Well, You Asked: Environmental Disaster Edition

Ask a stupid question and you’ll get a stupid answer. Ask an editor a stupid question, and they’ll publish in a magazine. Seriously though, you know you brought this on yourself, right?

Why aren’t there more wind farms in Iceland?
Wow, are you sick? At The Reykjavík Grapevine we are deeply against intensive farming practices. Are you really saying you want to capture, enclose, and force different winds to breed with each other, just for human consumption? Truly, we are appalled.

That is definitely the main and real reason, but as a side note Iceland has historically produced enough of its energy through hydro and geothermal sources, and so hasn’t invested in wind turbines.

True story: the author was so fed up with all of your inane questions she literally died.

Why doesn’t the Icelandic government introduce species like deer and its predator, the grey wolf? That would accelerate the growth of plants and the forest.
We actually already have some introduced species in Iceland. Some of them, like the reindeer population in the east of the country, have been mostly harmless, and have not built up in enough numbers to cause significant ecological damage. American mink, on the other hand, have bred like wildfire, decimated populations of wild, ground nesting birds, and seem impossible to eradicate.

What are the Icelandic classics that just stay on the market despite the ever changing world around them? We made a discount box with Icelandic products that have survived through the decades! Take a look!

The moral of the story is this: if it’s fine, don’t mess with it. We don’t actually have the god-given right to try and “fix” every environmental “problem” that we see. Nobody gave us a badge and declared us “captains of making everything the way we want it forever,” despite how much our actions might seem to suggest otherwise. God, humans are the worst.

It looks like 90% of your buildings will be underwater when the ice caps melt, have you thought about this?
As if I don’t think about this EVERY DAY, pal. Why do you think I’m like this?

Got a burning question that needs answering? We give absolutely terrible advice, but since you keep asking, we’ll keep answering. Email ’em in to grapevine@grapevine.is