Mont Blanc, highest peak of the Alps. Will the name change with the climate? Image: wikimedia.
Switzerland sent the world a postcard. A collage of 125,000 drawings by children across the world, assembled for aerial display on Switzerland’s Aletsch glacier, receding at 12 meters (13 yards) per year. Organized by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the campaign is part publicity stunt to establish a Guinness world record, and part educational campaign to engage the next generation in climate action. While individual children’s messages on the segments include pledges and pleas (Save the Future for Us), the aerial overview spells out the message “#1.5C” reminding the world of the Paris Agreement where 195 nations pledged to reduce emissions, holding global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“1 Heart 1 Tree” by Naziha Mestaoui. image on Eiffel Tower, 2015, by Yann Caradoc. Wikimedia commons.
France’s Eiffel Tower turned into a banner proclaiming the message to stop climate change in 2015. Artist Naziha Mestaoui designed “1 Heart 1 Tree” for people to add, via a mobile app, a virtual tree to a green installation on the Tower while actual trees were planted in Australia, Brazil, India, Kenya, Peru, and Senegal. Mestaoui was inspired by the “trees of peace” program in Kenya, designed by Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai.
Many cities around the world have iconic monuments: Sydney’s Opera House, New York’s Empire State Building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa are among the possible “billboards” that may invite us to look up into a better future.
Keaton, Jamey. “Kids’ postcards blanket Alpine glacier in eco-friendly stunt.” 16 November 2018. AP News. https://www.apnews.com/97e0023d66754fcc8e6b5832d463a10b.
Paris Agreement complete text: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreemet.pdf.
Peltier, Elian. “Eiffel Tower Goes Green for Climate Talks.” 29 November 2015, The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/climate/2015-paris-climate-talks/eiffel-tower-goes-green-for-climate-talks.
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported Licen
