Before leaving for this trip I read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. I was pleasantly surprised to find a chapter on Iceland, which is the first country I visited. Diamond begins by declaring that, “Iceland is ecologically the most heavily damaged country in Europe. Since human settlement began, most of the country's original trees and vegetation have been destroyed, and about half of the original soils have eroded into the ocean.” At the Icelandic National Museum in Reykjavik they have an animation showing a simulated satellite image of the island before humans arrived, when forests covered a good portion of the land, and after when trees were a rarity. However, it is important to note that this is largely not due to human activity. The Hekla volcano erupted in 1104 which smothered much of the vegetation and killed most of the trees.
Today, driving through the Icelandic landscape is very surreal because of the lack of trees. Most of the land is rocky or covered in grass, lichen and the occasional very spindly weatherbeaten small shrub. Only in a few rare wind blocked hill sides do clusters of trees survive, and even those trees are pretty scrawny. Outside of the capital city of Rejkavik,where more than 60% of the population lives, towns are basically defined by anyplace with a gas station and a food market or restaurant. Besides that its mostly barren except for some sheep farms. Most of these farms are gorgeous, nestled next to cliffs leading up to glacier covered mountains, and often overlooking the ocean or a major river. The sheep seem to live a pretty good life staying fit grazing on the steep hills and sleeping in the earth bermed barns.
Since there are no trees, Icelandic architecture is quite interesting since wood is such a rare and highly valued commodity. The early settlers of Iceland built homes primarily of stone and sod. What little wood they had was used for basic structure, doors, and window sills. With such thick earthen walls, the homes were very well insulated. There are very few windows, but I guess in a part of the world where half the year it never gets dark, and half the year it basically never gets light feeling connected to the outside world isn't that important. For the most part, modern Icelandic buildings are really bland and boring. Corrugated metal is a favorite construction material because it is cheaper to import than wood. Houses are fairly small by American standards, and although they're generally not hideous, they're very plain and unadorned. Just paying for the raw materials to put a roof over their head is all that most Icelanders can afford since the island has so few natural resources. Many modern farms use corrugated metal in conjunction with traditional sod building techniques to build barns and shelters for the livestock.
There are three primary environmental issues that frequent the Icelandic media and sometimes make it into international news. The first is whaling. My friend from RPI, Eric, who I was traveling with insisted on trying a minke whale steak, because you can't order that back home. According to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), there are about 179,000 Minke Whales living in the central and North East Atlantic. Iceland has an interesting history with the IWC, leaving in 1992, but then rejoining in 2002. When "scientific" killing of whales resumed in 2003, three quarters of the Icelandic population approved. About 40% of Iceland's economy is driven by the fishing industry, which makes this country extremely vulnerable to global fishery collapses that are increasingly reported on by the media.
The second issue is the huge hopped up 4x4s that many Icelanders love to take into the otherwise inaccessible center of the island. These “Jeeps” as they're called regardless of brand would put most souped up American trucks to shame with enormous tires, beefed up suspension and winches out the wazoo. People sink a lot of money into their trucks, and with gas over $8 a gallon now, many of them can't afford to take the expeditions they built their vehicles for. There is also the issue of land damage caused by these beastly vehicles. Whether they are lost in the icy middle of nowhere, or just disrespecting the rules, drivers often end up where 4x4s are not allowed. With such a slow moving and fragile environment, tire tracks remain scars on the landscape for decades before erosion and plant life fill them in. Along the side of dirt roads, and even hiking where there is no trail I found tire tracks that may have been years old.
The last and perhaps biggest environmental debate in Iceland is over hydro power. Seventy percent of Iceland's power comes from renewable energy, more than any other nation. They are aiming to use entirely renewable energy by 2050, and have lofty goals of building a hydrogen economy and transportation network. Eighty percent of this renewable energy comes from large scale hydro electric plants, and the rest is from geothermal power. It's important to note that geothermal is largely used for district heating (they even heat some of the streets so they don't have to plow), so that energy isn't accounted for in the electricity percentages. However, residents of Iceland on average still have a higher carbon footprint than residents of France, largely due to transportation fuel usage. In recent years Icelandic environmentalists have protested the construction of these large scale hydro plants because they flood large areas of untouched wilderness, and disrupt the river ecosystem which is in turn tied to the ecosystem of the entire island. On the other side of the fence are the people who welcome the new jobs, mostly from multinational aluminum smelting corporations, like Alcoa, who want the cheap electricity for their energy intensive smelters.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Reactions about my trip
When I told people about my trip, I got essentially one of two answers from everyone. The first was, “wow you're so lucky, I wish I could do that.” About half of these people said they couldn't do it because of lack of money, the other half said they didn't have enough vacation time from their jobs. Personally I don't think either of these are very good excuses not to travel. With student deals, couch surfing, and some ingenuity you can travel almost anywhere you want on the earnings from even a summer job at McDonalds. With one years salary you could easily travel in many beautiful parts of the world for several years. Lack of time is a poor excuse too; just when in life do they expect to just have time free? You have to make time free.
The second group of people said “wow, you're going to have the best time of your life.” I hope that's not true because then the rest of my life would be downhill from here. Of course I'll have a good time, and I intend to continue doing enriching things, including traveling.
I only got two really unique responses, and both were from friends involved in environmental activism at RPI. When I told my friend David Jendras about my trip, his first response was, “ How can you justify all those carbon emissions. Are you buying offsets?” I was very happy to hear this from someone, because it's something I had been thinking a lot about. I often do feel very guilty about the enormous environmental impact this trip is having. According to an online eco-footprint calculator, my lifestyle would require about 1.4 planets without this trip, or 5 planets including all the airfare. However, I think lack of travel is something that keeps people ignorant or underwhelmed by both distant and global environmental crisis. To answer David's question, no I'm not buying offsets. Overall I don't think offsets are necessarily a bad thing when done transparently and properly. However, I think direct, thoughtful personal actions are far more important, and people tend to ignore these potential actions when they could just write a check to Terra Pass instead. Personally I'd rather save my money and eventfully buy a micro wind turbine or PV panels for my roof because I strongly believe that decentralized renewable energy is far better than grid scale projects that offsets might finance. Instead of paying someone to plant trees for me, I'd rather do it myself. So yes, I am very conscious of the impact this trip is having and no I am not buying offsets.
The second surprising response came from Sarah Parks, an STS grad student. She thought I was smart to take a trip like this “while you still can.” Unlike the first group of people who meant “while you aren't yet tied to traditional office jobs and careers”, Sarah meant “while the price of fossil fuels is still low enough.” In her opinion, and I agree with her, trips like this will not be possible in the future, especially not at this speed. I'm glad I bought tickets when I did, because gas prices, and consequently air line tickets, have been rocketing up ever since. We're now at about $140 a barrel, and the airline industry is squirming. Newspapers are full of articles about how some airlines are starting to charge extra for baggage by the pound and charging even for water on flights to reduce airplane weight and cut costs. I'm glad I decided to bring just one carry-on backpack and a water bottle! A few airlines have been researching the use of biofuels to replace fossil fuel jet fuel. However, the trials so far have been fairly wimpy, and we're still a long way off from biofueled international jet travel, let alone a better alternative. Virgin Airlines recently made headlines for running 1 of the 4 engines of a Boeing 747 on 20% biofuel. Whoop dee doo. Right now the airline industry is enthralled with planes like the new Dreamliner that are ~20% lighter to conserve fuel, but they are doing almost nothing to radically change their fossil fueled enterprises. Frankly I think it's scary that so few people are thinking the way Sarah is about this trip. The information is out there, and these issues are finally becoming mainstream and frequent in the media but people refuse to take serious steps to even consider a future beyond fossil fuel dependency, let alone take serious actions for their future and the future of their communities. It's one thing to not understand the problem and not do anything, but it's terrifying when people educate themselves about real problems that affect them and still do nothing.
The second group of people said “wow, you're going to have the best time of your life.” I hope that's not true because then the rest of my life would be downhill from here. Of course I'll have a good time, and I intend to continue doing enriching things, including traveling.
I only got two really unique responses, and both were from friends involved in environmental activism at RPI. When I told my friend David Jendras about my trip, his first response was, “ How can you justify all those carbon emissions. Are you buying offsets?” I was very happy to hear this from someone, because it's something I had been thinking a lot about. I often do feel very guilty about the enormous environmental impact this trip is having. According to an online eco-footprint calculator, my lifestyle would require about 1.4 planets without this trip, or 5 planets including all the airfare. However, I think lack of travel is something that keeps people ignorant or underwhelmed by both distant and global environmental crisis. To answer David's question, no I'm not buying offsets. Overall I don't think offsets are necessarily a bad thing when done transparently and properly. However, I think direct, thoughtful personal actions are far more important, and people tend to ignore these potential actions when they could just write a check to Terra Pass instead. Personally I'd rather save my money and eventfully buy a micro wind turbine or PV panels for my roof because I strongly believe that decentralized renewable energy is far better than grid scale projects that offsets might finance. Instead of paying someone to plant trees for me, I'd rather do it myself. So yes, I am very conscious of the impact this trip is having and no I am not buying offsets.
The second surprising response came from Sarah Parks, an STS grad student. She thought I was smart to take a trip like this “while you still can.” Unlike the first group of people who meant “while you aren't yet tied to traditional office jobs and careers”, Sarah meant “while the price of fossil fuels is still low enough.” In her opinion, and I agree with her, trips like this will not be possible in the future, especially not at this speed. I'm glad I bought tickets when I did, because gas prices, and consequently air line tickets, have been rocketing up ever since. We're now at about $140 a barrel, and the airline industry is squirming. Newspapers are full of articles about how some airlines are starting to charge extra for baggage by the pound and charging even for water on flights to reduce airplane weight and cut costs. I'm glad I decided to bring just one carry-on backpack and a water bottle! A few airlines have been researching the use of biofuels to replace fossil fuel jet fuel. However, the trials so far have been fairly wimpy, and we're still a long way off from biofueled international jet travel, let alone a better alternative. Virgin Airlines recently made headlines for running 1 of the 4 engines of a Boeing 747 on 20% biofuel. Whoop dee doo. Right now the airline industry is enthralled with planes like the new Dreamliner that are ~20% lighter to conserve fuel, but they are doing almost nothing to radically change their fossil fueled enterprises. Frankly I think it's scary that so few people are thinking the way Sarah is about this trip. The information is out there, and these issues are finally becoming mainstream and frequent in the media but people refuse to take serious steps to even consider a future beyond fossil fuel dependency, let alone take serious actions for their future and the future of their communities. It's one thing to not understand the problem and not do anything, but it's terrifying when people educate themselves about real problems that affect them and still do nothing.
The plan
Last summer and fall semester I was on co-op working for GE. I got lots of work experience, made some money and had a nice break from RPI. But it was boring. So I’m not doing that again this summer.
Here's the basic itinerary:
June 1st: New York JFK International to Reykjavik, Iceland
June 8th: Reykjavik, Iceland to Amsterdam, Netherlands
I'll be traveling all over Europe with a EuRail pass for Benelux, Germany, Denmark and Sweden
July 22nd: London, England to Hong Kong, China
August 11th: Beijing, China to Delhi, India
August 21st: Delhi, India to New York JFK International
Some of the time I'll be staying in youth hostels. But to save money, and better experience local culture, I'll be using www.couchsurfing.com a whole lot, as well as staying with some friends who live or are traveling overseas. Couch surfing is an amazing web community of ~450,000 people around the world. The premise is that strangers offer their couch, floor or guest bedroom for people to stay on for free. It's an amazing way to meet, interact with, and learn from people from around the world.
The most important part of my plan was to not have much of a plan. Rather than checking off all the tourist spots, I'd rather explore and see what piques my interest.
Here's the basic itinerary:
June 1st: New York JFK International to Reykjavik, Iceland
June 8th: Reykjavik, Iceland to Amsterdam, Netherlands
I'll be traveling all over Europe with a EuRail pass for Benelux, Germany, Denmark and Sweden
July 22nd: London, England to Hong Kong, China
August 11th: Beijing, China to Delhi, India
August 21st: Delhi, India to New York JFK International
Some of the time I'll be staying in youth hostels. But to save money, and better experience local culture, I'll be using www.couchsurfing.com a whole lot, as well as staying with some friends who live or are traveling overseas. Couch surfing is an amazing web community of ~450,000 people around the world. The premise is that strangers offer their couch, floor or guest bedroom for people to stay on for free. It's an amazing way to meet, interact with, and learn from people from around the world.
As an only child growing up, I could easily spend 8 hours straight building with Legos. One of my favorite things to build was either boats or space ships that were big enough for Lego people to live on, and contained everything I thought they needed to be largely self sustaining. Perhaps inspired by movies like Waterworld, I'd build catamarans and pack them with gardens, water purifiers and sometimes things that didn't quite make sense, like a detachable helicopter to hunt seagulls. I think thats why for this trip I had so much fun packing, and deciding the minimum amount of stuff I could get away with taking. In order to limit myself, I first bought a backpack that fits within the FAA maximum carry-on size limit. I only have room to pack about 3-4 days worth of clothes. The strategy is that you can either change your outfit everyday, or you can change your location, and no one will realize that you're wearing the same clothes over and over. I think this summer will be something of an exercise in simple living. It's just me and my bag, not me and a car, and an apartment full of stuff.
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