Arctic
Podcast – Iceland, the fire island
Iceland has a stunning landscape with glaciers galore … but is more properly fire island. Lava, earthquakes eruptions and volcanoes dominate life and world headlines.Around Christmas 2023, an eruption forced people from their homes in the fishing port of Grindavik. One year and six eruptions later – the townspeople are back. But another eruption nearby is spewing lava into the car park of the famous Blue Lagoon. By the time you hear this podcast, that eruption could be over… or much worse.Yet despite all the risk and uncertainty, many Icelanders say they live here because of their volcanoes not despite them. Why? That’s what this podcast – recorded in October 2024 – is all about. CreditsThanks to Easyjet for flights – direct to Reykjavik each weekday from Edinburgh. I travelled...Read More
On Thin Ice – is the Arctic safe?
Russia’s first floating nuclear power plant has left Murmansk for its 4700 kms trip to a remote Siberian port – according to Arctic Today. News agencies suggest China is building another 20 floating nuclear rigs. Meanwhile Donald Trump didn’t managed to buy Greenland but he can still wreak Arctic eco-havoc in Alaska. A new 200 kms motorway, a copper mine & oilfield have been proposed in the remote Brooks Range foothills – and it seems there’s little or nothing small, surrounding Arctic states can do about these developments. In 2011, Nordic Horizons organised a Festival of Politics debate about the safety of the High North, after Statoil (now Equinor) announced that its latest North Sea oil discovery (Aldous Major South) was the biggest Norwegian find in 20 year...Read More
Is the Future Arctic?
Is the Future Arctic? The Arctic Circle Forum, a roaming regional offshoot of the annual Arctic Circle Assembly, came to Scotland in November 2017 and Nordic Horizons ran a packed out Fringe event, with a great panel of speakers from across the Arctic. Our panellists were – Tukumminnguaq Nykjaer Olsen, a young student and campaigner from Greenland, who won this 2017 Arctic Innovation prize. Scots-born Rachael Johnstone, Professor of Law, Arctic Oil and Gas Studies at Greenland University Jon Baldvin Hannibalsson, Iceland’s former Foreign Minister, who took Iceland into EFTA and was the first to recognise the sovereignty of the Baltic states Rune Rafaelson, mayor of Sør-Varanger, Norway’s most northerly municipality, former Director of the Barents Secretariat and an expert on oi...Read More
The Arctic Circle Forum – fringe event
As a packed audience last Sunday at Edinburgh found out, the answer to the question “Is the Future Arctic?” is ‘yes’. You can view the proceedings in two videos from Democracy TV below to get a flavour of what the debate was like. But first; we asked some primary school children to pose their questions to the panel. Part 1 Part 2
The Arctic Circles Forum – the pupils’ questions.
We invited the pupils of Pinkie St Peters Primary School in Musselburgh to record some questions for the “Is the Future Arctic?” panel. We showed the questions to the panelists. There was some surprise and general agreement – these were good questions. Check out the answers too. Arctic Circles Forum Pupil Questions from Nordic Horizons on Vimeo.