Iceland Holds Funeral for Okjökull Glacier Lost to Climate Change

With poetry, moments of silence and political speeches about the urgent need to fight climate change, Icelandic officials, activists and others bade goodbye to what once was a glacier.

Icelandic geologist Oddur Sigurðsson pronounced the Okjokull glacier extinct about a decade ago. But on Sunday he brought a death certificate to the made-for-media memorial.

After about 100 people made a two-hour hike up a volcano, children installed a memorial plaque to the glacier, now called just “Ok,” minus the Icelandic word for glacier.

The glacier used to stretch six square miles (15 square kilometers), Sigurdsson said. Residents reminisced about drinking pure water thousands of years old from Ok.

“The symbolic death of a glacier is a warning to us, and we need action,” former Irish president Mary Robinson said.

This was Iceland’s first glacier to disappear. But Sigurdsson said all of the nation’s ice masses will be gone in 200 years.

“We see the consequences of the climate crisis,” Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said. “We have no time to lose.”

Jakobsdottir said she will make climate change a priority when Nordic leaders and German Chancellor Angela Merkel meet in Reykjavik on Tuesday.

“I know my grandchildren will ask me how this day was and why I didn’t do enough,” said Gunnhildur Hallgrimsdottir, 17.

The plaque, which notes the level of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, also bears a message to the future: “This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”

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[eightseven]

You can laugh at this all you want, and though we are technically in an inter-glacial period, you're arguing over non important facts, calling each other crazy. Whether the earth's fluctuating climate is natural or not, you cannot deny humans have had a massive effect on it. Climate change is a real thing, no one is arguing that, and if they are they're living in a fantasy world, the question is to what degree are we accelerating or perhaps altering the course of that change. I reiterate, you cannot, in sound mind, deny that having billions of petrol powered vehicles, 60 plus countries relying on coal plants, 1 billion cattle globally, massive global deforestation and general industrialization is having ZERO effect on this planets atmosphere. Yes these people look wacky as fuck putting a sign on a rock but regardless of your opinion as to who or what is at fault here, whether natural or not, the existence of these glaciers has shaped their lives and infrastructure, and now it's gone.

[georgecurious]

I am so glad the glacier was lost where i live, 15, 000 years ago. Now we have lakes with fish, all kinds of wildlife, crops, trees, homes and other useful things. One thing that was lost due to the glaciers forming over two million years ago were camels. They all migrated to a place where it is habitable. Even the dumb camels knew enough not to live on a block of ice.

[AP-hkvh]

The lengths people go through to virtue signal

[andrewclayterman]

Greenland HOLDS FESTIVAL TO CELEBRATE RETURNING OF GREEN FIELDS AND LEAVES TO THE TREES.. THANKS TO GLOBAL NORMALIZING.

[accountclosed]

I had a memorial service for all the melted snowflakes.❄❄❄
😁😀😁 👆

[gonzisonsbc]

If we just give the government more money and control they can fix this.

[stoneyneff]

The world will be fine ....
the humans are screwed .

[dalebogart]

Wow this is trending with 700 views. YouTube is trying to force feed me there crap.

[Dunes]

Just like he’ll be back again another day!

[TheJudge]

Wait a second. This planet has been through 2 ice ages hasn't it? And before both of them the temps were rising right? So does that mean in a couple hundred or thousand years there will be a 3rd ice age? Idfk I'm not that much of a climate person 🤷‍♂️

[TwoStageTrigger]

The smaller ice gets the faster it melts.

[jeremyv]

Definition of snowflakes

You get it now?

[aNewsNow]

I know there is not much to do in Iceland but come on really.

[klokoloko]

Ignorance in this comment section is amazing. Majority type of persons that will laughs when you fall on the street

[gpettipas]

Wanna sell Iceland as the sky is falling?

[citrus_fire]

I recently saw some of the worst polution I have seen in my life in southern california, and I asked my dad what he thought about it. He told me that back in the 70's they couldnt go outside because the polution was so bad. He told me that you would go outside and your lungs would hurt like you just were in a heavily chlorinated pool for 19 hours. I can see how its a concern and more research needs to be done on things like human caused climate change, but in history and even recent history, projections that were swore to be true were absolutely false. In the 60's and 70's they said an Ice age was going to come. Not a scientist just a regular person sharing an opinion on a terribly biased video. The earth was once completely covered in water and completely ice. what about volcanic winters? Should we prosecute and protest volcanoes for threatening to end our lives in a split second and cause a literal worldwide nuclear winter?

[alexg]

You got to be kidding me? A funeral for an ice cube. I'm done.

[teresasimons]

Seriously, it's an ice cube they melt? Perhaps it would be in your best interest to think before you comment. The implications of large ice sheets melting have long term effects, some of those being the desalination of our oceans, rising sea levels and warming temperatures of our oceans. Guess you better get used to saying good-bye to any seafood you like and several coastal cities.

[surality]

Logs and coal to make that lovely moral plque

[jdssn]

Such an odd approach to climate. This lends credence to the argument that some people literally worship and personify the Earth like druids.