On 12 September 2021, a few hundred people walked into the Alps to mourn the death of the Basòdino glacier. Since 1850, Basòdino has retreated by 80 per cent. What remains, high on the summit, is officially termed ‘dead ice’.
Scientists, climate activists, locals and church representatives ascended with rocks in their hands to build a commemorative cairn for the ceremony in Italian-speaking Ticino. A polyphonic choir sang farewell and a Catholic priest gave a blessing. Speakers included glaciologist Giovanni Kappenberger, who has studied Basòdino for three decades, and 17-year-old Chiara Juss from the school climate strike movement Fridays for Future, who knows the ice will be gone before she is 40. Highlighting social injustice and the global nature of the climate crisis, Sanju Maharjan Marzi, a Nepali resident of Ticino, spoke about the rapid collapse of glaciers in the Himalayas, a region only responsible for a fraction of carbon emissions yet already suffering frightening ecological shifts, with drought followed by violent downpours that destroy crops and villages.
