The Voice of the Young
125,000 youth from all over the world have sent a message on the world’s largest postcard to the leaders at COP24:
Fight climate change and help the environment!
Check out this (soundless) video of the art.
“Dear children, dear teachers, dear parents, dear colleagues and dear friends: We did it and we made it!” said the organizers of this Guinness World Record smashing initiative.
Yes, my dishes are piling up, but how could I not post this first?
Earlier today, while walking to the train station to buy my ticket to Warsaw for Monday, I happened upon a university plaza were a couple civil society groups had set up shop in the blustery cold.
Apparently, this is the first time in many years that the people of the COP host city have not been able to interact with the groups coming from around the world. (If you are wondering what COP is, see Climate Change and You)
Many groups were sorely disappointed about there being no community-based venue for people’s organizations and non-profit groups, but a couple groups figured out a way. Here are a few shots of postcards from Kolkata and Nepal that they laid out in the plaza.
And including one I found from the USA — from New Orleans!
From overhead, messages spelled out on the card were “Stop global warming” and “#1.5C,” a nod to the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
More photos of the giant postcard on the glacier are beneath this next short section.
Keeping a glacier from melting
Another artist was exhibiting photographs of the project to wrap the famous Rhône glacier to keep it – vainly – from melting. When the Swiss woman explained it, I could barely hold back my tears.
A tunnel was cut through the glacier to give visitors a chance to see the beauty from within the glacier itself. (Read the article from USA Today)
Hope for the world
The recently released special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that under certain conditions, it should still be possible to limit global warming to a maximum of +1.5°C. This would help keep the of climate change at a tolerable level.
Young people have a key role to play if this goal is to be achieved, both as generations that will suffer the consequences of climate change for very long and as a force for concrete action. Here are more of photos of the World’s Biggest Postcard.
The Aletsch Glacier is the largest glacier in the Alps, and it is melting at an alarming rate. Losing nearly 40 feet of ice a year, the glacier could be gone by the end of the century, experts warn.
Organizers said the 125,000 individual postcards set a Guinness World Record for the “postcard with the most contributions.”
Thanks to Fabrice Coffrini and the Weather Channel for the photos!
My other posts from COP24:
- Climate Change and You
- People’s Demands on Climate Justice
- On-the-ground Update from the Global Climate Summit
- Dummies Guide to the Paris Climate Agreement
- “The times they are a changin” Climate Post