Iceland is sitting on the
Mid-Atlantic Ridge which is an area
where the plates on the surface
of the Earth are being pushed apart
by Magma that comes
from the Earth's Mantle.
There are very very few places
where a hot spot comes to the surface
like in Iceland and by the way,
Iceland floats in this situation,
there's a very critical floatation of it
so the whole natural existence of this
country is unusual, highly unusual.
Well we are lucky to be situated
on a volcanic island and as a result,
the ground water is heated and
that's where our geothermal power
comes from and then we
are also in the North Atlantic
with plentiful rain which provides
us with the hydropower
The best place to be when we
really hit the energy crisis is Iceland
I was in office for 16 years,
which is a very long time
during my time in office
I saw Iceland prosper
from a very hard recession in the
1970's and beginning of the 1980's
but some how we recovered
from that recession,
but with the privatisation of the
banks around the turn of the century
some how the Icelanders
started to forget their past,
people who forget their past have
difficulty in tackling the present,
not to mention the future
A whole new value system
needs to be created
and the greed that has
lead us to here needs to stop
because otherwise we don't
have a hope, for the future
and there's a tremendous
resistance in the system.
People like to do what they
are comfortable with
and they know how to do,
but I think I am seeing
a culture of change.
There are some people
that want to change the
way they live and operate
some people talk about
the global shift
that the mind shift
globally is changing
This concerns
two contracts
one with Hafnarfjordur and
one with Magma Energy, Sweden
You must be proud to sell off
the last assets that we have
Traitors!
You weaklings!
We became a part of this huge
international banking bubble
where this big mass of invisible
money became reality
but of course it is greed and
of course you never get enough
and people were
breaking the rules.
It was very macho,
masculine driven
it was a huge
giant erection really
It was not for sissies.
The women they were all
in the back papers,
they were not in the front.
These were young guys
and they were the coolest
guys in Iceland really.
In retrospect they were mad and
greedy because they lost the money
but if they had not
lost the money they
would just be
successful businessmen
Well Jon, How would
you like it if we had to move?
If we move to Thailand,
I don't know, it would be very hard
Maybe I'll miss the snow,
then I won't be able to go
to the Mountains
and go snowboarding
There's enough seaweed
for my seaweed bath
We are now in my home
where I both have my
business and where I live.
It was first just one house
and I wanted to live in part of it
and wanted to have a
restaurant in the other part of it
but when I told most of my
friends that, they would
usually shake their head
and say no, no, no, no
now you are losing
the last thing that you have
because this is an awful place and
you will never get customers there
but that appears to be wrong.
and now I make the
old house a restaurant,
I have a home restaurant
My wife is from Thailand
and we have Thai food
we take just one
group in the evening
minimum 6 people
and maximum 40
I built another house next to it,
where I have a Spa, a Thai Spa
with massage, herbal sauna,
seaweed bath and hot tub
Two years ago I built the
house that I live in
I made a traditional turf house,
I could see my dream come true,
the ideas that I want to make,
I make everything myself
If the economic crisis
had not happened then
everything would have worked out
I have been trying to sell
my home and business
and I have put it on EBay in Iceland
but the market is totally frozen
I am very very proud
of what I have been doing
no matter, even if I lose it
or if the bank takes it
I will still be proud of it
and if I drive past it
and say, 'ah this I made'
even if somebody else owns it
or lives in it, that's no problem
The World has been led
by people educated in some
of the best Universities
in the World.
This has lead me to be
quite certain that the education
that we are giving people
is not good enough.
I have spent 10 years
trying to figure out
why people do not want to face the
environmental crisis that we are in.
to be quite frank,
if you look here behind me
where you can see some of
my sustainability books
they are not written
by Academics.
The thinking behind sustainability
and sustainable development,
does not come from the Academic
sector, except for a very small degree.
The thinking comes from
visionary thinkers that
are actually leading the debate
and the development of ideas.
We have the power and the
knowledge to change things
but we are not making
very good progress
and I think there are
various issues involved.
There are the stakeholders
who want status quo
because they are
making money on it.
The policy makers who have
no understanding of Science
and the Scientists who are not
very good at communicating
their Science to the Policy Makers
and this is where we really need
to move fast to
get people together.
I like us Icelanders to
act local but think global
Iceland has been missing a clear
vision for what we like to stand for
and how we see
ourselves in the World
Just making new Smelters, for
export of Aluminium is very easy
and that's why I feel it is very
important for Icelanders to gather
and get an agreement
about what we like to stand for.
The Ministry of Ideas
is partly funded by
two of the Universities
here in Iceland
within that facility apart from the
Ministry of Ideas, we have
several start up companies
that work like a single company
in terms of exchanging ideas
and helping different companies
to get connected with different
people within the community
and the business community.
The goal is to generate
50 new companies in Iceland.
This Ministry can be looked at as
the heartbeat of the grassroots
when it comes to innovation
and change in Iceland
We have a vision that we can plan
this and we can kind of visualise
what we like Iceland to be in
20 years or 50 years
without the involvement of big
corporations or political parties
then when we go for voting
we can vote for politicians
that we feel, as people in the country
that are best fitted to fulfil this vision
We had the collapse
I think it is good because
now we are in the ruins
and we can learn from it
we can build up a new society
a new environment
and a new thinking
Iceland has huge opportunities
because we have these resources
and we can become perhaps
the first nation to have
all our cars and all our ships
powered by sustainable power
clean power.
Well, at the moment we are
transporting food primarily
by aeroplane and the
days of this being possible
are coming towards an end
not only because we could have a
big eruption that could stop flights
in the Northern Hemisphere
for perhaps 2-3 years
but we will also be hampered
by the fact that we are using up
oil at a very fast rate, so we
will not be able to transport food
around the World in
aeroplanes for much longer.
The age of cheap flights I'm
afraid is about to come to an end.
I think it is very important to be
able to go out into the countryside
and see how food grows
where things are really made.
They don't grow in the supermarkets
they grow in the soil.
That's one thing that has been
happening in Iceland now
that we have been making
local groups in all parts of Iceland
like the Slow Food idea
to eat locally, eat seasonal
it's going to save a lot of energy
and it's going to reduce the pollution
caused by all this transport.
It is also ok to break the leaves off
on the field, if you feel like it's easier,
they will just compost
on the field, it's ok.
At least in the beginning people
saw me as a really strange guy
and still people are saying
'Why don't you use chemical fertiliser?'
But, for me to do
Organic it's no way back
when you see the soil, when
you see what you are growing
when you taste it, when you
taste how much sweeter and
better it is, there's no way back.
This is the natural way to do it.
of course, I sometimes think
why am I doing all of this job?
I'm not getting any money, I'm just
getting tired of all of this work.
It's something about the soil
it's something about Mother Earth
that keeps me going
After starting organic, it was
potatoes in the beginning
and then came white cabbage
and turnips and slowly more and more
like lettuce and leek, parsley
and some how I got this idea to
start growing barley and
that's where it started
to give people a taste of 'Gabriel's
Breakfast' Barleyotto, Barley Bread..
and what I've heard is that the
Barley that I grow organic in Iceland
tastes better than
Barley in other countries.
I can lead the market, yes.
Are you nervous with me
looking over your shoulders?
No, not at all.
You're doing great
You're working so fast that
the machine can't keep up
Since 2001 I've had volunteers, they
come through WWOOF, it means
Willing Workers on Organic Farms.
It's just young people from
all around the World that want
to help to build up organic farming.
I used to say it's like organic
growing of connections,
connections between different countries,
so they are making friends here
and connecting the World in a
positive way and helping me a lot
Part of my reason for coming here
at this time is what is going on
with the crisis, to understand
what's really happening
and to design systems from there
that are actually going to create resiliency
within our systems and
within our people.
So, when something really
major happens we are ready;
we are ready to feed
ourselves as best we can,
we are ready to meet at
the gate whatever giant is there.
I am certain that we have enough
geothermal heat to power our greenhouses
We are importing 70% of our
vegetables and 99% of our fruit
and in greenhouses
we can grow both
At the moment, the new power
plant at Hellisheidi spews 90%
of the energy into the
atmosphere, which is mad
we could have set up
greenhouses up there
to use the energy
to produce food.
We just need to
put our mind to it.
And I think Icelandic people
they like new trends
so once it catches on they
will take it and run with it.
We are very into that we should
eat locally but think globally.
When we started here
a friend of mine
he asked me if I was going to
waste my life growing tomatoes
but this is what I've been
doing for the past 19 years
growing tomatoes mainly.
and I think that it has gone
very well and I think that we have
reached the state where we
have shown that organic is possible
and what is interesting us very much
now is going into tropical fruits
and we have been learning
about this and visiting places
in Europe, they are also fish farming
within these greenhouses
so they are using the water from
the fish farms to water the plants
and the water is very nutritious
so it is giving food to the plants
and then at these places
that we have been visiting
they are growing fish that can eat green
so it is a very sustainable system
And this is something that we are
very interested to bring into Iceland
to grow tropical fruits with this
sustainable system, with fish farming
We see it that this pilot project
here in Iceland would be showing
that this is possible and then
we could expand it elsewhere
and using this left over energy
that we have all over Iceland.
We are a part of nature
and we are a part of
a bigger village with 7 billion people
and as this village has a challenge
I truly we believe that
we can help out and
If you look at the reason
why there is war it is very much
about natural resources
like oil, even water and
this is what we have plenty of meaning
energy and all the natural resources.
I think that these resources
could be utilised here in Iceland
to prototype sustainable solutions
in terms of how to consume
transportation in a new way
I think this gives Iceland
a fantastic opportunity.
It means that there will be
a lot of new start up companies
that will test different methods many
companies will fail others will succeed
if we can just tackle this part in
the global village we are actually
helping the planet because
we only have one planet.
The role of Iceland with the
development of new concepts
in automobiles is going to be
very important. I think there,
exactly there Iceland
can be a platform
for testing new technologies
In a small country like ours we
can go beyond the critical mass
we can develop faster I think
and again here Iceland
is an ideal testing platform,
plus that I would like to see us
develop corporations that are linked
to the development era and that some
of the value added is left in Iceland.
Well obviously, Iceland
has a lot of expertise
in renewable energy science
We know that about 80%
of our primary energy is
currently coming from renewable
energy sources and essentially 100%
of electricity generation or production
is from renewable energy sources
Iceland has a lot to
offer other countries.
There's a very good
lesson to be learnt here
How did Iceland manage to reach this
far in terms of renewable energy use
Still today we are at the forefront of
this type of education in the world
but the school was always
intended to be International
and as such pull students
from different countries
and educate them and train them
and then send them back to their
home countries to act as
this catalyst of change or hope
to concentrate on moving out
of the oil era, into the
renewable energy area.
Iceland as an example
was 100 years ago dependant
on peat and things like that
no real natural resources
and then they were kind of
stuck in that sense but they have
abundant geothermal and hydropower
and that really has kind of freed them
in that sense from this dependency that I
think a lot of countries are really stuck with.
But even such a trivial thing
as getting richer we should look at
renewables as a new
source of a good business
this can speed up the process
putting aside all of the important things
like fossil fuels running out or
the global warming, why not money?
That's also a good starting point
for investing in renewables.
Money is Green
Yay!
Imagine a leaf of a plant it
receives energy from the Sun
and it converts this energy into material
called hydrocarbons and other things
and this is a very good
example of renewable energy.
A great challenge in Iceland
and the main thing now
is some how to try to involve
this new energy into producing fuels
and I think the next decade
in Iceland we'll see the new
renewable fuels appearing.
I sometimes say that
anything is possible
this is why I'm trying to
cultivate roses in an Arctic climate.
You can just see here,
anything is possible
if you were here in January
with the snow covering this area
you wouldn't believe it
but if you have the will to do it
some knowledge is needed
success is guaranteed
The most exciting thing for us as
a Ministry is the New Curriculum
because we have a new law on
Primary Schools and Kindergartens
and on Secondary Schools and
now we're wondering what to do
when we have a crisis, do we
just want to keep on going
in the same direction? Or, do we
want to do something new?
So, I think we're going to see
a bit of a new emphasis, new things
in this New Curriculum more
emphasis on the ideology
of sustainable development
more focus on gender equality
and general equality and also
more emphasis on democracy
and critical thinking and
I think a lot of people have
been thinking about that,
that we haven't been critical enough
and then I mean critical in a positive
manner, just to look at things critically.
I think maybe these three things
would be new in the curriculum
because obviously the curriculum
is a much wider project you have to learn
all of the old things but I think there
would be a new emphasis on that
I think changing through education
is very effective because children
bring what they are discussing
at school, home and then
make sure that their
parents comply
Changing the older generation
particularly those where the children
are gone or even the retired population
maybe more difficult but at least the
older ones remember the days
of enoughness and where the
standard of living was different
and perhaps they also remember
that they weren't any
unhappier then.
I think the core of sustainability is
to be happy with what you have
and find the point
where enough is enough
We as human beings we
keep saying well we could have
done something different
but we can't do anything different,
it's already what we have
done and it's cause and effect
We do something now, today and
we are determining to some degree
some parts of our destiny.
What we can do is we can
clean up and take responsibility
immediately for what we have broken
or what we have failed to succeed at
and I believe that in a collective system
then you have a lot of posts and
a lot of signs and a lot of warnings
and if people are conscious they
detect them and act accordingly
but when the whole process of society
is unconscious, absent, distracted
then those signs are not
to be seen or heard.
My most difficult time
that is when it is the question
can I fix it or should I let it go?
Or, is there something that
I don't see that I can do?
And when you have the rope
around your neck and all the time
you always make it longer
to give you more chance
you see ok it is finished
but then you get a little chance again
but then you break down again
and then up again
that is my most difficult time
when I really see the last
bus stop where I can get off
that has been for the whole of last year,
very difficult because about three times
I have had some chance
but really no chance.
It is like when you are in the gym
or somewhere when you finish
a lift up you have to do one
more but all the time one more
when you have finished this one
more you burn out in the end.
There were only two loans
in the Icelandic market at the time
when I took this loan
I could have taken a loan in
indexed to inflation
or in foreign currency.
I borrowed about 70 million
kronur 5-6 years ago.
The bank recommended
the foreign currency loan
I have paid the bank back
about 30 millions since then
but now I owe about 135 million and
it's still rising and rising and rising.
It was about 5 million every month
and no matter how you calculate
on your fingers it doesn't add up
and it will still be rising
and it will be faster and
faster and faster, probably by next
Happy New Year it could
be maybe 160 or 170 million.
Even though it's not fair to not pay, it's
not fair to not take care of the family.
Take care of the bank
What?
You can put a box
around this after
I think this is the feeling of
many people in Iceland now.
Every week I'm meeting some
people who are in the same situation
and have stopped
paying the bank.
I'm afraid that we will be
hitting some real tipping points
in the next 10 or 20 years
and therefore we need
to look at what we need to change
the Western civilisations
need to cut their consumption.
We throw away 99% of the
stuff we buy within 6 months
and now that we are running
out of metals and materials
we need to make all of our gadgets
we need to learn to make things that are
more durable and we can repair
I think a lot of re-skilling is necessary,
so we learn to grow our own food
and repair things and make
our own clothes and so on.
It's impossible for the economy to keep
growing and growing and growing
because it's growing on Earth's
resources which are running out
I want to, for my own children's
sake, I want to be able to say
the crisis will strengthen us.
It will be difficult for some time
but the crisis will strengthen us.
we will see many new things
appear now as if a crisis is
the ideal soil for new
things to happen
That's the positive
thing about the crisis
that we are seeing so many
interesting ideas emerge
there are new people on the scene
there are new pathways of thinking
and this is something that is
very positive about the crisis
that we should not overlook.
It's very important that the crisis
has taught us a new way of thinking
The power station was built
in the 1940s when there was a
power shortage in Iceland
and we needed energy
and it's a coal fired plant, it was
before we had more geothermal
into our heating and electricity grid.
So this house has been abandoned
for almost 20 years and
there was money to demolish it
already in the budget of the
City of Reykjavik but I think they
wanted to use the money
for something more productive
so it would not be demolished
and they gave us
the keys to the house for 3 years.
Hi, I'm Gudrun
Hi, I'm Hulda
Well the idea of Toppstodin
basically came over a cup of coffee
whilst discussing the crisis
and the situation in Iceland
which we could already then see
would impact our two sectors incredibly
the building sector, the architects,
workers, builders, so forth
so we started discussing
what could be done
We have often talked about the fact
that designers and the craftsmen
they don't seem to interact enough,
the schools are completely separate.
The best projects are when people
work together, trying to find the solution
and the practical knowledge
and the design knowledge
and the vision goes hand in hand
so we started talking about how
perfect it would be to create a place
that people who are without
projects could come together
and bring their ideas
and make something new
We have already harnessed as much
of the natural resources as we can
We have 5 times more energy than a
nation of 300,000 people really needs.
We are to the extreme in all
of the fisheries so the only thing
that we have to focus on are the
human resources, the skills that we have
and ways to communicate
them, so for example
the designers and the architects, they
are not going to build a house
for the next 5 years at least,
our carpenters and our skilled workers
they're not going to build a house
either for the next 5 years.
These groups have to re-invent
themselves make smaller things
make different things.
If nothing else would
come out of this power station except
new relationships and activities
within the people,
that is just quite enough
It's really important to have a
building like the power station
for start-ups to come into
because you can put in a lot of work
and pay less rent, so you can
get a larger space for less money,
but you have to work on it for weeks
or months to get it in good condition
but it's also just important to
have the dynamic of the house
and the knowledge
different types of people
with different types of
knowledge coming together
I don't think of it as a big project
we cannot expect miracles
to be happening here all of the time
so we have to think small
to make this big
Everybody says that the old values
are coming back, but it will take time
we are going back to memory
I think and going back to memory
gives us a new set of values
It has been so unfashionable and
negative words since the Nazism
to have a national feeling but
that is the only thing that can help us
believing in the country
and believing in the people
To collect the leaves we use gloves,
it's because we don't want to mix
our energy too much into the leaves
because the leaves are going into oil
and it's going to turn
into massage oil later
so what we do is...
you put the bags like this
on your belly so you are
going to be like kangaroos
and you only take the green leaves
because of the worm in the trees
down here, we have to go as high
as possible to get the greenest
and the most beautiful leaves
Our economic system is really
bad and it doesn't work out
It's all based on credit, it's all based on
debt and there's no getting out of debt
when debt is based on interest.
It is all the support for more
invisible numbers moving around
making people wealthy
some people wealthy and
some people more in debt
most people more in debt.
I hope Iceland will
survive the financial crisis
How to say no, that's what I think,
how to say no to big corporate
banking, special interests
how to rip up those contracts
and say this is unfair,
it's not really what we want
so we need to start over
What are the people prepared to do.
I feel very bad when I am a consumer
and I don't know where it is from
I don't need to consume,
I just need to live,
to breathe and eat and
enjoy the life, the real life
I think we can't just close our eyes
today, we really need to open our eyes
and look at what is
happening around us.
But I can understand why people
just want to have an easy life
and don't want to have to
think about the world
I think if everything is
on a smaller scale
we'll have more of a sense
of community, people won't be
driving their cars everywhere
and just in their own box
their own bubble, their own comforts.
I think just a slower way of life
would be good for everyone,
everyone is so stressed in the world today
and I think farming is a
great way to relieve stress
you're growing your own food I mean
it's so satisfying to eat your own food
that you've grown from the seed.
It's just a better way of life
than what we're living right now
I welcome you to the
Ministry of Ideas Meeting
We're driven by a certain vision
for the future of how we want Iceland
to develop in the future
and one of our biggest projects is...
the National Assembly Meeting which
is the national conference
that we will have in November
If we look at history,
we can see that crisis
is very much the
mother of innovation
I think that the current state
of the economy is going to give us
new ways of thinking,
and new innovations
and I think that it will give
Iceland a fantastic opportunity
and it could give us a strong role
as a member of the global village
It's a Meeting where
people of Iceland meet
it's about 1,500 people,
it's half a percent of the nation
and that gives us
the view of the nation.
It's basically like a vision planning
session at some companies
like Google or Nokia, we are
integrating that with what we can
learn from vision planning
for a whole nation
vision planning for a whole nation
is more focussed on our core values
rather than individual action items.
This is not being managed by
any single individuals or groups,
it's a cooperation between all
of the grassroots organisations
it involves the Government
and different specialists and
everything is voluntary work.
The main role of a politician is to listen
to all NGO's and the general public
and to try to ignite people to
put forward their opinions.
I think that's really one of the
main roles of a politician
to try to have some kind of a dialogue
because the history shows us that
the people in power
tend to grow a bit the same.
I think that's the role of the nation,
they must take care of that
that the politicians will stay
alert and keep on working
People usually think about sustainability
as only being about nature protection
and protecting the environment
but that's only one dimension
what is also important is to think about
the economic issues that are related
and that we don't over exploit or
destroy nature in our economic activity
as well as the societal issues of
creating an infrastructure to support
our people in terms of having
a Government with honest politicians
that would be nice, wouldn't it?
having good schools and hospital
systems and then the fourth dimension
is the well being of individuals
so that people feel good within
their society and are
perhaps happy even.
Maybe we can become a world
leader if we use our opportunities
we have green energy, we have
opportunities to make our transport system
for example environmentally friendly
by using greener energy
we have the electricity from
the waterfalls etc...
then we have this land
we have great nature reserves
that we can really use
by preserving them.
I think actually, we have the biggest
unspoilt land area in Europe
so that's of course a great treasure for
us in using our green energy
and using this nature that we have
and also in implementing this ideology
and how we run things,
other things as well
The main issue is that we have to
use the green ideology when
doing everything else
because it doesn't work without that
so, you can't just say now
I'm going to do a bit of economics
and then I'm going to
organise the school system
and then we can think
about the green issues,
you have to have the green
issues here all the time
I think our economic system has
not been run in a sustainable manner
so I think we need to use the
ideology of sustainable development
both when we think
about the environment
but also when we think
about the social issues
and how we want to
run our economic life
We can and it's actually my ambition
to make Iceland a sustainable island
we used to live sustainably
on this island
well not quite sustainably
because we cut down our forests
so we weren't very smart about it
initially, but I sense we are now aware
of the danger of soil erosion
we can evade that
and this is what we need to do
because we won't be able to
import all of this
food from abroad
we need to go towards
the culture of enough
I think the best thing is to
work with your local community
get like minded people in your
street or in your close environment
and start having coffee at home
and discussing things
and then take it from there
The balance of power
in the World is changing
there are huge debts on the
Governments that are printing money
and somebody else
has to pay the debts
But this has always been the case
the Roman Empire lasted
for what can we say, 400 years
something like that
100 years BC and 300 After as an
Empire, that was a long Empire time
the 1000 year Reich lasted
from 1933 to 1945, 12 years
and the British Empire lasted
well 100 years almost
We of the West
we have La Dolce Vita
don't we, we complain bitterly,
but we consume
and we rule, conquer and rule,
divide and rule,
but the people of the World
the Third World
share suffering
Unbelievable, unbelievable
Is it the same letters every month?
Yes, most of them
a long time ago I stopped looking at
them and just put them in my folder
I see the number, this is about
that and ok, I don't read it any more
I cannot do anything,
I tried to do everything that was possible
like in the first steps of it
I tried to make a deal with them
and tell them what I can do
what I can pay
and it looks like they weren't listening
and say they have to check it out
but then I never heard from
them again and now
one and a half years has passed
and they are still in the same steps
nothing is going on and
now business has been going down
and I'm just letting it die easy
let the business die
I can build it up, but
that is for nothing because
I don't know after half a year
where I will stay or where I'll be
This is my Peace Globe
about one year ago I made it
when the anger started
to arrive here in Iceland.
I wanted to make some symbol
of my dreams, my thinking
I put all of the religious symbols
around the globe and then
I wrote around it
peace and harmony
can be in all of the world, you just have
to make one person peaceful, yourself.
People can come and put
their peace wish inside
and then they ask their God,
their High or Mighty
no matter what their name is
to help them to let their dream come true
or their wish come true
and when the rain comes
it will rain inside the Globe
and it will melt the ink and the
ink will go into the root of the tree
and into Mother Nature
Even though it is bad to say it
it is the best thing that could happen
to the soul of Iceland
because we had totally lost
ourselves in greed
and forgot what really
matters in life
my chicken
he agreed with me
I would like to see an Iceland
where the intellectual capacity
and knowledge is used
and we're already using it of course
knowledge is the key to
everything and fortunately
we live in a country where everybody
can read and I would really hope that
my beloved countrymen use this capacity
this reading capacity to increase
their knowledge and understanding
of where they are, their values
that can best satisfy us
and we have to take care
of that body which is our country
it has been given to us to take care of
it has been handed down to us
by our forefathers to
take care of and I wish that
my countrymen could see that
The human intelligence is
so great that I don't believe
that it's impossible to
find other ways
than to build aluminium factories
all around the country
It's obvious that this is not
the solution this is our problem
it is our greatest problem today
that we will destroy nature
that is invaluable for mankind
and our descendants
We are on the tipping point exactly
now, things can roll very fast downhill
if we want it to go downhill. It's
a time to be very socially active
and participate in these
brainstorms and really question
if we want to take another
cycle on the old system
I would like to see things
like the Ministry of Ideas
and then this National Assembly
that will be created, to be looked at
as points where we really did
decide to go to another direction
You need to have different people
to share different experiences
there is plenty of space for
everyone to get involved.
If the passion is there
anything is possible
That will move mountains
For our future democracy,
I think there are big opportunities
in crowd sourced democracy
and I think that the wisdom of the crowd
needs to be used, in
terms of decision-making.
Wow, is all I can say
It's all coming together
I welcome you all.
What we will be doing here
today is probably a unique event.
In the beginning we are discussing our
core values, what makes us as Icelanders
and these values will make up the
foundation for the work of the day
in the next phase for this session, we will
go into the discussion on our future vision
of what Iceland wants to stand for and
how we see the country in the future.
All of that work will be based
on the values, the core values.
This today, is like a sern of political
science or social science
we are gathering half a percent
of the Icelandic Nation
randomly chosen more or less
and it's a huge social experiment
so I imagine that the world can
take away from here an enormous
wealth of information
about how such things develop
Well, something that I've discovered on
this trip is that I really don't need much
I mean half the stuff I brought
here I don't even need.
When I get back to the States
I don't think I will be able to live as simply
just because of the profession
that I'm going into I'm going to have
to use a computer and
things like that
I haven't turned on my phone
since I've been here
I've listened to my iPod
maybe twice
I don't know, everything
technological is so artificial
It's just nice to have
real things all of the time
that's definitely something
I'm going to try and put
back into my life when I get home
Well, yes of course
I've got used to it
but it's always hard because they
become close friends many of them
and it's hard to see them leave
of course and many of them
really want to stay longer but they
have to go because of school
or something else and I have to accept that.
We need to develop sustainable
communities across the World
Iceland could be a model for
that and then in larger cities
you would form many centres of
sustainability which would be referred to
as a polycentric city and
each part of the city would
then produce their own energy
produce their own food
take care of the education
and produce employment
for the people who live there
all of this travel and commuting
would not be necessary any more
I think this is a reality that has to happen
we are running out of resources
with now 7 billion people on the planet
and predicted to go up to 9 by 2050
we can't go on the way we are going,
we have to find a new way of living
we can do it
I'm certain