Global Warming and Shrinkage

Naked volunteers pose for US photographer Spencer Tunick on the ice-cold Swiss glacier of Aletsch near the mountain resort of Bettmeralp. Nearly 600 volunteers stripped before the camera on a melting Swiss glacier high in the Alps on Saturday as part of a publicity campaign to expose the impact of climate change.(AFP/Fabrice Coffrini)
Where's Waldo?

Oops! I meant to say, "Where's Al Gore?"


Oh, no! It's shrinking!

Nearly 600 volunteers stripped before the camera on a melting Swiss glacier high in the Alps on Saturday as part of a publicity campaign to expose the impact of climate change.

The eco-conscious volunteers turned up under blue skies near the foot of the Aletsch glacier, a protected UNESCO World Heritage site.

Environmental group Greenpeace commissioned the photo shoot from world renowned photographer Spencer Tunick.

"Their numbers are close to 600," Nicolas de Roten of Greenpeace Switzerland told AFP. "It's relatively chilly but that doesn't seem to be disturbing them."

The campaign is aimed at drawing attention to melting Alpine glaciers, one clear sign of global warming and of man-made climate change, according to the group.

Greenpeace says the human body is as fragile as glaciers like the Aletsch in southern Switzerland and the world's environment. The glacier itself is now shrinking by about 100 metres (110 yards) a year.

"I want my images to go more than skin-deep. I want the viewers to feel the vulnerability of their existence and how it relates closely to the sensitivity of the world's glaciers," Tunick said.

The group hopes its billboard and poster campaign showing people exposed to the cold will send a shiver down the spines of public opinion and politicians, and convince them to do more to tackle pollution and climate change.

Wouldn't it be better to line up hundreds of sweltering, naked volunteers in a parched riverbed or a desert?

Maybe the sand was a deterrent.

It makes no sense to me that a campaign to frighten people about global warming would show 600 naked people out in the cold.

Unless, shrinkage is the key. Was that it? Focus on shrinkage?

Naked volunteers out in the cold might offer a powerful subliminal message pointing out the downside of a shrinking glacier.