Getting Cold to Spread Global Warming Message
Hundreds of people posed naked on Switzerland’s shrinking Aletsch glacier today for US photographer Spencer Tunick as part of a Greenpeace campaign to raise awareness of global warming.
Tunick, perched on a ladder and using a megaphone, directed nearly 600 volunteers from all over Europe and photographed them on a rocky outcrop overlooking the glacier, which is the largest in the Alps. 
Later he took pictures of them standing in groups on the mass of ice and lying down. Camera crews were staged at five different points on the glacier to take photographs.
Glaciers are sensitive to climate change and have been receding since the start of the industrial age but the pace of shrinkage has accelerated in recent years.
The environmental group Greenpeace, which organised the shoot, said the aim was to “establish a symbolic relationship between the vulnerability of the melting glacier and the human body”.
The Aletsch descends around the south side of the Jungfrau mountain in the Upper Rhone Valley. Alpine glaciers have lost about one-third of their length and half their volume over the past 150 years. The Aletsch ice mass has retreated by 115 metres in the last two years alone, said Greenpeace.
Tunick has staged mass nude photo shoots in cities across the world, from Newcastle in Britain to Mexico City, where a record 18,000 people took off their clothes in the Mexican capital’s Zocalo square in May.
Speaking to Geneva’s Le Temps newspaper in an interview published before the shoot today, Tunick said his photographs were both works of art and political statements.
“I will try to treat the body on two levels. On an abstract level, as if they were flowers or stones. And on a more social level, to represent their vulnerability and humanity with regard to nature and the city and to remind people where we come from.”
Switzerland has about 1800 glaciers and almost all of them are losing ground.
© Reuters 2007
Hopefully their assets won’t be frozen!
And unless we succeed in reversing global warming the easy, solalectric way for homes, autos and ourselves, more of US will be likewise reverting to the bare essentials and naked existence.
Very good Jaded and the picture is frozen in time.Tony
What are stunts like this supposed to prove?
PJD wrote:
“What are stunts like this supposed to prove?”
For a large percentage of the human population and particularly the American population, “stunts” are the only way to get them to pay any attention at all. Granted, that’s a shame.
We need a mandated comprehensive education plan which arms junior high school and high school students with knowledge. They need to learn about their environment, food chain, etc. Over the course of my 60 or so years I have been astonished by how much knowledge trickles up to other family members from their children. Moreover, they can carry the knowledge forward as they become the leaders and voters of the future. Let’s hope we have time for that to happen. I have three young grandsons and I worry for their future - not just their happiness but their very survival!
PJD August 19th, 2007 5:32 pm
“What are stunts like this supposed to prove?”
They prove that some people might actually read the article along with the naked bodies they’re viewing and perhaps learn something about the enviormental crisis the world is facing.
Climate Deniers = Climate Dodos
“The Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) was a flightless bird that lived on the islands of Mauritius. Related to pigeons and doves, it stood about a meter tall (three feet), lived on fruit and nested on the ground.
“The dodo has been extinct since the mid-to-late 17th century. It is commonly used as the archetype of an extinct species because its extinction occurred during recorded human history, and was directly attributable to human activity. The phrase “as dead as a dodo” means undoubtedly and unquestionably dead.” — Wikepedia
But, what are photos of affluent white people, shivering naked on a glacier proving about global warming? What about the all the brown and black people in dying in heat waves and floods?
One thing at a time PJD. The planet is dying—some from chills, some from fever…”Ice is also great and would suffice”. I think it’s a great commentary.
One other lesson involved in stunts like this is learning to sanction all attempts. Within the discussions engendered we learn to listen and accept. We learn a new vocabulary. We get inspired. We meet new people. We explore the limits and even the contradictions of the statement and so are able to reengage with more fullness and understanding. What is the point of such stunts? We learn.
affluent white people: Front row, fifth from the left. I think I dated this guy once.
“What are stunts like this supposed to prove?”
Is it not better that it was done than if it wasn’t?
FINALLY! Someone is doing something about global warming.
It’s about time!
Cheeky people!
Knowingly they by hands koe that cover!
Interesting in a way, and sad but predictable in another, that the comments pretty clearly reflect the inability of Americans to get beyond ’stunts’ and ‘jokes’ when confronted with nudity. Y’all consider yur’selfs purgressivs? Or is everyone really that uncomfortable with their natural form?
sorry, don’t get me wrong, i love humor and find it’s place in life to be unfortunately lessened in these times. And Jaded Prole; a good joke.
what i am saying is that any serious comments or reflections on the merit of this artist’s work, it’s meaning, and the silliness of how such displays in America are lacking are most likely due to the puritanical broomstick up most everyone’s butt in America. it’s like Americans are a bunch of elementary school kids who, looking at National Geographic, miss the story entirely because all they can do is giggle at the ‘boobs’.
Saw a short clip of this photo shoot on CNN.com. Showed these people before they got undressed. Many had bottled water with them. How can they stand naked for the environment with bottled water? Hypocrites.
Having bottled water with them ? would you take a chance in this pollutes age to eat snow?
How about their transportation? possible motorized . Would you have climbed tthis Glacier how ever far naked?
No these naked people are not purist.They came trying to do something to get more people to think aboout Global Warming.
Just what has any of us done to try to inform others about Global Warming?
ADD a Comment Here? WOW?
Just the bare facts, please.
PJD August 19th, 2007 9:12 pm
But, what are photos of affluent white people, shivering naked on a glacier proving about global warming? What about the all the brown and black people in dying in heat waves and floods?
—
Photographing a crowd of nude people in varied settings is the way this particular photographer expresses his ideas. This isn’t his first photograph of shivering naked people — it’s an entire body of work.
Being the most poignant or even most effective photograph on the subject of global warming surely wasn’t his concern. You are correct to point out that it isn’t. That would probably be documentary in nature as opposed to something so obviously staged. However that’s not to say there isn’t plenty of room for this way, or any other way, to express it.
You can call these folks hypocrites if you like, but the photograph created a thread of discussion here that otherwise would not exist.
Affluent white people - since they bear the lion’s share of responsibility for the conditions which led to the crisis, it seems quite fitting that they, and not their brown and black brethren, are out there freezing their assets off.
This doesn’t add to the discussion but I read a book about ten years ago by a Doctor in Marin County, CA.
He argued in his book that art often preceded science and then of course, general knowledge.
I believe that art is truly a step ahead of both science and society.
Whether a person likes or dislikes a certain form of art, the truth is that art is almost always ahead of scientific thought and the general people’s knowledge
As one example, I will use science fiction. How many books - works of art - have led to an advancement in science?
I think it is good that these people be shown naked on a melting, dying, glacier.
It might not be in advance of scientific thought, but it is certainly ahead of governmental - and as a consequence - public knowledge.
The botteled water is another issue. And indeed an impotant issue. But let’s not let these issues cloud then message of the artist’s intentions
I speak humbly. I know that many of you who write here know much more than I. I am only offering my view.
what on earth (literally) could be wrong with an action like this, for anyone? we’re all human, right? i mean that is one thing we truly can’t deny.
also, how do the above writers automatically know the people who did this are “privaleged” … ? is there some bar code on their behind that says “im rich?” are we to assume they are becuase they stand nude on a glacier in europe?
and, um, also, there are more than a few brown bums in the photo, so, i’m wondering if the people being so critical here are, well, working for exxon? or is it massey?
people who cast doubts and heap abuse on activists for being “hypocrites” because they happen to live in the 21st century and drink from a water bottle occaisionally are probably just trying to cloud the picture. to smear the brave nudists, slime up a little murky swamp fr themselves in the midst of something creative and fun that might even actually get some people thinking about how we are (quite nakedly) becoming an endangered species. along with the noble beasts we so casually push off the brink of existence. as if we have the right to eliminate other species! and we do, every single day.
whoever’s playing the race card, again, (ad nauseum as usual), perhaps doesnt understand that climate change is going to kick all of our multicoloured asses, eventually. there is no “away” from planet earth, no gated community that will not suffer from the Great Unraveling.
Another thing…they are in good shape, too, these europeans. no telltale fast food flab on the lovely behinds in this picture. how would we look, by comparison?
i say we should all do the same thing, whatever color we are. get some much needed exercise. get off our butts and take action. perhaps we might climb a glacier, for example!
that is if we can find any glaciers left in glacier national park…i believe we have lost about 80% so far.
privaleged, indeed.
Here, here is another way to get COLD to fight global warming - in a group activity that will help impact the public debate right before the the U.S. presidential primaries, *and* raise thousands of dollars for your group to continue the work!
Check out the National Polar Bear Plunge at www.keepwintercold.org
And join us this coming December 8!
Gordon
Needs more color. This movment is still to bland.
hybridoma2001 August 20th, 2007 11:53 am
You mentioned Science Fiction. It has often predicted the future.
I recently bought an anthology of modern, award winning science fiction stories. They were all on such subjects as people being hunted down and shot for trying to preserve fruits and vegetables that were not genetically modified and sterile. Agribusiness contemptuously refers to farmers who hold out a part of their seed for future crops as “brown baggers.”
Other stories were of people trying to cancel out their chipped identities, or trying to travel to see friends when permission to travel was denied.
If science fiction is holding to its past trends, then we are in deeper trouble than anyone is willing to admit. There was nothing in the anthology about space travel, or exploration, or peace. So sad.
WTF was the Iwo Jima flag raising picture about? Or the naked napalmed kids in Vietnam? Just a bunch of pixels.
A photo of naked brown folk being swept away in a flood would be interesting but hard to stage. Brown folk dying in a heat wave-Darfur! Also an interesting concept.
Not satisfied? Step this way, and let me inform you that, most assuredly, we have something just for you. Yes Ma’am, you too, and you sir, right over here, see, this is especially for you! Something for everyone, that is our motto, right this way, we aim to please.
Did it ever occur to anyone that nothing is for everyone? If the people who are in power are primarily white (like the people in the photo), well then maybe, just maybe it might do some good to create a message, an artistic message no less, a message about the perils of their own endeavors, that speaks to them.
Sorry if anyone feels left out. Grow up.
we already know from the war that millions of people protesting in the street solves nothing. how about millions of naked gun-toting people occupying the halls of congress
We have to stop putting so many personal demands on the environment and learn to live with less manufactured goods and less travel and less fuel consumption. Wear more clothing in winter and less in the summer. Use less air conditioning and heating. Get green. Learn to share.