Random Etc. Notes to self. Work, play, and the rest.

Come The Apocalypse: Fortress Iceland?

In Imported, Uncategorized, Weblog on 20 January 2006 tagged , , , , with 4 comments

With it's vast geo-thermal energy surplus, Iceland is set to abandon any last dependencies on oil. This begs the question - what other dependencies does Iceland have?

Given an inevitable distopian Mad Max/Waterworld type future, then what things should Iceland be stock-piling now? Could they grow enough food? Should they be hoarding electrical components, battery acid, pipes for steam power, or are they doomed like the rest of us?

Come the apocalypse, nations/regions will play to their strengths - will places like Iceland become impenetrable fortresses of power, winning the energy wars by situation and living the 20th century's sustainable-unsustainable lifestyle against all the odds?

On the other hand, Phil Gyford sensed a "seductive illusion of self-sufficiency" about the Falklands in his recent trip. Would Fortress Iceland be like that? Is energy enough?


4 Comments

Nice blog. Come visist mine. I very much doubt I agree with you on most things, but I enjoyed reading your stuff.

Posted by DAV on 1 February 2006 @ 9pm

The thing is with Global warming how much of Iceland would be submerged?

Posted by DAV on 1 February 2006 @ 9pm

Food is certainly a potential problem. There’s a reason that Iceland’s “delicacies” (eaten around now, actually, in celebration of Thor’s birthday) include such treats as putrefied shark, boiled sheep head, and, more mundanely, puffin.Also, there’s this joke: “How did the (drunk) tourist find their way out of the Icelandic forest?” “They (put down the bottle of booze and) stood up.”As to the problem of global warming, I suspect a lot of the surface area of Iceland is well above 10m above sea level, so it’s not a significant problem.

Posted by Paul Mison on 2 February 2006 @ 9am

As far as food goes, when I visited I did notice quite a lot of heated greenhouses around. Hydroponic soup, anyone?

Posted by Tom Carden on 26 May 2006 @ 3pm

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Random Etc. is the weblog and anagram of Tom Carden, a British design technologist based in San Francisco. Tom is a Data Visualization Engineer at Square and was previously a co-founder of Bloom and a Designer/Developer at Stamen.

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