Saturday, August 4, 2007

Iceland

Now why in the world am I writing about Iceland? This country has been in my mind since I read that Iceland is found to be best able to give citizens a long and happy life. Using carbon efficiency, life satisfaction and life expectancy, the European Happy Planet Index reveals for the first time the carbon efficiency with which 30 European nations produce long, happy lives for their citizens

Iceland, as you all may know is cold throughout the year and the highest air temperature recorded was 30.5°C (86.9°F) on 22 June 1939 at Teigarhorn on the southeastern coast.
As per CIA world fact book, literacy, longevity, income, and social cohesion are first-rate by world standards.

Today, Iceland is a developed country, the world's fifth and second in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and human development respectively
Iceland is the fifth most productive country in the world based on GDP per capita at purchasing power parity. It is also ranked second on the 2006 United Nations Human Development Index. Renewable energy in Iceland provides over 70% of the nation's primary energy[10] and the country expects to be energy-independent by 2050.

Energy dependant by 2050? Now which other so called biggest country can boast this? We predict that so and so country will grow by leaps and bounds but can it ever beat the record of Iceland?

Life satisfaction – now aren’t we all slogging just for this? So how did Iceland achieve this? What has it done specifically to make its citizen happy and satisfied with an unemployment rate of 1.3% (2006 est.) which is among the lowest in the European Economic Area.

I am not sure how. But this country can teach us a few things which we are refusing to acknowledge in this present rat race. Burning fossil fuels by tons and building high rise buildings can never give the citizens a happy and satisfied life.

Countries that have most closely followed the Anglo-Saxon, strongly market-led economic model show up as the least efficient. These findings question what the economy is there for. What is the point if we burn vast quantities of fossil fuels to make, buy and consume ever more stuff, without noticeably benefiting our well-being? We know that someone is just as likely to have high life satisfaction while living within their environmental means, as someone who recklessly over-consumes. So, what is preventing us from radically changing direction, and reaping the benefits? If Europe doesn't lead, India, China and Brazil will not follow," says Andrew Simms, nef's policy director and head of the climate change programme.

Click for further read.

4 comments:

  1. Iceland though i dont know much about them except that they are the best people when it comes to party!! but this was the first time i have come to know they are they best people when it comes to stand up and take notice!!

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  2. First of all; thanks for your visit and also for Faming Me and My Blog at BtF - you are of course listed on my BtF post!

    How nice to see you posting about another Nordic country and it was very readable. I've only been in Iceland once and it is a beautiful place and a lot of Nordic history of course!

    Talking about the Nordic: I'm glad you liked my blog about Norway too - welcome back any time!

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  3. Thanks to u both for passing by..

    Talking abt Norway.. u guys know the best way to take care of ur senior citizens..

    I was asked to collect more details on this by my Boss and hence came to know abt this.. nd I think it is a great idea!

    The Government Pension Fund - Global (Statens pensjonsfond - Utland in Norwegian) is a fund where the surplus wealth produced by Norwegian petroleum income is put. The fund changed name in January of 2006 from the previous name: The Petroleum Fund of Norway. The fund is commonly referred to as The Petroleum Fund (oljefondet in Norwegian). As of the latest valuation in April 2007, it is the largest pension fund in Europe and the second largest in the world,[1] with a value of NOK 1.908 trillion (US$317 billion).

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  4. I've been to Iceland a couple of years ago. It's magical. Like landing on another planet. Very fresh though despite all the lava. The south of Iceland is very green and nice. When we were there it was a lot of Alaskan Lupines that bloomed, so the lava fields were stunning beautiful blue.

    Iceland has the clearest and best fresh drinking water I've ever tasted. No taste at all, just crystal clear!

    ...and I could almost kill to come back and bath in their hot geothermal wells - now that is healing!!! We never wanted to go up from there, it was sooooo nice for our bodies.

    They have Geothermal Power plants, which we visited one and it was very interesting to see. The water travels through 27 km long pipeline (16,78 miles!) to the city with a heat loss of only 2°C on the way. It was really strange to see all these pipelines through the landscape.

    Geothermal energy is used for heating & electricity - quite cheap too as I understood. The geothermal plants produce about 20% of their electricity and geothermal heating meets the heating/hot water needs for about 90% of the nations' housing. Rough figures, not up to date maybe, but it will give you a hint.

    If you're interested you can have a look at my Iceland photos here:

    Lifecruisers Iceland photos from 2004

    Maybe not top quality photos, butt worth to see anyway :-)

    Found you from Blogging To Fame and I'm glad I did. You have an excellent blog here, full of interesting posts. You also have an own blogging style I like.

    I definite have to come back to read more, I'm on my way out now.

    If I forgot, please remind me by come by my place and leave a comment, I'm having a terrible bad memory.... *giggles*

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