Despite inaction on behalf of climate issues by the USA government there is some hope as mayors of major cities seem to be pushing things forward. I was honoured to see that Eric Garcetti Mayor of LA chose the text I wrote in memory of Ok glacier as a call to action at the C40 conference in LA. C40 represents many of the largest megacities in the world, with 700 million inhabitants and 25% of the global GDP. In the words of Garcetti:
,,As your incoming Chair, I will work with you to make the 2020s the decade of climate action.
This is the single most important decade in human history … a decade that will define and determine whether life sustains as we know it …
And there are reminders all around us.
One of them is in Iceland, about two hours to the northeast of Reykjavík, where you’ll find the Ok volcano.
On top of the volcano, a group of people recently placed a plaque titled “a letter to the future.”
It reads: “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as glacier. In the next 200 years all our main glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it. August 2019. 415 ppm CO2.”
Only you — our descendants and their descendants — will know if we did it.”
The Ok text is at minute 12:50 in the video and full speech can be seen here.
