Of glaciers and whales

On August 18, a group of academics, journalists and hikers, climbed Ok to celebrate the five year anniversary of a dead glacier, memorialized by a plaque put there in August, 2019 on which the words of Andri Snær Magnason were inscribed.

"Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you will know if we did it."

As if reminding us of what was lost, and what will be lost, the otherwise unusually beautiful sunny day turned dark and snowy on the mountain, pelting everyone with sleet, and cutting the speeches short.

Still the event was positive and hopeful.

But not much has changed in five years, except that the plaque had a beautiful weathered patina, and where we were at 415 ppm carbon in the atmosphere in 2019, we are now at 420 ppm, a number that Cymene Howe, an anthropologist from Rice University who put together the memorial project with her partner Dominic Boyer, reminds us earth has not seen in two million years.

Iceland is on course to lose all its glaciers, as is the world, as we plunge into planetary chaos and unprecedented sea level rise.

Will this collapse happen in our generation, or our children's generation? It's impossible to predict, but the rapidly moving trajectory is clear as we surpass year after year of heat records on what appears to be an asymptotic curve towards extinction.

That is certainly our path, if we do nothing and carry on business as usual.

On the subject of business as usual, or rather business unusual, Kristján Loftsson recently claimed in Viðskiptablaðið that his business killing vulnerable fin whales made $20 million USD in profit.

Loftsson is preparing the ground to request a new whaling permit in January to kill fin whales off the coast of Iceland next summer.

An analysis of his books by the accounting firm Kvalitetsrevision came to the opposite conclusion, that he in fact lost nearly $9 million USD in 2022/2023 on the business, which relies on selling whale meat to Japan.

Japan, however, has launched a new massive whaling vessel, and started hunting their own fin whales this summer, with a quota of 59. Why would Japan have a quota of 59, and Iceland a quota of 128, when Japan is Iceland's only market?

Because the truth is none of this makes sense. There is almost no market for whale meat. Whaling is a money losing venture that endangers all our futures.

Meanwhile, Paul Watson, who dedicated his life to protecting the ocean, sits today in a prison in Greenland. Japan requested that Denmark arrest Paul Watson on a secret Interpol red notice while he was in Greenland for interfering with whaling over a decade ago.

Watson was on his way to Japan to try to try to stop the slaughter of vulnerable and endangered whales.

It is worth noting that Japan was sued by Australia over the same whaling in the Antarctic that Watson was trying to stop, and the International Court of Justice ruled in 2014 the Japan's whaling activities were illegal, and must end whaling in the Southern Ocean.

But what exactly is the connection between the melting glaciers and whales? Our ecosystem is connected, it is indeed a web of life, from the glaciers to the ocean.

And whales are a keystone species in the ocean. They are climate warriors, playing a critical role in the oceans carbon pump, sequestering tons of carbon on their bodies during their lifetime, while fertilizing the oceans so phytoplankton can bloom, which in turn pulls masses of carbon from the atmosphere.

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The ocean is the largest carbon sink on the planet.

Whale populations have been decimated since the start of industrial whaling. NAMMCO and the Marine & Freshwater Research Institute launched an effort to count whales this summer around Iceland, using spotters on boats.

As you might imagine, that methodology tends towards overcounting - how do you know you are not counting the same whale over and over as it surfaces in different places and on different days? You don't.

As a side note, there is a much more reliable method of counting whales using satellite imagery run by companies like SPACEWHALE, which was not used.

Of course if your agenda, like NAMMCO, is the continued eating of marine mammals, what better opportunity than to announce there are lots of whales swimming around Iceland ready to be eaten.

And so once again Iceland will have a choice, forge a path ahead to protect the glaciers, protect the oceans, and protect whales, or do nothing and carry on business as unusual.

Ending the killing of whales isn't going to solve the climate crisis. And it isn't going to bring Ok back. But it is a necessary step in the right direction.

If we can't do something so simple and obvious with such benefit to the ocean and our climate, how can we possibly address the much more difficult challenges ahead of us?

The UN has declared the Decade for Cryospheric Science starting next year. Crysophere refers to all things ice from the Greek word for cold - krios. Iceland needs to fight for the krios in its name, and end whaling for good, or soon Iceland will just be Land, and much less of it as the ocean rises.

The author is a filmmaker, writer and active in the effort to protect whales.

Micah Garen originally written for www.visir.is