Glacier funerals are apparently becoming all the rage after Iceland mourned the “death” of Okjokull glacier in August.
On Sunday, overzealous environmentalists in Switzerland wept as they witnessed the demise of the Pizol glacier in the Glarus Alps.
As CNN reports, the glacier:
…stands at an altitude of about 2,700 meters, and has lost 80-90% of its volume since 2006, leaving behind 26,000 square meters of ice -- less than four football fields -- said Matthias Huss, a glacier specialist at ETH Zurich university.
The glacier, which has been monitored since 1893, will be the first to be taken off the Swiss glacier surveillance network, according to Huss.
About 250 gathered to remember the dissipating ice patch as a local priest commemorated the once giant glacier.
"80% of the glaciers in Switzerland are more or less the same size as Pizol," Alessandra Degiacomi, coordinator of the Swiss Association for Climate Protection and organizer of the funeral march, told CNN. "If Pizol goes, this is a warning sign. This is what is going to happen if we don't change something about our behavior.”
"Pizol glacier has disappeared. There will be some snow left, but the glacier is no more," Huss said. "There are several small pieces of ice lying around, but these pieces are increasingly being covered by rock debris from the mountain. But given what is left of it, we will no longer term it a glacier in scientific terms.”
The Swiss Association for Climate Protection reportedly obtained 120,000 of a required 100,000 signatures to demand Switzerland reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.
What a horribly timed plan. Don’t they know the world is going to end within 12 years?