Blogging Reykjavik

Iceland can be cold and unforgiving although the weather has been rather nice as of late. Some animals get to escape the cold while other dogs need to tough it out.



- The Thor all rights reserved

This is a rather useful insight into some of the sidewalks in Reykjavik. The tubes you can see here are put there for run-off warm water. Once the warm water has been used to heat the houses inside what is left is often led into pipes like these making the sidewalk warm enough to melt any ice and snow, keeping it clear and safe during winter.

A wonderful use of our geothermal energy, 80° C when it enters the house so plenty of heat to both keep the houses toasty, take long warm showers and heat the sidewalks. Many people have also installed these tubes in their driveways.






- The Thor all rights reserved

The international whaling commission meets today and the next 4 days in Alaska discussing the future of commercial whaling. It will be interesting to see what happens, both pro and anti whaling lobbies have been running a fierce campaign, most notably Britain, the USA and Japan. As a part of this Laos has joined the IWC, a landlocked country to my knowledge, however only joining at Japans request. Others have pointed out that the USA in particular doesn't have a strong anti whaling position since they are in fact one of the world’s largest whaling nations. Just as a reminder this is what a whaling boat looks like:






- The Thor all rights reserved