For more information on Powerbase’s mining and metals research please visit the Mining and Metals portal and peruse the aluminium industry profiles.

See other key figures in Iceland’s heavy industrialisation at our Hall of Shame.

Notes and References:

[1] The terms “greenfield” and “brownfield” are used by the aluminium industry, and though the former might give an image  of a “green” and less environmentally damaging construction than the latter, the meaning is in fact the absolute opposite. Samarendra Das and Felix Padel explain the difference: “While a brownfield project renovates or adds to an existing plant […] “greenfield” has a more attractive ring to it, but what it means is turning an area of green fields and forest brown as the area is cleared and polluted…” See: Samarendra Das and Felix Padel. 2010. Out Of This Earth – East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel. Orient Black Swan. India. p. 336.
[2] Esmarie Swanepoel, 11 Jan 2011 ‘Alcoa Posts $21bn revenue in 2010′. Mining Weekly. Accessed 22/02/2012.
[3] Icelandic-American Chamber of Commerce, Statistics. Accessed 22/02/2012.

See also:

From Siberia to Iceland: Century Aluminum, Glencore and the Incestuous World of Mining – A special report for Saving Iceland by Dónal O’Driscoll, about the people and crimes behind Glencore International and Century Aluminum, which runs the Hvalfjörður smelter mentioned in the article above and fantasize about operating another one in Helguvík.

This is the content of Saving Iceland’s first round of brief monthly news from the struggle over Iceland’s wilderness and connected struggles around the world.

Hellisheiði: Asthma, Sulphur Pollution and Effluent Water Lagoon

Those who promote large-scale geothermal energy production as green and environmentally friendly, are once again forced to face another backlash as a recent research suggests a direct link between sulphur pollution from the Hellisheiði geothermal plant and asthma among the inhabitants of Reykjavík. The results of this particular research, which was done by Hanne Krage Carlsen, doctorate student of Public Health at the University of Iceland, were published in the Environmental Research journal earlier this year, showing that the purchasing of asthma medicine increases between 5 and 10 percent in accordance with higher sulphur pollution numbers in the capital area of Reykjavík.

Adding to the continuous unmasking of the geothermal green myth, environmentalist Ómar Ragnarsson recently discovered and documented new lagoons, created by run-off water from Reykjavík Energy’s geothermal power plant in Hellisheiði. At first Reykjavík Energy denied that the lagoons’ water comes from the company’s power plant, but were forced to withdraw those words only a few days later. Ómar had then brought a journalist from RÚV, the National Broadcasting Service, to the lagoons and traced the water to the plant. Despite the company’s withdrawal, they nevertheless rejected worries voiced by environmentalists, regarding the very possible pollution of ground water in the area, and insisted that this is allowed for in the plant’s license.

According to the plant’s license the run-off water should actually be pumped back, down into earth, in order to prevent polluting impacts and the creation of lagoons containing a huge amount of polluting materials. Ómar’s discovery shows that this is certainly not the case all the time, and additionally, the pumping that has taken place so far has proved to be problematic, creating a series of man-made earthquakes in the area, causing serious disturbances in the neighbouring town of Hveragerði.

In an article following his discovery Ómar points out that for the last years, the general public has not had much knowledge about geothermal power plants’ run-off water, and much less considered it as a potential problem. Ómar blames this partly on the Icelandic media, which have been far from enthusiastic about reporting the inconvenient truth regarding geothermal power production. One of these facts is that the effluent water, which people tend to view positively due to the tourist attraction that has been made of it at the Blue Lagoon, is a token of a serious energy waste, as the current plants use only 13% of the energy while 87% goes into the air or into underutilized run off-water. These enlarging lagoons — not only evident in Hellisheiði but also by the geothermal power plants in Reykjanes, Svartsengi, Nesjavellir and Bjarnarflag — suggest that the energy companies’ promises regarding the pumping of run-off water, are far from easily kept.

The Fight Over Iceland’s Energy Master Plan Continues

During the last few weeks, the Icelandic Parliament’s Industries Committee received 333 remarks in connection with the committee’s work on a parliamentary resolution for Iceland’s Energy Master Plan. The resolution, which was presented by the Ministers of Industry and of Environment in April this year, gives a green light for a monstrous plan to turn the Reykjanes peninsula’s geothermal areas into a continuous industrial zone.

The remarks can generally be split into two groups based on senders and views: Firstly, individuals and environmentalist associations who, above all, protest the afore-mentioned Reykjanes plans. Secondly, companies and institutions with vested interests in the further heavy industrialization of Iceland who demand that the Master Plan’s second phase goes unaltered through parliament — that is, as it was before the parliamentary resolution was presented, in which the much-debated Þjórsá dams and other hydro power plants were still included in the exploitation category. Saving Iceland has published one of the remarks, written by Helga Katrín Tryggvadóttir, which differs from these two groups as it evaluates energy production and nature conservation in a larger, long-term context.

During the process, the head of the Industries Committee, Kristján Möller — MP for the social-democratic People’s Alliance, known for his stand in favour of heavy industry — ordered and paid for a remark sent by management company GAMMA. The company first entered discussion about one year ago after publishing a report, which promised that the national energy company Landsvirkjun could become the equivalent of the Norwegian Oil Fund, if the company would only be permitted to build dams like there is no tomorrow.

In a similarly gold-filled rhetoric, GAMMA’s remark regarding the Energy Master Plan states that the changes made by the two ministers — which in fact are the results of another public reviewing process last year — will cost Iceland’s society about 270 billion ISK and 5 thousand jobs. According to the company’s report, these amount are the would-be benefits of forcefully continuing the heavy industrialization of Iceland, a plan that has proved to be not only ecologically but also economically disastrous. Seen from that perspective, it does not come as a surprise realizing that the management company is largely staffed with economists who before the economic collapse of 2008 lead the disastrous adventures of Kaupþing, one of the three biggest Icelandic bubble banks.

Alterra Power: Decreases Revenue, Enlargement Plans in Iceland

Canadian energy company Alterra Power, the majority stakeholder of Icelandic energy company HS Orka, recently published the financial and operating results for the first quarter of this year. “Consolidated revenue for the current quarter was $16.4 million compared to $18.9 million in the comparative quarter,” the report states, “due to lower revenue from our Icelandic operations as a result of lower aluminium prices, which declined 13.9% versus the comparative quarter.”

At the same time, the company’s Executive Chairman Ross Beaty stated that Alterra is preparing for an enlargement of the Reykjanesvirkjun geothermal power plant, located at the south-west tip of the Reykjanes peninsula, which should increase the plant’s production capacity from the current 100 MW to 180 MW. The construction is supposed to start at the end of this year and to be financed with the 38 million USD purchase of new shares in HS Orka by Jarðvarmi, a company owned by fourteen Icelandic pension funds.

According to Alterra, permission for all construction-related activities is in place. However, as Saving Iceland has reported, Iceland’s National Energy Authority has officially stated their fears that increased energy production will lead to an over-exploitation of the plant’s geothermal reservoir. Furthermore, Ásgeir Margeirsson, Chairman of HS Orka, responded to Alterra’s claims stating that due to a conflict between the energy company and aluminium producer Norðurál, the construction might not start this year. According to existing contracts, the energy from the enlargement is supposed to power Norðurál’s planned aluminium smelter in Helguvík. That project, however, has been on hold for years due to financial and energy crisis, and seems to be nothing but a fantasy never to be realised.

Greenland: Cheap Chinese Labour and Toxic Dumping

The home rule government of Greenland is split in their stand on Alcoa’s plans to import 2 thousand Chinese workers for the construction of the company’s planned smelter in Maniitsoq. The biggest governing party, Inuit Ataqatigiit, is against the plan as the workers will not be paid the same amount as Greenlandic labour. On the other hand, the Democratic Party, which has two of the government’s nine ministerial seats, is in favour of the plans on the grounds that the workers’ working condition and payments will be better than in China.

In Iceland, during the construction of the Kárahnjúkar dams and Alcoa’s aluminium smelter in Reyðarfjörður, Chinese and Portuguese migrant workers were imported on a mass scale. More than 1700 work-related injuries were reported during the building of the dams, ten workers ended up with irrecoverable injuries and five workers died. In 2010, the Occupational Safety and Health Authority stated that the Kárahnjúkar project was in a different league to any other project in Iceland, with regard to work-related accidents.

At the same time as Greenland’s government argued over Alcoa, Danish newspaper Politiken reported that the Scottish oil company Cairn Energy — a company that, along with Indian mining giant Vedanta, shares the ownership of oil and gas company Cairn India — is responsible for dumping 160 tons of toxic materials into the ocean in the years of 2010 and 2011. The dumping is linked to the company’s search for oil off Greenland’s shore and is five times higher than the amount of comparable materials dumped in 2009 by every single oil platform of Denmark and Norway combined.

As from 2005 Alcoa, along with national energy company Landsvirkjun, Húsavík’s authorities and – to begin with – the Icelandic authorities, has been working on the project, which would have required at least 400 MW of energy, produced by harnessing geothermal areas and glacial rivers in the North. In 2008 a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Landsvirkjun and Alcoa expired, and a year later the same happened concerning a MOU between the aluminium producer and the Icelandic government, the latter not willing to renew it.

Since then Landsvirkjun has signed a few other MOUs, regarding geothermal energy commerce, with possible buyers such as data centres and silicon factories, in some ways meeting with a popular demand for less destructive and more “green” use of the geothermal energy. Regardless of what one finds about the alleged “greenness” of such enterprises this development has inevitably raised the question if Landsvirkjun would be able to feed both Alcoa’s planned smelter and at the same time these smaller, less energy intensive factories.

Environmentalists have warned of the over-exploitation of geothermal energy. In fact, as early as in 2008, when Landsvirkjun’s official plan still seemed to include only Alcoa’s smelter, Saving Iceland insisted that the damming of one or more of the glacial rivers in the North was crucial if Landsvirkjun was to provide energy for a the smelter. At that time Alcoa had already stated that a 250 thousand ton smelter would be “unsustainable” and that the company would want to build at least a 346 thousand ton smelter in Bakki. For a smelter of that size 400 MW would have been needed in addition to the already planned 400.

In 2008 Þórunn Sveinbjarnardóttir, then Minister of Environment, ruled that the project needed to undergo a joint Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), taking into account not only the impacts of the smelter per se but the whole infrastructure around it, including the power plants and energy transportation. The company’s response, as well of others in favor of the smelter, was that the minister’s ruling was a political attack against the project, only meant to delay the process.

The first draft of the joint EIA report was ready in the spring 2010 and a few months later Iceland’s National Planning Agency published its comments on it. The Planning Agency’s comments were damming, stating that the projects impacts would be high and could not be mitigated; its greenhouse gas emissions would constitute 14% of Iceland’s total and 17,000 ha of pristine wilderness would be affected. Most importantly, as pointed out by Jaap Krater, ecologial economist and spokesperson of Saving Iceland, the Agency highlighted the “uncertainty on the full impact of the planned power plants and particularly on how much geothermal energy can be sustainably produced. Finally, the assessed energy projects will not be able to fully power the smelter, with 140 MW of capacity missing.”

This energy crisis – similar to the one Century Aluminum is facing, regarding geothermal energy for their planned smelter in Helguví, South of Iceland – is no doubt the main factor leading to Alcoa’s withdrawal, though the company and other interested parties blame the joint EIA and the current government’s energy policy. As mentioned before this has been clear for a long time – in January this year business newspaper Viðskiptablaðið reported that Alcoa was about to withdraw from the Bakki project due to energy uncertainties. The final straw, according to the paper’s sources, was Landsvirkjun’s discussions with a company called Carbon Recycling, which plans to build a methanol plant run on geothermal energy from the North. This was, however, rejected by the company only a week later. Alcoa said that the smelter was still on their drawing table and that a permit for at least 500 MW of geothermal energy existed.

Though Alcoa’s representatives, as well as Húsavík’s authorities and other parties favouring heavy industry, have since yesterday acted as Alcoa’s withdrawal is somewhat of a shocking news, Katrín Júlíusdóttir, Minister of Industry, says that it is of no surprise to her. Alcoa has, according to Katrín, had a head start on all other possible energy purchaser, which it has not used in its own favour.

In a two pages interview with newspaper Morgunblaðið today – free from even a single comment from an environmentalist or other critical perspective – Tómas Már Sigurðsson, Alcoa’s director in Iceland, does not admit that the actual energy uncertainty, addressed by environmentalists and the National Planning Agency, has been the company’s main hindrance. Tómas, however, hints at it when stating that Alcoa has from the start been clear about its thirst for more then 400 MW, given that more than that can be harnessed in the North.

Tómas also says that the price that Landsvirkjun wants for the energy is not “competitive” – or in other words: too high. For the last year Landsvirkjun has been heavily criticized for prizing its energy seriously low, mapping Iceland out as a cheap energy haven for the aluminium industry, which makes it especially interesting that now Alcoa – an international corporation and of the world’s biggest aluminium producers – claims it cannot pay for Icelandic energy.

Now, as Alcoa’s dream of a smelter in Bakki is over – after six years process, including an investment of two billion ISK (17,3 million USD) – Tómas says that the company will continue its plans of further projects in Quebec, the New York state, Norway and Saudi Arabia. Also, as repeatedly reported by Saving Iceland, Alcoa recognizes Greenland as its next Iceland, from a social and economic perspective – i.e. easy exploitable society and cheap energy – and plans to build at least a 400 thousand ton smelter there in the nearest future.

Albeit the clear fact that Alcoa’s withdrawal from Bakki does not manifest the company’s worldwide decrease in operations, it surely marks a milestone in the struggle against the aluminium industry – not only in Iceland, but also worldwide. More on that later.
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See also:

Alcoa in Greenland: Empty Promises? by Miriam Rose
Alcoa: Where Will the New Dams be Built? by Jaap Krater
Greenland’s Decision: Nature or Culture? by Miriam Rose

Please join us for the 7th annual protest outside the AGM of Vedanta Resources, the now infamous UK registered Indian mining company who have this year been exposed by the Indian government for serial environmental and human rights violations. We stand in solidarity with the Dongria Kondh and other inhabitants of Niyamgiri and Lanjigargh who have lost land, health and livelihood to Vedanta’s refinery, and faced repression and struggle in fighting Vedanta’s plans for a 73 million tonne bauxite mine and a six fold increase in the refinery’s capacity. We oppose Vedanta’s attempted take-over of British Oil company Cairn Energy who plan to drill in Greenland and Sri Lanka.

In 2010, protests outside Vedanta’s AGM made headlines as protesters on the outside shouted slogans targeting CEO ad majority shareholder Anil Agarwal for the ‘blood on his hands’, as well as David Cameron who was in India promoting joint UK-Indian business ventures at the time. Meanwhile activist shareholders held Vedanta to account inside the AGM, and key investors Aviva threatened to pull out due to the company’s ‘disdain’ for OECD environmental law. One month later the Indian government’s Saxena Report damned Vedanta for violations of tribal rights and environmental law at the Niyamgiri hills. Vedanta is also being investigated by the Indian government’s Lok Pal anti-corruption ombudsman for massive corruption over the illegal acquisition of 3000 acres of land for a ‘Vedanta University’ in Puri, Orissa.

This year we are celebrating the prevention of the illegal Vedanta University project and the denial of their right to mine tribal land at Niyamgiri without permission. However, the fight is far from over. We are calling on the British and Indian governments to put Anil Agarwal on trial for these violations, and drawing attention to the company’s continued attempts to get Niyamgiri via the Orissa state government. Please join us and raise your voices in solidarity with Indian communities who will be watching us and feeling our support.

The enclosed photos show the protest at Vedanta’s 2010 AGM.

Contact  savingiceland at riseup.net for more details.
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Recent relevant articles:

Red Mud Spill and People’s Resistance at Niyamgiri – A First Hand Report from the Struggle
Press Release on Red Mud Pollution by Vedanta
Victory in India: The Tribes of Orissa Conquer British Mining Giant Vedanta
From 2009: Join us at Vedanta Sterlite AGM – 27th July London

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Please see coverage of last year’s AGM here (from the London Mining Network website):

Protesters descend on FTSE 100 mining group’s AGM – but chief executive describes criticism as ‘lies’
Vedanta Resources’ highly successful financial year, and its annual meeting, were overshadowed yesterday when more than 100 protesters, some dressed as characters from James Cameron’s Avatar film, came to object to what they say is the company’s shocking human rights and environmental record.

Police stopped protesters storming the meeting, as pressure groups and celebrities lined up to attack the mining group’s record over its treatment of the Dongria Kondh tribe, which, they claim, will be devastated if Vedanta’s planned bauxite mine in India’s Orissa state goes ahead.

Read the full story here.

Vedanta meeting held up by difficult question
Activist shareholder challenge Vedanta’s Chief Operating Officer at Lanjigarh on the sacred status of Niyamgiri to its tribal inhabitants and causes an embarrassing and revealing silence when the ‘expert’ cannot answer.

Read the full story here.

Vedanta meeting disrupted by demonstration
Accusing the Vedanta mining company of destroying the Niyamgiri mountain worshipped by indigenous Dongria tribes of Orissa, around 250 supporters of a campaign group ‘Foil Vedanta’ held a vociferous demonstration during its annual general meeting here. The demonstrators last evening carried placards saying ‘Anil Agarwal, Blood on Your hands’, ‘Who killed Arsi Majhi? Vedanta, Vedanta’. They claimed that Agarwal, Chairman of Vedanta, was a “Wanted Criminal”.

Read the full story here.

Anti-mining protesters ambushed Vedanta’s AGM
New Delhi, Lanjigarh- For the fourth year in a row, anti-mining protesters ambushed the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Vedanta Resources, a London-based FTSE 100-listed company. The AGM was held in London on Wednesday evening. While in the last three years, Dongria Kondh (tribals from Orissa) representatives protested against the mining of their sacred hill in the state, on Wednesday it were blockbuster Avatar’s aliens, Na’vi, and fashion icon Bianca Jagger.

At the heart of this cross-continental row is the bauxite-rich Niyamgiri hill in the Lanjigarh area of dirt-poor Kalahandi district. While Anil Agarwal-promoted Vedanta Resources wants to mine the hill through its subsidiary companies for its aluminum refinery in Lanjigarh, located 500 km southwest of Bhubaneshwar, and “develop the backward area,” tribals and activists feel that it will displace thousands and leave them without any livelihood opportunities.

Read the full story here.

Channel 4 News Wednesday 28 July
Watch 4 minutes into this clip for coverage of protests against Vedanta at the annual meeting in London:

After many years of preparations the Greenlandic government say the final decision on Alcoa’s proposed smelter will be taken at the spring 2012 of the parliament. It is more likely, as the global history of the industry and the evidence in Greenland tells us, that the decision has in fact already been made undemocratically behind closed doors, despite the decreasing support of the Greenlandic people. In fact Alcoa and the Greenland government are so keen on passing the project that they have just hired an eighth employee at their national company Greenland Development- formed to enable the industry to go ahead. Juaaka Lyberth’s explicit remit is to influence public opinion on the smelter through the media. Greenland Development paints a rosy picture of an aluminium future for Greenland, but will their promises of prosperity come true? A comparison to Alcoa’s Fjardaal project in East Iceland suggests that many will not.

Local employment?

“The aluminum project is a major project that will offer a large number of stable and lasting jobs.” says Minister for Industry and Mineral Resources, Ove Karl Berthelsen.[1]

Despite this claim Alcoa recently asked the Greenlandic government’s permission to use Chinese contractors to build the two hydro dams and smelter. Chinese workers would be paid half the salary of members of the Greenland Workers Union. They claim this will be necessary to make the project competitive and that the Greenlandic labour force will not be sufficient[2].

Greenland Development responded immediately to this unpopular news by sending out a press release explaining why competitiveness was so important. The release explained that since the financial crisis China has increasingly dominated the market for aluminium smelting due to their low cost of construction and production. Building a smelter in China costs $3000/ton of production capacity compared to $4500 – £5000/ton in Iceland or Saudi Arabia. Greenland is in direct competition with these prices and will have to provide very good terms for the company if they want the project to go forwards[3]. ‘Good terms’ means cheap labour and foreign workers over Greenlandic contracts.

The labour question has dominated debate on the smelter in Greenland recently. Bjarne Lyberth, Head of the organisation Against Aluminium Smelter in Greenland is concerned that other important issues are being sidelined:

“In my view the issue on cheap foreign labour is just one of many problems. There is a risk that this becomes perceived as the main hurdle to the project and other serious cultural, social, health, environmental and, economic impacts just become “minor issues” to deal with later.”

However, the promise of jobs is usually cited as the biggest rationale for building such huge industrial constructions, and it is a very tempting one in economically deprived rural areas where smelters are often built. When the decision on the Fjardaal aluminium smelter and associated Karahnjukar dams was pending, the Iceland government made similar claims. They promised the Confederation of Icelandic Labour that the ratio of Icelanders to foreign workers at the dam construction site would be about 8:20, amounting to 3000-5000 jobs for Icelanders[4]. In reality the construction company Impregilo only employed around 100 Icelandic workers out of 1100 employees at the site. Many of these workers were Chinese, Portuguese and other non EU nationalities. Impregilo claimed that Icelanders didn’t want the work as it was not as highly paid as they had hoped, and there was a high turnover. In contrast the Chinese workers were very stable despite tough conditions[5]. Increasing company profit by using temporary low paid foreign labour is known as ‘social dumping’.

The construction of the dams was plagued with controversy as it was revealed that foreign workers were being paid less than Icelanders and made to work in unsafe conditions without proper equipment[6]. 1700 work related injuries were reported during the dam’s construction, 120 resulting in long term or permanent inability to work. Four workers are known to have died from injuries on the site[7] [8]. There is evidence that when the Icelandic coalition of unions became vocal about the treatment of workers in the press they were silenced by bribes from Impregilo who promised to pay into the union’s pension funds. A few years later it was revealed that the payments had not been made and the union (ASI) raised rights of foreign labourers again. Shortly after the funds were finally paid and ASI’s complaints ceased.

National income from aluminium export?

Greenland Development‘s recent news release explains;

‘The project economy of each individual project is decisive. The competition is as such between countries that it among other issues hinges on the terms a host country will provide for a new project. Countries in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America are all trying to develop smelter projects. Only projects that are competitive on a global scale will have a chance to become real projects and be implemented[9].’

In reality, being ‘competitive on a global scale’ with countries such as China means selling energy and labour as cheaply as possible and providing tax breaks that make the project attractive to the company – minimising benefit to the host country. National unions of workers the Greenland Employers? Association and the Organisation of Greenlandic Employers have warned that the only income from the project in its first few years will be tax paid by its employees, and with much workforce coming from abroad on low wages this is likely to be very little[10]. The government has also said that company tax should not be counted on for the first fifteen years, suggesting that large tax breaks have been given[11].

In Iceland predictions that the smelters could be an economic drain and not a boost are increasingly being proven. Energy prices paid by the smelter operators were kept from the Icelandic public until very recently following a scandal when it was revealed that  Century Aluminium had been paying a fifth of domestic prices – the cheapest energy for aluminium production in Europe[12]. Prices for Alcoa’s Fjardaal smelter were accidentally revealed by then company Chairman Alain Belda when he claimed that Iceland was charging some of the lowest rates in the world, just $15 per MWh (megawatt hour)[13]. The deals they made link energy prices to the cost of aluminium so when the market drops the taxpayer can end up subsidising the companies rather than profiting from them.

In the run up to Iceland’s dramatic financial crash in 2008 the OECD concluded their country report by warning Iceland that ‘large scale public investments are inherently risky’ and strongly advised them not to approve further aluminium developments until it was clear whether they would get a long term profit from existing ones:

‘No major investments in energy-intensive projects, including those already in the planning phase, should proceed without prior evaluation within a transparent and comprehensive cost-benefit framework (including environmental impacts and inter-generational effects).[14]’

Two years earlier a report by Icelandic bank Glitnir warned that any benefit from large scale aluminium developments “is probably outweighed by the developments’ indirect impact on demand, inflation, interest rates and the ISK exchange rate”. Similarly economist Thorsteinn Siglaugsson claimed that “Kárahnjúkar will never make a profit, and the Icelandic taxpayer may well end up subsidising Alcoa”[15]. A 2009 report by Economist Indriði H. Þorláksson concluded that the industry would have negligible benefits on the Icelandic economy, possibly causing long term damage, and should not be considered a way out of the financial crisis[16].

Despite all of this evidence Greenland Development have dedicated another recent news article on their website to trying to disprove that Iceland’s crash had anything to do with the smelters. Though they admit that ‘high investment in construction also played a role which put pressure on the economy’, this was ‘hardly significant‘. Instead they claim that aluminium industry ‘has been crucial in earning foreign currency for Iceland during the crisis‘[17].

In another article Greenland Development’s website enthusiastically claims that the aluminium price is likely to rise in the coming years due to demand for ‘green’ cars and solar panels and economic growth in Asia[18]. Though this would somewhat increase Greenland’s chances of making a profit there is no guarantee of market stability, which has been very volatile in recent years. A critique of the concept of ‘green aluminium’ can be found here[19].

Already there seems to be some degree of caution in Greenland about taking too much of the burden of construction costs and loans which caused so many problems in Iceland. The Greenlandic government is considering bringing in a third party to ownership of the project instead of taking the whole of the 50% stake they were offered by Alcoa.

Public more sceptical now

Despite Greenland Development’s expensive propaganda war, public support for the Alcoa smelter has been steadily decreasing. People’s organisations Avataq and the newly formed Against Aluminium Smelter in Greenland have worked hard to discover the truth about the environmental and social impacts of the smelter and the ethical track record of the company abroad. As a result Greenland Development reported that their own October/November 2010 survey of public opinion revealed rapidly changing attitudes:

‘there is a very low degree of knowledge, as well as a less positive attitude towards the project than in previous years. Of the citizens that have expressed either a positive or negative attitude towards the aluminium project, there is thus now only a small majority (54 percent) who are positive.[20]’

The main reason for the ‘increased scepticism‘ towards the project was ‘concern about the possible environmental consequences‘ with 20% of those interviewed believing that the project ‘can have a markedly negative impact on nature and the environment‘ compared to only 7% the previous year[21]. This was identified to be mainly due to critical media coverage and Greenland Development’s ‘information manager’ was hired shortly afterwards to address this. Environmental protection group, Avataq, says Greenland Development has deliberately tried to distort public opinion about the aluminum industry. Their head Mikkel Myrup explains:

“Greenland Development has assumed a role as an aluminium industry propagandist, and do that rather primitively. But this wouldn’t be possible without strong support from the civil servants in the central administration and the smelter municipality administration. The civil servant’s pro industry influence on the cabinet members and the parliament is a massive democratic problem, because they suppress and/or ignore information that would equip the politicians with a wider, and more realistic knowledge base from which to make enlightened decisions.”

With three operating smelters Icelanders have had a good opportunity to assess the benefits of the industry which has been promoted as their economic saviour. A recent online poll by news outlet Visir revealed that only 13% of participants thought heavy industry was the most important area to focus on. Despite high level promotion of the industry’s benefits by certain sectors of the national leadership evidence shows that tourism and fishing are still the most important and growing industries for the Icelandic people[22].

Who is in power? Naalakkersuisut or Alcoa?

Last week’s meeting between members of the Greenland Government (Naalakkersuisut) and Alcoa clearly shows the power relationship between the industry giant and our nation, that has characterized the project’s development from the beginning, Alcoa dictates and Naalakkersuisut obey across the population.

This form of government is undemocratic and demeaning to our people who are still recovering from 250 years of colonial rule.

Alcoa has made it clear to Naalakkersuisut that a condition to continue the aluminum project in Maniitsoq is the issue of cheap foreign labor will be resolved immediately.

In two large departments of the government, business department and the EPA recent years lawmaking has been highly in favor of the industry giants who get their wishes fulfilled as they want it, even an entire company Greenland Development (GD) has been set up with seven employees working to get Alcoa established in the country.

While the majority of the public institutions increasingly are subjects to cutdowns, E.G. by halts in hirings, GD has just hired a new employee to provide more public information, hence the company has now three people working media issues. Conversely, EPA lacks four employees to provide an adequate assessment of environmental impacts of aluminum project.

Having a public information led by GD with overt interests in having the aluminum industry established in the country that is based on studies funded by the same company, while agencies to scrutinize other consequences get cut in appropriations, is extremely worrying for the country’s democracy and integrity.

Who do Naalakkersuisut work for? Alcoa or the people of Greenland?

It is now up to Naalakkersuisut whether to follow their own principle of involving the public, including the labor union (SIK) and other organizations, or whether they will continue to be dictated by Alcoa and other industry giants.

Time will tell what the next requirement from Alcoa will be. Lower wages during the operation? Lower environmental or safety standards? What will be the next …

On behalf of Against Aluminium Smelter in Greenland,
Bjarne Lyberth, Chairman,

On behalf of Avataq,
Mikkel Myrup, Chairman,

Miriam Rose

After 13 years of continuous battle, the people’s movements to save the Niyamgiri hills from bauxite mining have won their land and livelihood back from the jaws of extinction. Niyamgiri is one of a series of threatened bauxite capped mountains in Orissa. On August 21st 2010 a review of the Vedanta mining project carried out by the Ministry of the Environment exposed the company’s “total contempt for the law”, having violated a number of environmental regulations, and revealed “an appalling degree of collusion” by local government officials with Vedanta. A few days later Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh called a halt to the project.

Two months later the Environment Ministry also rejected Vedanta’s plans for a six fold increase in capacity at the Lanjigarh alumina refinery, the plant at the foot of the Niyamgiri hills which would have been served by the 8 million tons of bauxite mined above. The company were also warned to follow pollution guidelines closely and were reprimanded for starting expansion work without prior permission (1). One month after that (November 2010) Vedanta Chairman and founder Anil Agarwal’s extravagant plans for a $3.2 billion ‘Vedanta University’ in Orissa were also knocked back when the High Court ordered that 6892 acres of beautiful coastal land, including part of the sacred Jagannath temple, had been illegally acquired and should be returned to the ousted inhabitants (2). An incredible victory! The events sparked celebrations across Orissa, and held the state government’s assembly in limbo for several weeks as ministers furiously argued over what had become an iconic battle of tribal people and people’s movements versus a mega corporation.

The Niyamgiri story has also been hitting headlines in the West in the past two years, focussing on the involvement of celebrities such as Bianca Jagger and Michael Palin, and the glitsy media campaigns of Action Aid and Survival International. Reading the papers you might think these large NGO’s led the fight against Vedanta. You would not hear that Action Aid accepted donations from Vedanta subsidiary Sterlite in 2003, and has signed MoU’s with Vedanta’s investors, ICICI bank (3), or that NGO professionals in their big jeeps have succeeded in splitting people’s movements in the area, paying particular tribal activists to be the face of their campaigns, and encouraging de-politicisation of the struggle. You would also not hear that the big NGO’s only joined the fight in 2007 and 2008, long after the people’s organisation Niyamgiri Surakshya Parishad (later Samiti) was formed in early Jan of 1998 in a gathering of more than 200 people in Asupada, a village at the foot of the lush green mountains. Nor that the Adivasi’s (tribals) are far from the helpless figures the NGO campaigns portrayed, but have fought tooth and nail for decades to successfully preserve their mountains and way of life from various threats, including logging during the British colonial rule. Sadly, the culture of protest orchestrated by the big NGOs was never intended to stimulate long lasting grassroots activism or to make the existing struggles visible. They were selling their product in India and the West, and by doing this they were actually suppressing the politics and the voice of the real people’s movements.

For the grassroots movements in Orissa the fight has been long and hard, with moments of great empowerment and also deep sadness and brutal police repression. After years of chasing away company men who surveyed their land with tools and clipboards, the threat of displacement finally became real for the Khonds when the Orissa government ordered the compulsory acquisition of farmlands around the proposed Lanjigarh refinery in 2003. During the land acquisition process government officials promised that the company would provide jobs to every family who sold their land. In reality very few got jobs or compensation. Instead local people suffer skin lesions, dust pollution, deaths from lorry accidents on the new road, TB and contaminated crops. One family who’s farm is just outside the refinery wall have begged the company to buy them out so they can leave their contaminated land and move somewhere safer, but Vedanta have refused.

Later that year the chimney of a BALCO refinery being built in the neighbouring state of Chhattisgarh collapsed killing 57 workers, a stark reminder of the unsafe conditions for aluminium workers in India. 2003 also saw the illegal arrest and detainment of Lingaraj Azad, state president of the political party Samajvadi Jan Parishad (Socialist People’s Council) and also convenor of Niyamgiri Surakshya Samiti (Council for the Preservation of Niyamgiri) who was jailed for 100 days on two occasions. In 2004 a rally of a thousand tribals protesting forceful evictions was violently broken up by police who ‘lathi-charged’ the crowd, striking them with long thin sticks that break the skin, and injuring women and men alike. Thirteen activists were arrested on invalid charges. On 23rd March 2005 the first state-sponsored murder took place when local activist Sukru Majhi was killed. This would be followed in 2010 by the murder of Arsi Majhi. 2000 had also seen police open fire on a meeting of tribals regarding another Orissa alumina refinery owned by Utkal in Maikanch village, killing three and wounding seven (4). In 2007 the Norwegian Government’s pension fund pulled its $13 million of shares in Vedanta as it believed its involvement could result in “an unacceptable risk of contributing to grossly unethical activities”, and in 2010 the Bank of England similarly dis-invested from the company on human and environmental grounds after UK authorities in India upheld allegations of illegal and unethical activity against tribal people.

Blockades of the Lanjigarh refinery by women and children in particular were a regular occurrence during the long struggle. One of the most symbolic protests took place in January 2009 when 10,000 mostly tribal people encircled the Niyamgiri hills in a 17km long human chain, vowing to protect its sacred ecology and its ancient inhabitants. A week earlier 7000 protesters had marched to the gates of the aluminium refinery saying ‘Vedanta Hatao!’ (Remove Vedanta!), demanding that the company leave the area (5).

Here in the UK, where the company is registered (despite violating a number of British company laws), the campaign came to a head at the 2010 Vedanta AGM, which was dominated by the Niyamgiri issue for the fifth year running. A Guardian article entitled ‘Vedanta’s very embarrassing silence’ reported how during the meeting our friend Orissa activist and film-maker Samarendra Das challenged the Lanjigargh refinery’s manager Mukesh Kumar’s claims that the mountain was not sacred to the affected Dongria Khond tribe. Testing his knowledge he demanded that Mr Kumar give the Dongria’s name for their holy Niyamgiri mountain, which he could not (6). The presence of paid protesters from Survival and Action Aid was minimal at the 2010 AGM, whereas they had dominated the previous years meeting, showing the volatility of NGO support and commitment. They may have believed the fight was over as the company appeared on the brink of bringing in the bulldozers and showed no signs of stopping.

The battle for Niyamgiri was fought on many fronts; through international solidarity, court room action, media campaigns, shareholder activism and in depth research and understanding of the aluminium industry itself (embodying what Gandhi termed ‘satyagraha’- the truth force). But at the root of all of these actions was the energy and determination of the Dongria Kondh, who’s understanding of the fallacies of ‘development’ are often as sharp as any university professor. In an improvised songKucheipadar village Deka musician and elder Salu Majhi is recorded asking how mining can be called ‘development’, and describing the ideological rift between the way they value their environment and societal well being, and the quantified measures of the company and state:

Use all this up in 25 years, very clever my friend
We are kui people
Storing water wont be enough
Our life is in our flowing streams (7)

Evidence agrees with Salu. Out of half a million Indians displaced by mining in the last 10 years in just four states, 92% are much worse off, even if they receive the paltry compensation offered by companies.

So where is Vedanta now? According to the Sunday Times Rich list the company founder and chairman Anil Agarwal is still tenth richest man in UK with wealth growth of a record 583% after the financial crisis. He remains very well connected in London, yet somehow manages to be invisible in the media, despite being an almost despotic character with a rags to riches story and a childish temper when he doesn’t get his way. Using his connections he has managed to rapidly diversify the business of the company, teaming up with the Scottish oil company Cairn Energy to exploit the controversial oil fields around Greenland. Two of Vedanta’s board members also serve on the board of Cairn India and one (Naresh Chandra) is also on the advisory board of BAE, not unusual for aluminium companies due to the direct link between aluminium production and arms manufacture (8).

But we must celebrate our victories before turning to face the next fight. In the three years since Saving Iceland’s 2007 International Conference against Heavy Industry we have seen a series of projects halted by people’s movements, a success we never would have dared to dream of! Trinidad’s La Brea smelter was canceled in 2010 after years of protest by our friends from No Smelter TnT and others. The site is now being reclaimed by local people who have permission to build a bio-digester or a mango plantation there! (9)

In Iceland all smelter construction ground to a halt following the economic crisis, and Alcoa’s plans for a mega smelter in Husavik, North Iceland, may have fallen through all together thanks to the determination of Saving Iceland and others to reveal the true costs of the dams and geothermal plants needed to power the project. In Greenland public opinion in favour of Alcoa’s enormous planned smelter plummeted after activists from Avataq sought international help to educate local people and politicians on the history of the aluminium industry and the clear lessons for communities dependent on an aluminium economy. The Greenland smelter now looks a lot less certain than it has long appeared. On top of the massive turn around of aluminium industrialisation in Orissa these victories are enormous.

Most importantly they all demonstrate the power of people’s movements to stop corporations in their tracks. Though we may sometimes doubt it, our grassroots actions to understand, expose and resist projects which we know will not benefit people or planet, are powerful, and they work. Davids continue to bring down Goliath’s… in fact they are the only thing that ever will.

*

The cancelling of Vedanta’s Niyamgiri project also occurred just after the publishing of Samarendra Das’ and Felix Padel’s seminal book on the fight and the global aluminium industry ‘Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel‘, which was in the Indian best seller list and was read by the Home Secretary of India. For an in depth analysis of the aluminium industry and the struggle in India the book is highly recommended.

Notes:

(1) Govt says no to Vedanta’s $8.5 bn expansion plan, NDTV Correpsondent, October 21, 2010 (New Dehli).

(2) Deborah Mohanty, Indian Express, 16th Nov 2010. ‘Land acquisition procedure for Vedanta University illegal‘

(3) Das, Samarendra and Padel, Felix 2010 ‘Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel‘. Orient Blackswan, Delhi.

(4) Das, S. and Padel, F. 2010,’Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel‘, Orient Blackswan

(5) Saving Iceland, Jan 30th 2009. ‘Ten Thousand People Encircle the Niyamgriji Mountains in Orissa, India‘

(6) Peter Popham. ‘Vedanta’s very embarrassing silence’. The Guardian. Friday, 30 July 2010

(7) An excerpt from Samarendra and Amarendra Das’ 2005 documentary film Wdira Pdika (‘Earth Worm Company Man’

(8) Press Association, 25th April 2010. The Guardian ‘Rich list reveals record rise in wealth: Collective wealth of Britain’s 1,000 richest people rose 30%, the biggest annual increase in list’s 22-year history‘

(9) Richardson Dhalai, September 27th. ‘Rowley slams Govt’s decision to scrap smelter‘, Newsday.

Climate change has made Greenland the next industrial frontier, but at what cost?

Humanity is in denial. We know that our hyperactive extraction of fuels, metals and minerals, and their dirty processing, consuming and dumping for our consumer ‘growth’ society is killing the planet and ourselves. We also know that all of these sugary treats are finite. But like an insolent toddler we continue; more and more, faster and faster – running in denial from the planetary spanking that is undoubtedly coming our way.

I have often hoped that the global emergency of climate change, combined with the inescapable reality of peak oil would wake us up from this selfish resource-gorging, and perhaps it still will before it is too late (too late: I.e tomorrow? 2012? 2020? a few months ago?). But in the meantime,  nature has given western capitalism one last laugh. As the ice drips and cracks from Greenland’s white mass it is exposing a treasure trove of minerals, metals, ores and oil (one of the highest concentrations in the world), and plentiful hydro-power to help us heat, break and alter them into things we ‘need’. Just as the candle wick flares and gutters on our oil-driven consumptive society Greenland’s bounty has given it one more chance. One last bright flame, to hide from us the surrounding darkness.

Queuing up for the best bites

All the big names are queuing up for a ticket to the earth’s last free banquet. Statoil, Chevron and Exxon-Mobil want oil, True North Gems are after diamonds, gold and rubies, and Alcoa is chasing the newly roaring melt-waters of ancient ice, for dams and hydro-power to smelt aluminium.

Greenland Minerals and Energy (who are not a national project, but an Australian mining consortium) have their hearts set on uranium, zinc and the magical sounding ‘rare earth elements’ – essential for the equally magical technology in our apple macs, i-pods and digital cameras. They describe their mission as; “unlocking the mineral riches of Greenland, one of the world’s last natural resource frontiers”. “Unlocking” – as though they are freeing something trapped in the earth and desperate to get out, as though the earth has cruelly kept it from them, but we will suffer no more.. this “frontier” will be conquered, tamed and made to serve our needs.

But what about the Greenlanders? How do they feel about their isolated island being invaded by American, Australian, British and Norwegian suits, helicopters and drilling rigs? They are faced with an impossible conundrum. Having blamed fossil-fuel induced climate change for destroying their land and traditional livelihoods for so long, they are now promised that drilling oil, and adding to climate change, is the only way they can finally become financially independent from Denmark.

Social versus environmental freedom. That is the stark choice. You can’t have both, either the land will prosper or the people. Man versus nature. Simple as that.

Kárahnjúkar: History repeating itself in Greenland

But this choice is not so easy for Greenlanders. British newspaper The Times quotes Greenlandic geologist Minik Rosing speaking about one of the planned projects:

“We know Black Angel (mining project) was really bad for the environment the first time. It ruined the fjord. Is it OK to ruin three or four fjords in order to build the country? I hate to even think this, but we have a lot of fjords…We’re very aware that we’ll cause more climate change by drilling for oil. But should we not when it can buy us our independence?”
My mind is cast back to the debates over Alcoa Fjardaal and Karahnjukar. The stark choices Icelanders faced then too, when the politicians said “we have to live”, “this is the only way we can survive”, “do you want to go back to the turf houses?” etc. And for a while Iceland was bathed in the glory of mega-projects, and the promise of mega-money. Did those promises materialise? The recent revelations about the price aluminium companies are paying for Icelandic power suggests not. In fact the smelters and dams may even have contributed to the financial crisis by so greatly reducing the national coffers in big loans for their construction, and getting little back in return.

But for Alcoa Iceland is already old news. The Greenland smelter will be bigger, ‘greener’ and possibly cheaper than Fjardaal (the negotiated price has not been revealed). In fact it is to be one of the world’s largest smelters ever, starting at 400,000 tons a year, and requiring the damming of two major rivers for 650 MW of energy. The similarities in the project, and the way Alcoa is pushing it are striking.

A top of the line, self-sustainable aluminium smelter?

Greenland’s prime minister Kuupik Kleist has announced that “any aluminium made in Greenland will benefit our global climate if replacing aluminium produced elsewhere in the world where renewable energy sources are not available for the production”. Alcoa calls it “a wonderful opportunity” for themselves and Greenland to build “a world-class, sustainable aluminum smelter, powered by renewable hydroelectric energy”. Sound familiar?

Yet the preliminary EIA carried out by the consultancy Environmental Resource Management (who have passed projects for such clean companies as Dow Chemical, Coca-Cola and Anglo-American), shows that Greenland’s CO2 emissions alone will increase by 75% and will require a Kyoto exemption just like Iceland did for Fjardaal. The smelter will also produce 4,600 tons of SO2, 110 tons of fluorides and 7.1 tons of PFC gases (corresponding to 46,000 tons of CO2 equivalents) per year. The EIA claims that fluorides will have a particularly severe impact in Greenland because of the fragility of their ecosystems. Despite promising the latest in clean and green operations Alcoa have made no guarantee that they will fork out for scrubbing technology which the EIA claims could reduce this mega-impact. They certainly never did at Fjardaal.

The dam reservoirs will flood a large and biodiverse affecting Caribou migrations, populations of Arctic char depended on by fishermen and will affect over 9 towns and villages. One of these effects will be the loss of sources of drinking water, which will have to be imported from elsewhere at greater cost. Though some employment benefit is predicted many of the 600 jobs generated at the finished smelter will have to be filled by foreign workers. The EIA suggests that this is likely to increase crime rates and require extra police to be brought in from Denmark.

Culture at stake

But most striking of all is the potential cultural destruction. According to the EIA the planned reservoir at Tasersiaq will drown ‘a significant amount of newly discovered, still unstudied remains from the Inuit past, and possibly from earlier pre-Inuit cultures…Sites that are inundated by the rising water levels..will be inaccessible to study in the foreseeable future’. In other words this incredible cultural heritage will be gone, wiped, forgotten. Is this the cultural independence and freedom Greenlanders long for? Aqqaluk Lynge, a politician, poet and a leading member of the Inuit community is quoted by The Times; “Of course we want development,” he says. “We want our independence. But we don’t want to lose our souls in the process.”

The discourse promoted by Alcoa and it’s newly wed – the Greenland government – speaks, as it did in Iceland, of the moral obligation of Greenlanders to host ‘green’ aluminium smelters. It seems they should even be proud to sacrifice some of their extensive nature and unusual culture for the good of the world, to make aluminium smelting slightly less bad than it might otherwise be elsewhere. Because we ‘need’ aluminium, there’s no arguing over that.

So Iceland has done it’s bit, Greenland will do it’s bit, Norway is doing it’s bit, the hydro-powered smelters in Canada are doing their bit, Brazil’s new dams will do their bit, the world’s largest bauxite mine planned in Vietnam will do it’s bit. And thanks to all of that sacrifice Alcoa predicts only a 20% increase in it’s climate wrecking emissions by 2020, alongside thousands of acres of forest destruction, indigenous displacement, water poisoning and health effects on local communities. While 150 million tonnes of discarded aluminium lie dumped in our soils, played with and spent. But what does that matter when we have our planes, cars, computers and phones? What do we need ecosystems and a stable climate for anyway?

Meanwhile the smelter marches on. In 2009 Gunnar Jónsson from Fjardabyggd visited Greenland to show them how the eastern municipality had ‘prepared the local community’ for the plant at Fjardaal. But I wonder what advice other Icelanders would give to their neighbouring island. Was it really worth it? I suppose it’s too soon to say how the aluminium mega-powers might have contributed to the political corruption, economic instability and environmental tragedy that has unfolded in Iceland. But perhaps they would at least warn the Greenlanders to be wary of promises of freedom and prosperity. And if they are not worth so much after all, then perhaps a soul is more worth keeping.

An Icelandic translation of this article by Miriam Rose originally appeared in the July issue of the monthly newspaper Róstur

‘We have before us a wonderful opportunity to deliver mutual benefit to the people of Greenland and to Alcoa as we continue to work toward our common objective of building a world-class, sustainable aluminum smelter, powered by renewable hydroelectric energy in Greenland.’

” aluminium made in Greenland will benefit our global climate if replacing aluminium produced elsewhere in the world where renewable energy sources are not available for the production. This will raise Greenland’s emissions, but on a global scale the emissions will have gone down.”

Greenland is moving along a development path calling for new industries to be introduced to increase our economic independence. Like other countries at the bridge of industrial development, Greenland will travel to Copenhagen to draft a new agreement that will reduce emissions while at the same time taking into account the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities of countries and OCT’s.

For generations we have lived off nature. My ancestors have survived by constantly adapting to changes in nature. Today we still live off nature. Fishery is the single most important industry in Greenland, making up 80 per cent of our exports. As stocks are likely to undergo changes as a result of the changing climate, a restructuring of the fisheries sector is vital in the coming year. Also the development of new sectors, mainly hydrocarbons and energy intensive industries, are expected within the next decade. Development of new sectors is vital if Greenland is to prosper under Self-Government.
On June 21 2009 Greenland took a historic step towards independence as the new Self-Government status was introduced. The new Act on Greenland Self-Government consolidates the status of the Greenlandic people as a people pursuant to international law with the right to self determination.

A country of only 56.000 people, living in small towns and settlements along a coastline that compares to the distance from Casablanca to Copenhagen, brings challenges. And adding to these challenges an Arctic climate with extreme temperatures and dark winters makes the challenges of binding the country together even greater.
Greenland is a modern country with communication technology connecting our communities and connecting our country to the world around us. But as inland production is limited and distances between towns and settlements are vast we still rely on sea and air transportation for a wide range of commodities. As the basic need for heating and transportation is comparatively large, Greenland has a high basic emission level per capita even if only little industrial production is taking place.

To cut emissions of greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels we have invested 1 per cent of our GDP annually in the development of sustainable energy since the 1990’s. The introduction of hydropower plants in Greenland is a success as 43 per cent of electricity supply today is covered by energy from three hydropower plants, and in 2010 the share of sustainable energy will climb to more than 60 per cent as a new hydropower plant is opened. Furthermore, my government invests in the research and development of small scale energy systems suitable for use in the Arctic.

New industries
Greenland is moving along a development path calling for new industries to be introduced in order to develop our society and in order to increase our economic independence.
The development of mineral and oil activities are some of the few realistic possibilities towards a self-sustainable economy in Greenland.

Within the last 3-4 years four new licences for mine production have been issued. Several other mineral projects are reaching the final stages before mining licences can be issued. This is the case for projects comprising zirconium, diamond, iron, lead and zinc, and the group of platinum metals. It is a realistic expectation that approximately 10 mines will be in operation within the next 5 to 10 years.

In the last couple of years Greenland has experienced an unprecedented international interest in the oil and gas potential in its underground and the area covered by exploration and exploitation licences have increase to approx. 130,000 sq km. The next exploration wells are planned to commence offshore West Greenland in 2011.
It is a clear political condition that all activities are carried out in accordance with best international standards in relation to safety, environment and climate. But even if the best environmental standards are being used these activities will increase Greenland’s emissions of greenhouse gasses from a very low 1990 starting point. The challenge for Greenland as for many other countries at the bridge of industrial development is to balance the need for new industries, the need to develop our society with a responsible policy on mitigation and adaptation to climate changes.
Another resource is our vast potentials for hydropower energy. The large inland lakes of melt water are energy resources that I hope will be used for the benefit of both Greenland and the global climate as we plan to introduce energy intensive industries within the next decade. As an example, any aluminium made in Greenland will benefit our global climate if replacing aluminium produced elsewhere in the world where renewable energy sources are not available for the production. This will raise Greenland’s emissions, but on a global scale the emissions will have gone down.

Common but differentiated responsibilities
We all inhabit the same globe, and we all must make an effort to curb climate change now.
Reducing global emissions of greenhouse gasses and leaving a green planet for future generations is one of the biggest challenges faced by world leaders today. But while facing the challenges of global warming we must also see that countries at the bridge of industrial development find room to meet the needs and aspirations of their populations bringing them at level with people in the industrialised countries.
In December 2009 the world meets in Copenhagen to draft a new agreement that hopefully will lead to a reduction in global emissions of greenhouse gasses, while at the same time taking into account the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

Kuupik Kleist is the Prime Minister of Greenland

Sermeq Kujalleq is the largest glacier in the northern hemisphere that flows out to sea. The icebergs it calves float along a fjord that was recognized as one of the wonders of the world when it was added to the 2004 World Heritage List by the United Nations, which cited its natural history, geology, and beauty.

Although millions of people across the world still aren’t convinced global warming exists or that it’s as big a problem as scientists claim, symptoms of the planet’s warming pop up everywhere in Greenland.

The summer fishing season is longer. Crops are being grown in areas never thought possible. Tourism is booming.

Interest in oil exploration and mining has hit a feverish pitch, with several ‘interesting’ projects under way, including the possibility of aluminum smelters being built there to take advantage of the island’s hydropower potential, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

A recent editorial in the Copenhagen Post said Greenland is ‘believed to be sitting on a mind boggling 10,000 billion kroner [nearly $2 trillion] worth of offshore oil reserves.’
Even the island’s first-ever craft brewery, Greenland Beer, is a product of global warming. The company markets the water it uses as purer than what is found in other parts of the world because it comes from melted inland ice formed thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution.

But Greenland’s long-term problems from global warming will likely overshadow such short-term gains.

A lack of sea ice has made winter passage between settlements more difficult, if not impossible. That’s a huge problem because there are no roads between villages. Greenland is one of the only places on Earth that relies on sled dogs as a primary mode of transportation.

Fishing is Greenland’s No. 1 industry. Mild winters, especially in Uummannaq on Greenland’s west coast, have made it treacherous for residents to fish or hunt on what little ice there’s been.

Greenland is the world’s top producer of halibut and cold-water prawns, or shrimp. Halibut in particular have become more elusive, plunging to greater depths as the ocean temperature has warmed. Other species are moving in, but those gains are offset by the movement of whales toward the coast.

Whales have become so common near Ilulissat that two of the village’s three tour operators began offering whale-watch excursions in 2007. Fishermen fear whales will act like vacuum cleaners, sucking down fish they want to catch.

Two leaders of the Ilulissat fishing community, Peter Olsen and Johanne Mathaussen, said the downward movement of halibut makes those fish more difficult and costly to catch. Full-sized halibut that used to be available at depths of about 1,000 feet now swim at depths of about 2,600 feet.

Another commercial fisherman, Gedion Lange, said long-line fishing he does with as many as 300 hooks at a time isn’t as productive as it was in the 1990s.

Ove Rosbach, who has fished the Arctic for decades, blamed the decline on warmer ocean currents flowing to the north. He said a similar phenomenon occurred in the 1950s.

Halibut returned when the ocean current cooled in the 1970s, but Mr. Rosbach said things feel different now. ‘[Even] when the sun is not shining, it’s still very warm,’ he said. ‘The sun is warmer than normal now.’

Niels Kristensen, an Ilulissat municipal official, said many fishermen can no longer catch what their quota allows. ‘It’s much more difficult because of the climate,’ he said.

Warming, cooling cycles
Greenland and its ice sheets are immense. The island spans 1,660 miles from north to south, longer than the distance from Maine to Cuba. From west to east, Greenland is 652 miles, just shy of the distance between Chicago and New York.

It is a fickle place. A Danish territory of 56,000 people, it has gone through extreme warming and cooling periods before.

Literature produced for visitors claims various cultures of Inuits have lived on Greenland for more than 4,500 years, although it also notes extensive periods in which the island had no inhabitants – usually when climatic conditions were so extremely cold there was little, if any, wildlife to hunt.

Legend has it the island got its name from a murderous Viking called Erik the Red, after he was ousted from Iceland about 950 A.D.

He reportedly put together a group of men to sail with him, with the lure of an island of lush greenery. That was more than 1,000 years ago, during the Medieval Warming Period – a climatic era that preceded the Little Ice Age and the island’s modern ice sheet.

That ice sheet today is a hotbed for research as scientists from across the world study how the island is melting, sometimes with lakes appearing out of nowhere and the melt water vanishing suddenly through deep crevices known as moulins.

Greenland may be a harbinger of things to come, although it is second to Antarctica terms of ice.

Seventy-seven percent of the planet’s fresh water is locked up in the ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica, with about 70 percent of that in Antarctica. Ninety-eight percent of Antarctica is still covered by ice compared to Greenland’s 80 percent.

Antarctica, the coldest and windiest place on Earth, is seven times the size of Greenland. It is less prone to melt. Portions of that continent’s ice sheet are actually thickening, a reminder of how much more rugged the South Pole is than the North Pole. Antarctica has 250 days a year that are 50 degrees below zero or colder.

Far-reaching effects
While politicians remain in a quandary over what to do about global warming, change is coming that will affect life everywhere from the Himalayan mountain range in Asia to the Great Lakes region of North America.

Peru’s political instability is further threatened by changes in water flow as glaciers retreat in the central Andes mountains, resulting in less water for agriculture and hydroelectric power.

Southern Africa is expected to lose 30 percent of its staple food, corn, by 2030. As London-based journalist Gwynne Dyer noted in a column earlier this year: ‘No part of the developing world can lose one-third of its main food crop without descending into desperate poverty and violence.’

And even if the most conservative estimate for sea level rise materializes – 1 meter, or about 3.3 feet of water by 2100 – low-lying regions of the South Pacific and South Asia will be flooded. The result could be a mass exodus of people from one of the poorest and most populated regions of the world.

America’s Gulf Coast, the southern tip of Florida, and parts of the Atlantic seaboard would be submerged as well.

The prospect of mass flooding by the end of this century, though, has taken a back seat to more immediate changes in the Arctic Circle’s northwest passage, especially with gasoline being sold in the United States between $3 and $4 a gallon.

Russia – second only to the Middle East in oil reserves – last year staked claim to the North Pole, where speculation about huge petroleum reserves runs rampant.

Once impassable to ships, the northwest passage has become a tug-of-war involving Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Greenland, and Iceland.

‘The potential is there for an outbreak of tensions we have not seen since the Cold War days,’ said Rob Huebert, associate director of the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.

The Arctic’s warming climate has opened up the passageway to more than just oil tankers and cargo ships.

Oliver Pitras, 48, of Norway, said he has seen sailboat traffic on the rise. He sailed through the northwest passage in 1999 and is spending five months crossing it now at the helm of a yearlong sailing expedition he began taking around the world May 17 to raise global awareness of climate change. Details of his trip are at 69nord.com. ‘We’re talking about the opening of a common route,’ he said. ‘But it’s still a delicate situation.’

Last year, several congressmen were stunned to learn that summer sea ice could be gone from the Arctic by 2015 – well ahead of the earlier projection of 2050, said Daniel Schrag, director of Harvard University’s Center for the Environment.

Human activity
Changes to the Earth’s climate are nothing new. Scientists believe natural climate variations occur every 100,000 years based on how the planet spins, tilts, and orbits around the sun.

The sun itself changes. NASA believes that volcanic eruptions on Earth, coupled with natural changes to the sun, explain warming and cooling from 1000 through 1850.

But the space agency also believes that Earth has been on a one-way warming trend triggered by human activity since the Industrial Revolution began about 1850.

Heat-trapping carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, is on a course to exceed 500 parts per million in the atmosphere later this century, something the human race has never experienced, Mr. Schrag said.

An abundance of greenhouse gases means higher temperatures on land and in the oceans. The gases rise in the atmosphere and trap the sun’s energy, keeping heat from escaping back into space.

A climate variation of 3 to 5 degrees ‘is a really big deal,’ considering that much of the Earth was covered in ice 18,000 years ago when the planet was only an average of 5 degrees cooler, Mr. Schrag said.

‘We are performing an experiment at a planetary scale that hasn’t been done for millions of years. No one knows exactly what will happen,’ he said.

‘Unequivocal’ warming
The scientific consensus about climate change is based primarily around evidence of increasing air and ocean temperatures, accelerated melting of snow and ice at the polar ice caps, and rising ocean levels.

Records on global surface temperatures only go back to 1850. But the world’s most prestigious body of climatologists – the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – noted in its landmark 2007 series of climate reports that the Earth’s average temperatures for 11 of the 12 years from 1995 to 2006 were at or near record-high levels.

Those reports concluded there has been ‘unequivocal’ warming of the planet and claimed with a certainty of greater than 90 percent that human activity was largely responsible. The data those reports used came, in part, from satellite images showing an accelerated loss of northern polar sea ice since 1978 and a rise in average sea levels since 1961 – accelerating after 1993.

About 600 scientists from 40 U.N. countries and the World Meteorological Organization were involved in producing those reports. Scientists directly involved with the panel’s work shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore. Since losing the 2000 presidential race, Mr. Gore has given countless lectures across the country about global warming. He authored the book, An Inconvenient Truth, and won an Academy Award for the documentary based on it.

The greatest single source of human-generated carbon dioxide comes from coal-fired power
plants. Other major contributors include factories and automobiles.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings were preceded by a 2001 report by America’s most prestigious group of government scientists – the National Academy of Sciences – which stated explicitly that human activity has affected the Earth’s climate. Similar statements have been issued by a consortium of 13 federal agencies called the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.

‘A shared risk’
Ellen Mosley-Thompson of Ohio State University’s Byrd Polar Research Center said public officials and lobbyists have wasted valuable time disputing the science behind climate change.

She wonders how many naysayers would get into their automobiles without making some adjustments if they learned there was greater than a 90 percent chance they’d get in a wreck. ‘The difference is that [climate change] is a shared risk,’ she said.

People identify with symbols, but are they doing so at their own peril by dismissing climate change as some distant problem that just affects polar bears? Why aren’t connections being made?

The cost of dealing with climate change is one reason.

Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain agree the United States must get more aggressive about controlling carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants but aren’t sure whether a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade approach is best.

The Edison Electric Institute said it cannot quantify how much a carbon tax would drive up electric bills but said the cost would be ‘substantial.’ Under a cap-and-trade program, the government would place a limit on emissions and force utilities to barter for carbon credits with other utilities.

A matter of degree
Few Toledoans probably realize they live in the 41st Parallel North, meaning they are 41 degrees above the equator, or less than halfway to the North Pole. The effects of climate change are more acute near the relatively uninhabited poles, where average temperatures are rising twice as fast as they are near the equator.

Most Ilulissat residents know they’re in the 69th Parallel North, which is 69 degrees above the equator and nearly two-thirds of the way to the North Pole. One of Ilulissat’s soccer teams is named I-69, after the village’s latitude.

Ilulissat is Greenland’s third-largest village, with 4,500 people and just as many sled dogs. Each summer, it hosts dozens of researchers and hundreds of tourists. Many of the latter see Greenland’s famous Eqi glacier breaking off into seawater from the comfort of luxury cruise ships.

Influential U.S. lawmakers, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), have recently stayed in the village’s posh Hotel Arctic, as have celebrities such as pop singer Bjork and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. The hotel is in the midst of doubling in size.

Regardless where they stay, nearly everyone who visits Ilulissat seems to have a feeling of suspended reality when they open their hotel blinds each morning.

Almost without fail, the icebergs they saw the night before have been replaced by new ones.

How can such massive hunks of ice come and go so fast? After all, they were formed from thousands of years of compressed snow. And they look harder to budge than skyscrapers.

But it happens. The frequency that the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier calved icebergs over the past decade rose, throwing some of the world’s top Greenland experts for a loop.

One of them is Swiss-born Konrad ‘Koni’ Steffen of the University of Colorado. He has done field work in the Arctic since 1975 and on Greenland’s ice sheet at least once every year since 1990. His work is cited in major publications.

He is at the table of most major climate talks.

Conventional wisdom during the 1970s was that Greenland’s ice sheet would take thousands of years to melt.

‘Nobody would have predicted 10 to 15 years ago that Greenland would lose ice that fast,’ Mr. Steffen said. ‘That revises all of the textbooks.’

His take-home message: Forget the scientific modeling. Greenland is melting faster than anyone’s best guess.

‘How can you have an ice sheet so big and respond that quickly?’ he asked. ‘That is still part of the mystery, to be honest.’

Ohio State’s Jason Box is perhaps the most famous of Mr. Steffen’s former students, having done research in Greenland every summer except one since 1994.

Mr. Box has likewise gained attention from the national media for his work. He synthesizes data he and others generate into a ‘holistic’ view of Greenland’s thaw, using a number of tools, including time-lapse photography.

A costly problem
Americans may fret about paying more for electricity if the next Congress enacts a carbon tax or strict regulations on utilities to combat global warming. But Mr. Box said that cost will be a fraction of what adapting to climate change will cost, especially if nothing’s done to curb emissions now.

Billions of dollars will be needed to construct New Orleans-like levees along the nation’s coastline to guard against flooding, he said.

‘It’s going to get too expensive for the U.S. to mitigate,’ Mr. Box said. ‘It’s going to be kind of like taking on a global war against terrorism. It’s going to be too expensive. It’s going to sap the U.S. economy.’

Sea level rise is ‘going to cost people whether their properties are flooded or not,’ he said.

On average, Greenland’s ice sheet loses 300 billion tons of ice a year. That hasn’t been enough to raise global sea level a millimeter a year, though.

The Greenland ice sheet has been eroding almost annually for 50 years, except for a short period in the 1970s when temperatures were cool enough in summer to keep it ‘in balance’ by rejuvenating itself enough in winter.

But the greatest ice losses on record are recent – in 2003, 2005, and 2007, Mr. Box said.

Losing ground
In Alaska, coastal villages are eroding. Long stretches of highway are impassable for months at a time because they were built on permafrost that is melting.

One of the most impacted villages, Newtok (population 400), was told in June that it will get $3.3 million in state aid to help relocate displaced residents to higher ground.

Alaska is putting aside nearly $13 million to protect six remote villages in the coming year. That could only be the beginning of a massive tab for taxpayers. According to the Government Accountability Office, erosion and flooding affect 184 of Alaska’s 213 native villages to some degree.

In Greenland, Ilulissat’s soccer field is slumping because of permafrost melt. Tourists hiking marked trails to see the village’s famous glacier feel the spongy soil.

During the Republican National Convention, TV crews aired sound bytes from delegates who said they’ll leave the Earth’s climate in God’s hands.

‘It’s actually not a faith issue but whether or not you believe in the science. In its purest form [climate change] is objective science,’ Mr. Box said. ‘The ice in the Arctic is the canary in the coal mine. To put it bluntly, the canary is dead.’

The hunt for a location for an aluminium smelter in Greenland continues. The environmental assessment which you can read in the link provided at the bottom of the article below, found on this site shows the devastation which will happen in these areas which will be so called “minimised” by Alcoa. Here is the article:

“A strategic environmental assessment report of energy intensive industry in Greenland has been made public today. With the publication, the Home Rule Government commences a hearing period, which lasts till January 15th next year. The report pinpoints the potential environmental consequences by establishing an aluminum facility in Greenland.

The involved area stretches from north of Sisimiut to south of Nuuk. Preliminary investigations have been carried out since December of 2006.

In connection with the public hearing it is the plan to carry through a number of civic meetings in the involved communities, which are Sisimiut, Maniitsoq and Nuuk, in week 2 and 3 of 2008.

At the spring Parliament meeting this year ‘Review of energy intensive industry in Greenland’ about the potential establishment of an aluminum facility, was received well by the Parliament.

One of the recommendations of the review was that prior to a final decision of an implementation of the project as well as a siting of the aluminum smelter facility, a strategic environmental assessment should be carried out. It is the work of this strategic environmental assessment which is now being sent to public hearing.

The strategic environmental assessment report may be requisitioned from Direktoratet for Milj� og Natur (Department for Environment and Nature) or be downloaded from the internet address www.aluminium.gl/smv