Saving Iceland

By Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, originally published in Morgunblaðið -

In his article, “Is There Enough Aluminium in the World?” Jakob Björnsson, former director of energy affairs points out that “by far the biggest part of alulminium usage in the world today is in the industrial countries, where 25% of the people of the world live.” He also mentions that when China and India will have gone through proper indutrialization, 62% of humanity will live in industrial countries and the other 38% are also on their way there; that they want to enjoy the indstrialized countries’ living standards, even dream of cars and beer cans. These are very important facts.

Two things make Jakob’s article very interesting. Firstly, he says that it is a realistic oppurtunity that all human beings on the planet can reach the “qualities of life” and lifestyle that Occidentals now live with. Secondly, he states that human equalitiy is possible inside the system we live in. Read More

By Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, orignally published in Morgunblaðið

“Do you know that your wheelchair is made out of aluminium?” said a police officer to one of those who stopped work in Helguvík this summer. Thereby he swamped all the arguments of the opposition to aluminium for good, didn’t he? Shortly after the publication of Jakob Björnsson’s (former director of energy affairs) article about the singer Björk Guðmundsdóttir and her usage of aluminium, the editors of Morgunblaðið got ready and wrote an editorial where it says that the opposers of aluminium are probably not self-consistent most of the time. Most of them use aluminium everyday and even Saving Iceland cooks in aluminium pots and uses aluminium polse to hold up their tents. “Hypocrisy” said Morgunblaðið.

This critique is far from being new. It has systematically been used against those who object to the further build-up of heavy industry here in Iceland, the destruction of Iceland’s nature for energy production, the destruction of ecosystems worldwide because of bauxite mining, and energy realization to a company that prides itself of its collaboration with the U.S. millitary. In addition to when aluminium opposers are all said to be wanting to move the Icelandic society back to the turf huts and build the country’s economy on picking mountain grass, this has been the main criticism.

No matter how many times it has been pointed out that at least 30% of all produced aluminium is used for the arms industry; no matter how many times it has been pointed out how much aluminium ends as a land-filling after having functions as single use drinking facilities; no matter that the context between low energy prices and the fact how easy it is for us to produce aluminium, use it once, throw it away and produce more – still we are being told that we are not self-consistent.

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Today we received a letter from Denmark:

This morning, big banners were hanged on a building in Copenhagen saying: ,,Aluminium Industry is destroying all major Icelandic rivers!” A big advertisment from Icelandair Airline Company, showing Icelandic rivers, was hanging on this same wall last week.

The construction of the planned new Century aluminium smelter in Helguvík and Alcoa’s smelter in Húsavík, will lead to damming of more glacial rivers and geothermal areas. Today it looks like dams will be built in Þjórsá River, Tungnaá, Skjálfandafljót and Jökulsá á Fjöllum; only for further heavy industry projects.

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By Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, originally published in Morgunblaðið – Árni Sigfússon, the major of Reykjanesbær, wrote an article in Morgunblaðið July 24th, where he highly underestimates the real effects of aluminium production; environmental and social as well as global. The timing of his writings is interesting because a day earlier Saving Iceland’s conference took place in the Reykjavík Academia, where Samarendra Das and Andri Snær Magnason talked about the global effects of the aluminium industry, bauxite mining and cultural genocides in the third world. The conference lead to quite a discussion about the issues in the media. Read More

,,Stop the destruction of Þjórsá for arms production!”

HAFNARFJORDUR, ICELAND – Activists from Saving Iceland have today begun stopping traffic to and from Rio Tinto-Alcan’s aluminium smelter in Straumsvík, Hafnarfjordur, by chaining themselves to the gates of the plant. Saving Iceland is protesting against Rio Tinto-Alcan’s plans to increase their aluminium production capacity on the island, the consequences of which would would be that significant parts of Iceland’s unique environment would have to be destroyed for energy generation. The activists are also protesting against the worlds largest aluminium producer’s involvement with the arms industry.
Rio Tinto-Alcan wants to increase its production in Straumsvík by 40 thousand tons per year without enlarging the smelter building itself. At the same time the company is planning to build a second aluminium smelter in the towns of Keilisnes or Þorlákshöfn (1).
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By Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, originally published in Morgunblaðið.

In a brochure named “Norðurál and the Community” [Norðurál is Century Aluminum], published by the company, one can e.g. read about the global process of aluminium production. Century Aluminium has its bauxite mines in Jamaica and now plans to open up one in West Congo, in cooperation with one of the world’s corrupt regimé.

It immediately catch one’s eyes that in Norðurál’s brochure, the word bauxite is not menitoned once and according to an explination picture, which is supposed to show the aluminium process from beginning to end, the production starts when alumina is unshipped in to a huge harbour silo.

How can it be? Is Norðurál such an environmentally friendly company that it does not even have to mine bauxite to be able to smelt aluminium? Does Norðurál have any different methods than other aluminium producers? No, this is what we call greenwashing!

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GRUNDARTANGI – A short while ago 20 activists from Saving Iceland blockaded the single supply road to Century Aluminum’s smelter on Hvalfjordur and Elkem – Icelandic Alloys steel factory. They have chained themselves to each other using arm tubes to form a human blockade as well as using tripod for the first time in Icelandic history. “We protest the environmental and human health hazards Century’s bauxite mining and refining activities in Jamaica, their plans for a new smelter and refinery in West Congo. Both Century’s and Elkem’s expansion plans will also mean destruction of unique geothermal areas in Iceland and produce large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions,” says Miriam Rose of Saving Iceland (1).

UPDATE: The blockade went on for three hours. Nobody was arrested. Read More

HELGUVIK (ICELAND) – Early this morning activists from over 10 countries occupied the construction site where California-based Century Aluminum are constructing a new aluminium smelter, and chained themselves to machinery. The protest by the campaign Saving Iceland is aimed at damage to geothermal areas in southwest Iceland and Century’s environmental and human rights abuses in Jamaica and Africa.

As well as Century, other aluminium corporations ALCOA and Rio Tinto-Alcan want to construct new smelters. This would require exploitation of all the geothermal areas in the country, as well as damming all major glacial rivers (1).

Impact assessment: ’pollution will just blow away’
The construction of Century’s Helguvík plant depends on the expansion of geothermal power plants east of Reykjavik (Hellisheiði) and on the Reykjanes peninsula southwest of Reykjavik (2). Construction of the smelter began in June, without a valid environmental impact assessment. There is also no guarantee of sufficient energy (435 MW) for the smelter (3).
The environmental impact assessment for the Helguvik smelter was produced by the construction engineers HRV, who have designed smelters for ALCOA and Century (4). Read More

By Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, originally published in Morgunblaðið

Last Sunday, an anonymous journalist from Morgunblaðið wrote about Saving Iceland under the title “Action Groups and Cells”. He talked about Saving Iceland’s upcoming action camp in Hellisheiði and brougth forward a list of actions that people could anticipate from those attending the camp this summer, i.e. “try to get the police into a fight, chain themselves to whatever is near to them, do minimum sabotage, disturb companies’ legal operations or public traffic”. According to him, this kind of behaviour has characterized Saving Iceland’s activities for the last years.

We at Saving Iceland, use direct action and civil disobedience in our actions against capitalism in the form of Iceland’s heavy industrialization – and we do not deny that. Although we do not chain ourselves to whatever is around us, but to machinery, machinery which is being used to destroy the nature. Thus we stop the destruction for some limited time. One does not lock lock on to a huge machine “just because” – one does it because of ideals and with a spirit of resistance. Read More

By Snorri Páll Jónsson Úlfhildarson, originally published in Morgunblaðið – Erna Indriðadóttir, Alcoa’s P.R. manager wrote an article in Morgunblaðið where she intended to answer Björk Guðmundsdóttir’s writings about Alcoa. Indriðadóttir’s answer is pathetic and a reason to write more articles than this one. But what stands out is her quibble about Alcoa’s weapon production and human right abuses. Indriðadóttir reckons that Guðmundsdóttir is talking about the fact that “aluminium is used in almost all vehicles under the sun, incl. fighting jets, space shuttles and missiles.” And the whitewash continues when she talks about Alcoa’s social responsability and its sustainability projects. 

Using the same words as Indriðadóttir, this has been said before. This same quibble has always been used when Alcoa has been accused of links with the war industry and weapon production. The company’s principals here in Iceland repeatedly try to make it look like Alcoa only produces aluminium and sells it, but does not have anything to say about the future life of is produce. This myth should have been destroyed long time ago.

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