Björk Guðmundssdóttir united the active forces of nature conservation in Iceland, to challenge the Minister of Tourism, Össur Skarphéðinsson, for the Tourism Convention.

A challenge for the Minister of Tourism to make an effort in nature conservation

Nature conservation interwined with tourism is a powerful way to market Iceland as an interesting destination for travellers.
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A Review of Results : http://ec.europa.eu/research/quality-of-life/gmo/general-intro.html

CADIA, based in the University of Reykjavik, is the first artificial intelligence (A.I.) laboratory in Iceland. They conduct research in various areas of intelligent agents, with a strong emphasis on interaction and real-time performance. Their past and present projects include topics such as planning, games, large-scale A.I. systems, robots, humanoids and agent-based modeling. Saturday, the 15th of November, there is an Artificial Intelligence Party at the University, Ofanleiti 2, starting at 13.00, open to everyone, free entry.

http://cadia.ru.is/

The Irish Times, has a good article about the conference in Bruxelles the other day, and quotes Björk and Mary Robinson:

“The singer gave an emotional speech about the environmental damage caused in Iceland by aluminium smelters and warned that the financial crisis could prompt politicians to fast-track plans to build more smelters to try to address the rapid economic slowdown. “Usually I don’t notice politics. I live happily in the land of music-making. But I got caught up in it because politicians seem bent on ruining Iceland’s natural environment,” she said.

The abundance of thermal energy in Iceland has enabled it to become a global centre for the aluminium industry, attracting investments from Alcoa and Rio Tinto. The three biggest smelters in Europe are located in the country, which has a population of only 300,000.”

Here is the article in the Irish Times

An article by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, Member of the Club of Madrid
and Margot Wallström, Vice President of European Commission but they are part of Road to Copenhagen that organised a Brussel conference the other day, where Björk and Nattura.info were participants. In this article they explain the urgency of taking the Copenhagen meeting in 2009 seriously and prepare it well.

We have around 2850 days, or 97 months to save the planet. That is when we, according to “doomsday climate experts”, will go beyond the climate’s “tipping point”. A point where it is no longer likely that we will stay below the 2C temperature rise threshold. (more…)

The Náttúra Song by Björk is now out and available from here right now! And iTunes!.  All proceeds from the track will go towards the Nattura Campaig run from this site.

The single is now available and we have also setup donation page for the Náttúra Campaign.

The single was composed specifically to encourage active support for the Náttúra campaign, which aims at collating and providing sustainable and eco-friendly options suitable for Iceland, and generating alternative ways to utilize it’s natural resources. People will be able to submit their ideas on the website for sustainable green workplaces for Icelanders.
According to Björk, “It is now more important than ever before to emphasize a respect for nature…I believe that profits, technological advances and working together with nature can all go hand in hand. None need to be sacrificed at the expense of the others.”

The new single is written and produced by Björk and features Radiohead’s Thom Yorke on backing vocals, Brian Chippendale (Lighting Bolt) on drums, Matthew Herbert on synth/bass, and Mark Bell on additional electronic beats. Opening with a huge elemental swirl, “Náttúra” then fires up an incendiary and fierce tribal rhythm. The song sees Björk firmly on the march in celebration of her homeland, in hopes that Icelanders harness its energy in a sustainable way.

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After touring for 18 months I was excited to  return home 8 weeks ago to good, solid Iceland and enjoy a little bit of  stability. I had done a concert there earlier this year to raise awareness  about local environmental issues – especially alternatives to aluminium  smelters – and 10 per cent of the nation came to it; but I still felt it  wasn’t enough.

So when I got home I decided to contact people all over  the island who had attempted to start new companies and bring in new ways of  working, but had not succeeded. For a long time Iceland’s main income had been  fishing, but when that become uneconomic, people started looking for other  ways to earn a living. The conservatives in power thought that harnessing  Iceland’s natural energy and selling it to huge companies such as Alcoa and  Rio Tinto would solve the problem.

Now we have three aluminum smelters,  some of the biggest in Europe; and in the space of the next three years they  want to build two more. A lot of Icelanders are against this. They would  rather continue to develop smaller companies that they own themselves and keep  the money they earn. Many battles have been fought in Iceland on these  issues.

In one of these battles  the Minister for the Environment forced Alcoa to include the impacts of energy  exploiting in their Environmental Impact Assessment. The smelter would need  energy from a handful of new geothermal power plants and possibly also some  dams. This would damage pristine wilderness, hot springs and lava fields. To  take this much energy from the geothermal fields is not even sustainable.

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Nattura.info is a site for an open discussion of nature protection; of cultural, social and economical sustainability. It is a site of sharing of information about innovation projects and networks, of executive and financial ways for seed-stage companies and of new ways of defining our responsability.

If you please send your thoughts and conceptions to the website. Website’s address being natturainfo@gmail.com

The time of opaque and inaccessible archives is now passing off, but the hour of interconnected and open sources is coming up!