A gigantic postcard is seen on the Aletsch glacier under Jungfraujoch in Switzerland, on Nov. 16, 2018. The gigantic postcard breaking the Guinness World Records was staged just under the Swiss Jungfraujoch on Friday to raise awareness worldwide of the emergency and necessity to fight climate change. (Xinhua/Xu Jinquan)
A gigantic postcard breaking the Guinness Worlds Records was staged just under the Swiss Jungfraujoch on Friday to raise awareness worldwide of the emergency and necessity to fight climate change.
The postcard was composed of 125,000 small cards, each with drawings, messages and wishes of fighting climate change from children and youngsters from 35 countries worldwide, mostly developing countries, according to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the event's organizer.
The record-breaking postcard was placed on the Aletsch glacier just under Jungfraujoch, as a powerful image of the strong impact of climate change on high mountain regions in the country.
At the center of the postcard was a huge slogan that read "STOP GLOBAL WARMING #1.5 °C" to signify the goal of limiting global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius, a target recently set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It shows that under certain conditions, it's still possible to keep the impacts of climate change at a tolerable level.
According to SDC Vice-Director Thomas Gass, the postcard was a perfect lesson for adults instead of children, which sent a strong message to the world's political leaders that actions, rather than promises, need to be taken immediately to address global warming and climate change, otherwise both generations of today and of the future will suffer the consequences of climate change for a long time.
The event's location, the Aletsch glacier situated at an altitude of more than 3,400 meters, has been a perfect example of climate change impact, Gass said. Stretching over 23 km, the Aletsch Glacier in the Swiss canton of Valais is the longest in Europe, measuring 1.5 km wide on average and 900 meters at its thickest point.
Scientific studies in Switzerland have shown that the Aletsch glacier, together with the vast majority of glaciers in central Switzerland, are melting at an ever-quickening pace and could almost disappear by the end of this century. According to the SDC, many of the world's glaciers are shrinking rapidly and will disappear completely in the near future.
