Tree Hugging 2.0: Funeral Held for Glacier in Switzerland

A commemoration for Pizol Glacier was held on Sunday, involving roughly 250 Swiss and a priest, in a funeral-like procession at an altitude of 2,700m (8,850ft), where locals, environmentalist campaigners and hikers trekked up to to pay their last respects to the now “dead” glacier, accompanied by a speech from the priest and laying of flowers on the ground on the now stone debris covering the former glacier.

Specialists have said that Pizol Glacier has lost 80 to 90 percent of its volume, leaving 26,000 square meters of ice left, over the course of 13 years – from 2006 to now.

“Pizol glacier has disappeared. There will be some snow left, but the glacier is no more,” said Matthias Huss, a glacier specialist at ETH Zurich university. “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.”

A popular initiative in Switzerland by the Swiss Association for Climate Protection, coordinated by Alessandra Degiacomi, has now obtained a sufficient amount of signatures, with the goal being to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions in Switzerland to zero by 2050.

At the same time, climate change discussions at the UN in New York are in motions, with youth activists and world leaders in tow with Saturday’s UN youth summit being a day after a global climate strike was held by millions around the world.