Icelandic officials joined climate change activists Sunday in bidding farewell to the nation’s first extinct glacier in what was touted as a “funeral” service for the ice mass.
The ritual, attending by around 100 people, weaved together poetry recitation, moments of silence, and ardent political speeches about the crucial need to battle climate change, which has been blamed for the demise of the Okjökull glacier.
The service was attended by Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, Environment Minister Gudmundur Ingi Gudbrandsson, and former Irish President Mary Robinson. Ms. Jakobsdóttir took advantage of the occasion to attribute the loss of the glacier to the climate crisis.
“We see the consequences of the climate crisis,” she said. “We have no time to lose.”
Icelandic geologist Oddur Sigurðsson officially declared the Okjökull glacier inactive in 2014 when he determined that snow was melting before it could accumulate on the cap, and there was not enough pressure accumulating to keep the glacier in motion.
But on Sunday Sigurðsson brought a death certificate to the memorial service to bring attention to the “climate crisis.”
A plaque, written in both English and Icelandic, was placed at the spot by children to commemorate the event.
It reads:
Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as 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 know what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.
August 2019
415ppm CO2
The author of the plaque’s inscription, Andri Snaer Magnason, told the BBC:
This is a big symbolic moment. Climate change doesn’t have a beginning or end and I think the philosophy behind this plaque is to place this warning sign to remind ourselves that historical events are happening, and we should not normalize them. We should put our feet down and say, okay, this is gone, this is significant.
Anthropologist Cymene Howe of Rice University in Houston said last month that the memorial to Okjökull marks the first-ever monument to a glacier lost to climate change.
“By marking Ok’s passing, we hope to draw attention to what is being lost as Earth’s glaciers expire,” she said.
Iceland’s concern for its ice masses stands in stark contrast to its approach to other ethical issues. In 2017, Iceland boasted of a nearly 100 percent abortion rate for babies who test positive for Down Syndrome.
“My understanding is that we have basically eradicated, almost, Down syndrome from our society—that there is hardly ever a child with Down syndrome in Iceland anymore,” said Kari Stefansson, a geneticist and the founder of deCODE Genetics.
“We don’t look at abortion as a murder,” said Helga Sol Olafsdottir, who counsels women who have a pregnancy with a chromosomal abnormality at Landspitali University Hospital. “We look at it as a thing that we ended.”
Read more at Breitbart
Hug a glacier they have been in retreat for about 10,000 years . If you really really miss them move to Antarctica before they are all gone over the next ….50 million years .
There were many periods in the past when the poles were ice free. Was the glacier active during the Medieval Warm Period when the Vikings farmed Greenland?
Maybe these people will cheer up during the coming Grand Solar Minimum.
I just hope winter is extra snowy this year i want to see these fool get caught with their pants down when it snows several feet in their area
Iceland is a volcanic island. They use geothermal energy to generate electricity. Like the western Antarctic , the ice could be melting from the bottom up.
Sounds like ice bergs need an apology . get the best . Canada’s Prime Minister won’t apologize for obstruction of justice in the SNC scandal he created but if you need a ice berg apologized to well you know who to call . Make a bit of noise and you to can get a $10 million cheque from the apology tour with a tiny bit of whining . .
As noted in a paper published by the University of Oregon:
“Glaciers are key icons of climate change and global environmental change. However, the relationships among gender, science, and glaciers – particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge – remain understudied. This paper thus proposes a feminist glaciology framework with four key components: 1) knowledge producers; (2) gendered science and knowledge; (3) systems of scientific domination; and (4) alternative representations of glaciers. Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.”
Just and equitable human-ice interactions! That must be what was witnessed in Iceland…
Glaciers – they cause icebergs
Icebergs – they cause ships to sink
Sinking ships – they kill people
Maybe we’re better off without glaciers?
Talk about a totally disgusting quote by the geneticist to brag about practically eradicating Downs Syndrome. There is only one reason–they abort those babies as if those born with Down Syndrome are less than human. And killing such a baby by abortion is in fact murder.
These people are standing around in parkas freezing in the middle of summer, mourning the “death” of a glacier. Am I the only one that sees the irony in this?
The glacier will be back, and will cover up their silly little plaque in no time.
These people are deniers . Climate changes get over it . Humans impact is real and it’s insignificant , almost immeasurable . We can clean up our environment but the con game that we are somehow going to regulate the earth’s temperature is a big fat expensive joke .
A funeral for a glacier ? So they want their glacier back and the climate that created it do they ? Or do they just want to pretend the climate should never change ? Complete morons with nothing better to do but be stupid sheep .
https://scontent-bru2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/68504696_655008221668460_5683803313997348864_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&_nc_eui2=AeHomDevZIAzFCE2aTygh6cgKtyFbdWZdV0GR0cl1TXnWnCNfIwYhahSsatHAiGDUkEp7eg7TQofodkhnpGRL9Z0DhYyt-z3uD7rBpixTA-7oA&_nc_oc=AQkFNWb7RyPJ9mwJdf6VUTumBy3p4TW9c6UdiCFgnGmG0eNASI-rFuIzkmhJLNdjLDo4rJCyGnBaDDEy9xB1hApf&_nc_ht=scontent-bru2-1.xx&oh=31f311ad67322380900c7789b5a2c82f&oe=5DDA1456
Back a few years ago some Crack-Pots held a Funeral for a dead tree someone read Joyce Kilmer’s poem TREES and some bunch of Eco-Wackos were weeping and crying their little eyes out over dead trees and some group of nuts held a funeral for Geese that had been euthininsed and PETA has set up memorials for Chickens that died when a truck carrying them overturned These People are totaly out of their minds Just who is smarter?
“This is a big symbolic moment. Climate change doesn’t have a beginning or end”
How true this statement is. The climate didn’t all of a sudden start changing as some believe, it’s been changing for 4.5 billion years with or without human influence.
“…first-ever monument to a glacier lost to climate change.” Why aren’t there memorials to every glacier lost to climate change? There’s been hundreds lost since the last ice age ended.
Weirdos.
The climate that melts glaciers is preferable to the climate that builds them.