Why did Iceland hold a funeral for a glacier?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2019

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Last week around a hundred people in Iceland walked up the side of a windswept rocky mountain to attend the funeral… of a glacier. Okjokull’s death was a result of climate change, and scientists predict that within 200 years all of Iceland’s glaciers will go the same way. So, what does the death of Okjokull mean for a country whose national identity is woven into its frozen landscape? And, why is ice melting in the subarctic a warning to the rest of the world? We speak to the author Andri Snaer Magnusson about how you write a eulogy to a glacier, and what Okjokull’s death means to Iceland and its future. We also talk to climate scientist Ruth Mottram from the Danish Meteorological Institute about the science behind melting ice sheets and why the death of Ok should matter to us all. Producers: Alicia Burrell and Jessica Beck Mixed by Andy Mills Editor: John Shields

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, this is Beyond Today from Radio 4.
0:10.3	Every day we ask one big question about one big story.
0:14.0	Today why did Iceland hold a funeral for a glassia? I'm Harriet Noble and you might have heard me pop up before as one of
0:36.2	beyond today's producers. Well while Matthews away I'm going to be presenting a
0:40.7	couple of episodes too and for today's episode we're going to go to the front line of
0:46.7	the battle against climate change, to some of the places in the world that are feeling its impact first.
0:53.0	And our story starts on the side of an Icelandic mountain.
0:58.0	When it's a very rocky walk. You have to have your eyes on each and every step because it's just like a big pile of rocks and then in about two hours we would ascend to the top. Last Sunday about a hundred people, including
1:16.7	Iceland's Prime Minister, climbed to the top of a mountain in the west of the
1:21.2	country, on their way to a funeral.
1:24.0	On a gray windy day, kitted out in cold weather hiking gear,
1:29.0	they gathered around a bare rock as a copper plaque was attached to say their goodbyes to a glacier.
1:37.2	On top of a mountain instead of glaciers is lake now. It never was a lake because it wasn't
1:42.2	supposed to be above frost level.
1:45.0	So this lake is like a blue eye that is basically looking into the sky from this mountaintop.
1:50.0	The Icelandic author Andre Magnison was one of them.
1:55.0	We started walking in silence until we came to the rock where we were placing the plague and it was actually quite moving. It was strange to imagine that where you stood, it used to have like 50 meters of snow before.
2:10.0	He wrote the eulogy that is engraved on the plaque.
2:14.0	A letter to the future.
2:17.0	Ork Glacier is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status.
2:23.0	In the next 200 years, we expect all our glaciers to follow the same path.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.