{"id":227359,"date":"2019-08-18T22:51:05","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T02:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=227359"},"modified":"2019-08-18T22:51:05","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T02:51:05","slug":"funeral-for-lost-ice-iceland-bids-farewell-to-glacier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/08\/18\/funeral-for-lost-ice-iceland-bids-farewell-to-glacier\/","title":{"rendered":"Funeral for lost ice: Iceland bids farewell to glacier"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_227361\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-227361\" style=\"width: 1612px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1612px-Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-227361\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1612px-Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1612\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1612px-Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull.jpeg 1612w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1612px-Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull-300x201.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1612px-Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull-768x515.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1612px-Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull-1024x686.jpeg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1612px) 100vw, 1612px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-227361\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">FILE: Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull glacier, one of the smaller glaciers of Iceland (<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=20850\">Photo By Andreas Tille &#8211; Own work:with Information in EnglishBild mit Informationen auf Deutsch, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>OKJOKULL GLACIER, Iceland \u2014 It was a funeral for ice.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Icelandic geologist Oddur Sigur\u00f0sson pronounced the Okjokull glacier extinct about a decade ago. But on Sunday he brought a death certificate to the made-for-media memorial.<\/p>\n<p>After about 100 people made a two-hour hike up a volcano, children installed a memorial plaque to the glacier, now called just \u201cOk,\u201d minus the Icelandic word for glacier.<\/p>\n<p>The glacier used to stretch six square miles (15 square kilometres), Sigurdsson said. Residents reminisced about drinking pure water thousands of years old from Ok.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe symbolic death of a glacier is a warning to us, and we need action,\u201d former Irish president Mary Robinson said.<\/p>\n<p>This was Iceland&#8217;s first glacier to disappear. But Sigurdsson said all of the nation&#8217;s ice masses will be gone in 200 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see the consequences of the climate crisis,\u201d Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir said. \u201cWe have no time to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jakobsdottir said she will make climate change a priority when Nordic leaders and German Chancellor Angela Merkel meet in Reykjavik on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know my grandchildren will ask me how this day was and why I didn&#8217;t do enough,\u201d said Gunnhildur Hallgrimsdottir, 17.<\/p>\n<p>The plaque, which notes the level of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, also bears a message to the future: \u201cThis monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>OKJOKULL GLACIER, Iceland \u2014 It was a funeral for ice. With poetry, moments of silence and political speeches about the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":227361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-seth-borenstein","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227362,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227359\/revisions\/227362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}