Going Green: The Case for Iceland

Why living in a volcanic wonderland is a good thing.

By Kevin Raub
Published: Feb 11, 2008

The first time I traveled to Iceland, all I knew was that it was supposed to be home to the most beautiful women in the world, all of whom played second fiddle to the country's incomparable landscapes (all those geysers, glaciers, volcanoes and waterfalls), and that, unlike Greenland, it actually wasn't full of ice at all. My limited knowledge of the country can be chalked up to male hormones and the fact that I wasn't even travel writing back then, so all the requisite pre-departure research I would normally do was limited to Maxim magazine's annual Most Beautiful Girls in the World issue, or some such barometer of young adolescent cool.

So upon arrival in this northern European nation of just over 300,000 beautiful people, I was surprised to notice all this business around town about hydrogen buses. Who cares? I thought to myself. You come here for the Midnight Sun and whatever business you could arrange with said beautiful people after midnight. I was young and dumb back then, admittedly. Nowadays, what Iceland is doing with not only hydrogen buses but loads of other groundbreaking environmental legislation and policy is priming it to be the country of the future; all those beautiful people a mere consolation prize to clean living and eco-isolation of Global Warming effects.

My point to all of this—this being a green travel column and all—is that if you're planning your next vacation, Iceland should be at the top of your list, not only as a responsible choice from a green point of view, but also to educate yourself a little bit about what the world should be doing to combat Global Warming, all set to a gorgeous, high-adventure backdrop of geysers, glaciers, volcanoes, and waterfalls. Here's why.

For the last 50 years, Iceland has been taking aggressive steps to eliminate its use of fossil fuels within its island borders, preferring to take advantage of its geothermal landscape to provide clean-burning heat and electricity to its population. Not only is it pollution free, but it's cheap as well. As a result, Iceland concentrates less on importing expensive gasoline to the island and more on becoming the world's first hydrogen-fueled economy.

In 2003, Iceland's capital, the ever-so-charming Reykjavik, began operating a hydrogen fueling station for it's über-clean and efficient public transport system, converting water and electricity into hydrogen and running public buses all day on one fill-up. Now the country is turning its attention to fuel cell cars powered by electricity. The Mercedes Benz A-Class F-Cell is one such vehicle that can already be seen being put through its paces around the streets of Reykjavik.

This snazzy little people-mover would do so well in U.S. emissions tests it would likely cause the machine to throw its hands up and tender its resignation (the exhaust merely expels water vapor). It runs 100 miles on a full tank, with another 18 on reserves if the battery has to kick in, giving Icelanders plenty of time to motor into a refueling station (the country, the size of Kentucky, estimates it can get by on 25 or so strategically-placed stations). I mean, this thing makes a Prius look like a bitch.

By the end of 2008, some 40 or so of these vehicles will be rolling around the country, sparking an energy revolution that—fingers crossed—the rest of the world will wise up to. Once the automobile industry here is conquered, the fishing industry is next. By 2050, Iceland could be fossil fuel free. The upside to all of this, of course, is that all the country's beautiful people will still be beautiful…and cleaner. What fun! And if the rest of us haven't gassed ourselves into oblivion by then, we'll all want to be living there, as it might be the last spot left. And still the most beautiful.

Kevin Raub is a freelance travel and entertainment writer who contributes regularly to Travel+Leisure, Town & Country, American Way, and Organic Spa, among others. He has been slowly and methodically going green since a wise old acquaintance once pointed out that coffee filters were white because they were bleached, adding, “Do you like bleach in your coffee?”

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