Ég á bíl – og það þótt ég búi í miðborg Reykjavíkur. Nota hann nánast eingöngu til að komast út fyrir borgina af og til. En hann er farinn að eldast svolítið: Var skrúfaður saman í Japan árið 2005. Ef marka má málflutning bílainnflytjenda ætti ég löngu að vera búinn að setja hann í brotajárn. Ætti ég ekki að drífa í að fá mér rafbíl?

Nýlega var birt mjög áhugaverð skýrsla sem Orka náttúrunnar lét gera um kolefnisspor rafbíla annars vegar og hefðbundinna bensín- eða dísilknúinna bíla hins vegar. Þarna er litið á allan lífsferilinn – framleiðslu ökutækisins og notkun þess. Í ljós kemur að framleiðsla rafbíls hefur talsvert stærra kolefnisfótspor en framleiðsla bensínbíls. Þar munar mestu um rafhlöðurnar. Losun vegna viðhalds er hins vegar nokkru minni. Eins og gefur að skilja er munurinn mestur þegar kemur að orkunotkun við sjálfan aksturinn. Ólíkt því sem gerist víðast hvar annars staðar er raforka á Íslandi framleidd með mjög lítilli beinni losun koldíoxíðs (þótt vissulega sé hún nokkur, frá jarðvarmavirkjunum). Niðurstaða skýrsluhöfunda er að strax að loknu rúmu ári í notkun sé rafbíllinn farinn að skila minni heildarlosun en bensínbíllinn.

En fyrir íbúa í miðborginni er ekki endilega auðvelt að skipta. Það er hleðsluaðstaðan sem strandar á. Mikið er um fjölbýli, eins og reyndar víða í borginni. Nokkrir nágrannar mínir, sem búa í einbýli, hafa að vísu verið að búa til einkabílastæði á lóðum sínum. Þá er hægt að koma fyrir hleðslustöð (þótt sumir noti stæðin bara fyrir stóru díselpikkapana sína!). En þetta hvorki get ég né vil. Það er alls ekki góð þróun í borgarumhverfinu að klípa af litlum grænum blettum á milli þéttstæðra húsa og gera að bílastæðum. Hér þarf nýjar og skapandi lausnir.

Það er fleira sem skapar örlítið hik í huga mínum. Í skýrslunni góðu er ekkert fjallað um förgun á rafhlöðum. Tekið er fram að erfitt sé að meta þetta. Svo tími ég bara ekki að afskrifa gamla bílinn. Mig verkjar hreinlega í höfuðið í hvert sinn sem ég neyðist til að henda einhverju. Neyslusamfélag okkar tíma gengur út á að kaupa og henda. Bílainnflytjendur vilja að sjálfsögðu kynda undir þetta. Sumir reyna meira að segja að plata fólk með því að láta sem fullkomlega bensínknúnir bílar (tvinnbílar sem ekki er unnt að hlaða) séu „50% rafdrifnir“! Kjaftæði og skrum, svo það sé nú sagt hreint út.

Hugarfari neyslusamfélagsins þarf umfram allt að breyta. Ætli ég láti ekki gamla bílinn bara duga í einhver ár í viðbót. Hann er nú þrátt fyrir allt með rafknúnum rúðuvindum.

When I moved to Reykjavík in my youth, just before 1980, the city centre looked a bit tattered, to put it politely. The unpaved Hallærisplan (Lousy Square, freely translated) was the centre of the youth culture that had by then developed in Reykjavík. Across from this space of our liminal existence, the boxy and stern-looking Morgunblaðshöllin (Aðalstræti 6) defined the limits between earthen and heavenly existence. At it side was the dishevelled, red-fronted, wondrous maze of a building called Fjalakötturinn, boasting of Europe‘s oldest then-existing cinema. Behind it all the Grjótaþorp, looking like a slum beyond redemption. And I vividly remember that strange bridge or vehicular ramp which provided access to the car park on top of Tollhúsið (Customs Building).

Being a country bumpkin, I found this urban mélange rather strange, but did not really understand what had happened here until I started studying geography. This included reading up on the history of the city and its planning. The story goes as follows: Over this small-scale and organic built environment, dating from the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, a heavy and crude ideological hand had come down with a vengeance. Modernist ideas in architecture and planning, that took shape in continental Europe and North America in the twentieth century, had found their expression in Reykjavík. The city should be sculpted according to the needs of the private car, and the aesthetic premises of functionalism. The clearest expression of this ideology, the Reykjavík Municipal Plan from 1966, is surely a remarkable document in its own brutal way.

However, only a decade later the ideological hegemony of modernism had been somewhat eroded. The fight for the old houses in Bernhöftstorfa, at the lower end of Bankastræti marked the turning point. And when I first perambulated the city centre it was not particulary coherent, to put it politely. Especially ugly and incoherent was the area stretching from Lækjartorg down to the waterfront.

Finally now in 2018 the gaps of the city centre are being filled in, which was long overdue. I quite like the general concept: a dense urban fabric, with shops on the ground floor and flats above. Massive construction has been taking place in recent years. But, over the preceding months, the new buildings north of Lækjartorg have been emerging from under the scaffoldings. And I am, well, not really thrilled by what I see. These new buildings explicitly declare their contempt of history and the eccentricities of the existing built environment in the city centre. Their aesthetic references are squarely towards global capitalism, devoid of any hints to the place where they are located. The flats are priced beyond the reach of all but the richest segment of society. And it is fitting perhaps that the first commercial tenant is H&M – a global retail chain that has not exactly been noted for its local sensitivities. What we seem to have ended up with in the centre of Reykjavík is a Lousy Square of capitalism.

It is spring at last. Leaves are appearing on the trees of Reykjavík, and the winter slush has disappeared from the streets. But as often before, the asphalt is a rather sorry sight in many places. The potholes wait patiently for their victims.

And the voters wait for municipal elections. Traffic planning and infrastructure maintenance is yet again being pushed as a major issue in the elections. The oft-mentioned 'City Line', a collaborative project that all municipalities in the Capital Area are backing, is on the drawing board. Yet, some parties are trying to stir up some antagonism towards the project. It is even suggested – seriously it seems – that building up an effective public transport system is a vanity project and a waste of money. A better policy would be to do even more to support the use of private cars, with more multi-level intersections and simply better maintenance of the streets.

In general, I find this argument not very solid at all – except perhaps for the last bit: There is no doubt that in many places the state of our streets is quite miserable. Insufficient maintenance may be the cause to a significant extent, although the users themselves have to shoulder some of the blame: the extensive and often unnecessary use of studded tyres does not help. Part of the situation can in fact simply be attributed to the material used for surfacing the streets. Our basalt is simply a lousy rock to use for asphalting. So bad even that some rock is imported for those stretches that are most heavily trafficked.

This made me think of our magnificent next-door neighbour, Greenland. There is some serious rock in that country! This is mostly solid Precambrian rock, in other words well aged, and similar to the rocks generally found in Scandinavia. In fact these regions were joined before Iceland came up between them, with its volcanic brashness and hopeless basalt.

Greenlanders are now undertaking some big projects. Whole mountains are being blasted away to make room for airports. This is extremely difficult in a country where level ground is almost non-existent, and some people have questioned the economic feasibility of the new airports, but that is a different story. One of these megaprojects is in progress close to the town of Qaqortoq, the largest centre in the south of Greenland, where the old Norse colony of Eystribyggð was once. Would it not be possible to do some business here, for the benefit of both nations? How about Icelanders sending a ship over to Eystribyggð every spring to get some decent rock for our streets?

Animal welfare concerns have received increasing support of late, both in Iceland and elsewhere. In the current Icelandic animal welfare legislation, from 2013, the stated point of departure is that animals are „sentient beings“. Thereby, the awful idea that from the days of Descartes has been so influential in terms of how people think about animals – that they are no different from machines – is finally discarded. Machines can be taken apart at will, put together again, and tuned for maximum speed and effectiveness. Animals have for a long time been treated in exactly the same way: as cogs in a production machine, where the demand for ever more speed prevails.

Gradually, the sun is setting on those types of farming – or perhaps more accurately industrial production – where caged animals are the norm. The latest news from Norway is that fur farming will be banned from 2025. This is really good news. The keeping of animals in cages – foxes, minks, fowl and salmon for example – will perhaps soon be part of history.

As expected, some Icelandic interest holders have howled wretchedly upon hearing these news from Norway. But that fair country is only the last in a line of many where those beastly farming methods have been outlawed. Eight European countries have already banned all fur farming outright. In Denmark and the Netherlands, fox fur farming is banned. Sweden, Germany and Switzerland have put in place regulation so stringent that fur farming is in all likelihood on the way out.

In Iceland, some 44 thousand minks were kept in cages according to the latest figures from Statistics Iceland; much more than all the people of Kópavogur. They deserve something better, those non-human relatives of ours.

Almenningssamgöngur í borgum eru stórt atriði í hugum þeirra sem láta sig umhverfið varða. Undanfarið hefur verið talsvert fjallað í fjölmiðlum um áform sveitarfélaga á höfuðborgarsvæðinu um svokallaða borgarlínu, sem ætlað er að gerbreyta almenningssamgöngum á svæðinu öllu. Einkabílamiðað skipulag, líkt og það sem mótaði helstu drætti höfuðborgarsvæðisins á síðari hluta tuttugustu aldar, er litið hornauga nú á tuttugustu og fyrstu öldinni, vegna þeirrar sóunar sem það hefur í för með sér á mörgum sviðum. Borgarlínan gæti breytt miklu, verði hún að veruleika.

Vistspor einkabílsins er stórt. Smíði bíla krefst í fyrsta lagi mikilla og margvíslegra auðlinda, sem flestar eru óendurnýjanlegar. Í annan stað eru flestir bílar (enn) knúnir jarðefnaeldsneyti, sem veldur miklum útblæstri gróðurhúsalofttegunda. Á staðbundnum kvarða blasir við að gríðarmikið land er tekið undir götur og bílastæði í mörgum borgum, og ómældu fjármagni er varið til uppbyggingar æ tröllauknari samgöngumannvirkja.

Ofan á þetta bætast ýmis heilsutengd hliðaráhrif af ofnotkun einkabíla: Umferðarslys verða fjölda fólks að bana ár hvert og valda öðru örkumlum og ómældum þjáningum; hreyfingarleysi stuðlar að sjúkdómum. Loks blasir við hverjum sem það vill sjá að borgarumhverfi sem hannað er með tilliti til bíla er ekki beinlínis aðlaðandi til íveru. Átakanleg dæmi um þetta má sjá víða á Reykjavíkursvæðinu.

Maður kynni því að ætla að fagna beri áformunum um borgarlínu, hvort heldur sem línan sú mun taka form léttlestar, sporvagns eða hefðbundnari strætisvagna á sérstökum brautum. En einhverjir virðast hafa horn í síðu þessarar róttæku og umhverfisvænu hugmyndar. Um daginn sá ég í blaði haft eftir kunnum „athafnamanni“ að þetta væri nítjándu aldar hugmynd. Línan sú arna myndi í fyrsta lagi kosta skrilljónir. Tæknin væri aukinheldur gersamlega úrelt; ökumannslausir bílar væru handan við hornið og myndu leysa vandann innan tíðar. Slík einstaklingsfarartæki myndu sem sé koma í stað almenningssamgangna.

Ég bið hunda landsins fyrirfram afsökunar, en þetta er eiginlega ágætt dæmi um svokallaða hundalógík. Þróunin í bílasmíði er vissulega hröð og líklegt má telja að verulegur fjöldi sjálfkeyrandi bíla muni bruna um götur í náinni framtíð. En hvað þýðir þetta, séu almenningssamgöngur vanræktar – eins og raunin varð í Reykjavík og nágrannabyggðum þegar leið á síðustu öld? Að sjálfsögðu enn fleiri bíla á götunum. Sem aftur þýðir enn breiðari götur, enn umfangsmeiri mislæg gatnamót, enn fleiri bílastæði og svo framvegis. Sem kostar næstum því jafn margar skrilljónir. Frá sjónarhóli umhverfisins – hins náttúrlega jafnt og hins félagslega – er þetta ekki sérlega björt framtíðarsýn fyrir borgir. Bót í máli er samt að sennilega verða þessir ágætu bílar þó ekki knúnir jarðefnaeldsneyti: Orkuskipti í samgöngum eru þegar hafin.

Yfirvöld hinna ýmsu borga vítt og breitt um heiminn eru síður en svo hætt að byggja upp almenningssamgöngur með svipuðum hætti og hér er fyrirhugað. Í Kína er til að mynda verið að leggja jarðlestir í gríð og erg í ört stækkandi borgum landsins. Jafnvel í landi einkabílsins, Bandaríkjunum, finnast borgir þar sem yfirvöld hafa séð ljósið, til að mynda Portland í Oregonríki þar sem sporvagna- og léttlestakerfi hefur verið byggt upp af metnaði á undanförnum árum. Að halda því fram að slíkar samgöngur heyri sögunni til ber vott um að viðkomandi dansi að minnsta kosti á línunni milli veruleikans og vitleysunnar – hafi jafnvel þegar dottið af henni og lent vitleysumegin.

Greiðar almenningssamgöngur eru leið til að ná ýmsum markmiðum í senn. Auk þess sem þær stuðla að varðveislu auðlinda og vernd umhverfis eru flestir málsmetandi aðilar sammála um að þær séu lykilþáttur í að móta mannvænar og lífvænlegar borgir.

I realised the other day that I am really just a little plastic human figure, living in a plastic world. My little plastic country is surrounded by a sea of plastic. In short: my life – and that of everybody else too – is saturated by plastic.

Every year, some 3–400 million tons of plastics are produced. At least eight million of these end up every year in the sea. Once there, the sun's ultraviolet radiation and the energy of the waves work together at breaking up the plastic materials, right down to tiny particles that find their way into living beings and harm them. A recent estimate is that some 51 trillion of plastic micro-particles are swimming in the sea right now, or five hundred times the number of stars in the Milky Way. Of course these numbers are way to large to have any meaning for us ordinary (plastic) people.

Plastics were introduced in the industrial West around the mid-20th century and immediately became a symbol of the 'throwaway economy' of mass consumption. But nowadays, around 60% of all plastic that ends up in the ocean is thought to come from only five countries – all of which are Asian. These are China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Why is this the case?

There are several reasons for it. First, all these five countries are moving rapidly towards a similar pattern of consumption as we know from our own society in Western Europe. But treatment of waste is limited in many places. Only a fraction of waste is collected on a regular basis by municipalities and moved to appropriate locations. Or not so – where official agencies are weak, waste contractors are often tempted to simply dump the waste in places where nobody is looking, in order to save on transport costs.

On the other hand, a very lively market for recyclables exists in Asia and elsewhere. Collectors, usually from the poorest parts of society, collect whatever can be resold for recycling. These people really do important work. The buyers of the waste are important too. This writer recently visited the recycling company Wongpanit, the largest of its kind in Thailand. An army of people was at work in the facility, sorting all kinds of plastic paterials, right down to the drinking straws that accompany every plastic bottle sold in that wonderful country. The firm has succeeded in making waste of incredibly many kinds into a marketable product. But some things are simply not economical for those collecting and sorting waste. In Indonesia I watched a bare-footed collector with a large sack on his back pick up plastic bottles from the streets. The plastic bags he left behind: they are not worth much at the end of the collector's long day. A lot of plastic bags therefore end up in the ocean. And in fact a lot of the plastic bottles too.

In the five countries mentioned previously – and in all East and Southeast Asia in fact – the middle class is growing rapidly, and with it new consumption patterns. In Thailand for example, tremendous quantities of takeaway food are sold on the street, packaged in plastic of course. The persistent poverty by in parts of the population is however also in a way the source of the overwhelming amount of plastic. Limited buying power of the poor leads companies to sell their products in tiny and cheap quantities. In Indonesia this is very evident: tiny amounts of washing powder, sugar, coffee and other daily necessities are prominent in shops and markets, of course wrapped in plastic. Once the small sachet is emptied, it more often than not ends up at the mercy of winds and water. The trail inevitably leads down to the sea; this is the natural way of things.

Speaking of coffee: think for a moment about the strange development here in Iceland and other countries, where coffee makers that need single-use plastic containers. A very strange development this – in the wrong direction! According to figures from environmental NGO Landvernd, each Icelander uses about 40 kg of plastic packaging yeach year. The best thing would of course be to use much less. But at the very least the rich Iceland has no excuse not to prevent plastics from entering the ocean. Individuals, firms and public authorities need to join forces and stop swimming in the plastic sea. Iceland does not need to be Plasticland.

(First published 6 May 2017 at Umhverfisfréttir)