David Gunnlaugsson
served as Iceland’s
prime minister
from 2013 to 2016.
He explained that
climate is always
changing --
some glaciers melt
while others grow,
and it has
been this way
for all of history.
“Our climate changes,
but humans adapt.
Instead of
scaremongering,
we should approach
this situation on a
scientific and
rational basis,”
Gunnlaugsson wrote
in the latest issue
of the Spectator.
Gunnlaugsson
insists that it is
“nonsense”
to suggest
that humans
need to
“sacrifice the
achievements of
modern civilization
if we are to save
the planet.”
“Take Iceland’s
melting glaciers.
Troubling as
a calving glacier
might seem,
such a
phenomenon
is by no means
out of the ordinary,”
he notes.
“In fact, this process
defines a glacier:
they (glaciers) move.
Glaciers shed ice
at their edges
as ice builds up
closer to the centre.
It is a spectacle
we have witnessed
in Iceland since the
first settlers arrived
in the ninth century.”
Even the widely
reported “death”
of the Ok glacier
was an exaggerated,
media-driven
spectacle,
Gunnlaugsson
contends,
since it was a
“relatively small
mountain-top
glacier that had
been receding
for decades.”
“In 1901,
it measured
38 sq km in size;
In 1978, it was just
three sq km.
So the glacier that
had its last rites read
in August (2019)
had, in fact, more
or less disappeared
half a century ago,”
he observes.
“When the glaciers
were expanding,
laying waste to
what had previously
been green
meadows
and farmlands,
the people who
lost their homes
would hardly
have been
grief-stricken by the
thought that one day
that trend might
be reversed,”
he proposes,
noting that
when Iceland
was first
discovered
it was
completely
covered
in forests.
All in all, people
have a remarkable
ability to adapt to
environmental
alteration,
he notes,
which should
keep us from
freaking out
over such
changes.
“We Icelanders
have witnessed
severe changes
to our natural
environment,”
he says.
“Iceland is a country
of remarkable natural
alteration, and we’ve
had to adapt to that fact.
We realize that humans
need to respect natural
forces, but history has
also shown us the power
of human ingenuity
and our ability to survive.”
We must
“adapt to the
ever-changing
forces of nature and
base our societies
on essential
commonsense
rather than
superstition
or fear,”
he writes.
Iceland’s melting
glaciers are simply
part of
“an endless sequence
of natural events that have
shaped our country’s history,”
he adds.
We must respect nature
and seek to preserve
our environment, but
“it is vital not to overreact
or fall for scare stories,”
Gunnlaugsson concludes.
“Whatever some might say,
we shouldn’t panic about
Iceland melting.”