I just left Iceland after a three-day visit. It is an amazing country with wild natural beauty and very special natural resources.
The island grows 2cm each year due to being on the continental rift between North America and Europe. In fact, while visiting, we got to walk off the edge of North America and through the rift in the middle. (We didn't get to walk all the way to Europe as it's over 7 miles away, and the tour didn't have time for that.)
This unique topography also gives it very unique natural resources. Since it is very geologically active, they have vast amounts of geothermal power available. All electricity is geothermally produced, and all hot water comes straight out of the ground. In fact, it usually needs to be cooled off first before it can be used.
I would like to know, however, if Icelanders ever get used to the smell of their geothermal hot water. Let's just say I loved knowing my hot showers were carbon-free, but I wasn't a huge fan of the smell I had to endure.
While we were there, we certainly incurred emissions from the food we ate (coffee, anyone?), the tour buses we explored in (mostly Sprinter-type vans, in fact), and obviously our flight to get there, but it was really nice knowing that all the hot water and electricity and ~80% of the building heat were all from naturally occurring geothermal sources.
In February 2008, Iceland was one of the first countries in the world to commit to achieving carbon neutrality. However, according to this Reuters article from November 24, 2009, Iceland has dropped its plans due to its current economic meltdown. I can't find other sources to corroborate the Reuters story right away. Wikipedia has not been changed. I will continue to try to figure out what's really going on. Regardless of where their goal stands, I commend them for being among the first (and the few) to make such goals at all, and wish them the best in their economic recovery.
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