Iceland unveils memorial plaque for lost glacier

Iceland has been commemorating the country’s first glacier lost to climate change, with a memorial plaque warning of the effects of global warming being installed at the site.

Icelandic officials, activists and others took part in a ceremony on Sunday that included poetry, silence and political speeches on the urgency of taking action to curb rising global temperatures.

The disappearance of Okjokull, a glacier in the west of the sub-Arctic island, is being seen as directly due to the warming of the climate caused by human activity.

The plaque bears the words: “This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”

This was the first of Iceland’s glaciers to disappear, but experts say that all of the nation’s ice masses would be gone in 200 years.

Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir called the glacial loss a consequence of the climate crisis.

Via DW/ The Guardian/ TIME