Thank God I live in Iceland

I just got back from watching the film "The Age of Stupid"* at Smaralind Mall. What a surreal experience that was. The film is fantastically well done, the special effects at the beginning just cheesy enough that a person sits back smuggly and says, "Ha, I'm not impressed." And then it picks up momentum, introduces the stories of five people, every single one of them affecting and affected by global climate change, every one of them trying their best to live their lives, only one of them directly involved with and confronting ways to reduce their carbon consumption. Spliced in between is the man living in 2055, working on putting together this footage, but more importantly, and more effectively I thought, were short animated bits explaining things like where plastic toys come from and how much energy each continent consumes in comparison with every other planet. There were also short historical clips, one about how every couple of hundred years one groups tries to steal things from another group (the Vikings got an honorable mention there), before segwaying back to the two young refugees from the Iraq war. It was emotionally pitch perfect, I thought.

Walking out of there, a friend I ran into asked if I wanted to go for drinks, and I just looked at him, mumbled something about needing to get home to Skype Palmer. But the fact was I was just about to be nauseous. Looking around the mall, at all the consumer products there, manufactured god knows where, shipped from god knows where, screaming, buy more, buy more, it all made me sick. Got in my car, started the engine. Felt like I was pumping the carbon monoxide directly into my son's bedroom. When I got on the road, the sinking feeling in my stomach was getting worse, as I looked at all the lights, thought about all the electricity they were using.

And then I remembered that I was in Iceland, and that the electricity I saw was from a non-carbon burning source. That was the one little ray of hope I held onto, as I replayed every flight I have taken the last 5 years, the consumptions habits I am teaching my son already, etc.

I hope somebody figures out pretty soon how to get Iceland off of the petroleum bandwagon all together. That stuff is gross.

*And yes, I did drive back and forth alone in my car, 40 minutes both ways.

Comments

Harpa Jónsdóttir said…
Electric, methane and the alcohol (I don´t remember the name) cars. Now. I'm convinces that it's a plot to keep the price of them so high. And I'm not kidding. No I'm not.
September 23, 2009 at 9:35 AM
Lissy said…
Oh, I totally agree. I have never, ever believed it could possibly be THAT expensive to start having methane at gas stations, or whatever. Nothing but bold faced lying.
September 23, 2009 at 11:22 AM
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