Kids across the world expressed concerns about global warming by creating what organizers say is the world’s biggest postcard on a glacier in the Swiss Alps.
Bearing messages of hope and commitment, more than 125,000 colorful and hand-written postcards from kids around the world have emblazoned a glacier in Switzerland to create one giant one, half the size of a football field.
It is a cry of help — from New Orleans to Hong Kong, from sub-Saharan Africa to India — ahead of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Katowice, Poland, next month.
Photo: AFP
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and partners on Friday unfurled a “compound postcard” on top of the threatened Aletsch Glacier, the longest and deepest in the Alps, which is on track to melt to nonexistence by the end of this century if global warming trends continue.
Organizers say the postcards delivered to the glacier 3,400m above sea level near Switzerland’s famed Jungfraujoch aimed to set a Guinness World Record for the “postcard with the most contributions.”
Guinness said the attempt has not been registered. The current record is only 16,000.
Pinned down with clamps and nets, and laminated in long glued-together strips to protect them from the ice and snow, the postcards bore messages of efforts to fight climate change and help the environment, such as limiting water use, promises to use public transportation or recycling old goods before buying new ones.
“They are asking us and their leaders to take action to preserve the planet Earth for them to have a future on it,” Swiss Youth for Climate founder Oceane Dayer said.
Ever mindful of the impact, organizers are calculating the CO2 footprint caused by sending so many postcards — often through Swiss diplomatic posts — and preparing to double the offset.
Drones with cameras buzzed overhead as sunshine bounced off the white mountainside.
Overhead, cards spelled out “Stop global warming” and “#1.5C” — an allusion to the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5°C.
Organizers want to launch a “Global Climate Change Youth Movement” to compliment the UN meeting.
Organizers plan to use a snapshot of the giant compound postcard to make, well, a postcard.
HOUSES FLOODED: The ground shook in Tonga as explosions were heard, followed by gushing water and pelting rocks, sending people running to higher ground A massive volcanic eruption in Tonga that triggered tsunami waves around the Pacific caused “significant damage” to the island nation’s capital and smothered it in dust, but the full extent was not apparent with communications still cut off yesterday. The eruption on Saturday was so powerful that it was recorded around the world, triggering a tsunami that flooded Pacific coastlines from Japan to the US. Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa, suffered “significant” damage, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding that there had been no reports of injury or death, but a full assessment was not possible with communication lines down. “The tsunami has
‘ZERO’ STRATEGY: Carrie Lam said the airline faced a probe over its compliance with the rules after an outbreak was traced to air crew who breached quarantine Cathay Pacific is being investigated and faces possible legal action over an outbreak of COVID-19 in Hong Kong that began with the airline’s employees, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) said yesterday. The revelation came as Lam announced the suspension of all kindergarten and primary schools until after the Lunar New Year early next month. Like China, Hong Kong maintains a “zero COVID” strategy that has largely cut the international finance hub off from the mainland and the rest of the world for the past two years. A recent outbreak traced to Cathay Pacific air crew who breached home quarantine has sparked
PORT CONGESTION: Ships heading for Omicron-affected Dalian and Tianjin are being redirected to Shanghai, which does not have the capacity for the sudden cargo influx China has detected the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in a second major port city, deepening concern that the vastly more infectious variant could spread quickly across the world’s largest trading nation, upending global supply chains. Chinese officials said yesterday that at least one person has Omicron in Dalian, a city of 7 million. A second person also tested positive for the virus, but the variant is unknown. Both are college students who returned home for the Lunar New Year holiday from Tianjin, where at least 137 other cases were traced as of Wednesday. Dalian joins Tianjin as the second crucial port city
Japan extended measures barring almost all new foreign arrivals until the end of next month and is to reopen mass vaccination centers as it battles an surge of COVID-19 cases, the government said yesterday. “We will keep the current border control policy until the end of February while taking necessary measures from a humanitarian viewpoint and considering the national interest,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters. Local media said that there would be some new exemptions for members of Japanese families as well as students studying in Japan, but there were no immediate details from officials. The government is also to reopen
RSS