Fri. Aug. 15, 2025
Transcript:
Last summer, a field in Iceland was transformed into a graveyard with headstones carved from ice. It memorialized not people but glaciers that have melted as the climate warms.
Boyer: “The world loses 273 billion tons of glacial ice each year. That’s a staggering figure, a lot of zeros, right?
But Dominic Boyer of Rice University says it’s hard to grasp what the number represents. So he and fellow anthropology professor Cymene Howe are helping to make the loss feel more personal using common rituals around death.
Their team created the glacier graveyard. They held a funeral for a glacier. And they launched the Global Glacier Casualty List, a website where people can learn about dozens of glaciers that have melted away or will soon be gone.
Users can see images of each one and read its story – almost like an obituary – written by people with a personal connection to the glacier.
Howe: “For them, glaciers are not these abstract bodies of ice, but they are sources of water. They are sources of folk tales and history and origin stories.”
The team hopes that sharing these stories will help people connect to the loss – and inspire climate action.
Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy / ChavoBart Digital Media
