Greenjobs Blog

There are a lot of different ways to make people aware of climate change, but this is probably the most creative we have seen. On the 2nd of September, one thousand tiny sculpted ice men melted as they sat on the stairs near the central Gendarmenmarkt square in Berlin, Germany.

1000 icy men melting in Berlin

This was performed by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF), to make people aware about climate change, and specifically about the climate change effects on the Arctic. The Ice men were sculpted by brazilian artist Néle Azevedo. However, this is not the first time that she has done this, as she has been sculpting tiny ice men since 2005. In that moment she criticised the role of the monuments in cities, but nowadays her work is being used by environmentalists to spotlight that climate change can affect us in many different ways.

This has been a good idea which makes us think about how global warming can affect all of us.  Indeed melting  ice from the Arctic could make oceans rise more than 1 metre if current greenhouse gases emissions continue increasing.

These icy men started melting after 30 minutes, at 23 ºC, which was the current temperature in Berlin.

To avoid greenhouse gases emissions, pollution and energy waste, some countries in Europe are banning incandescent bulbs from stores. Current stock will be sold, and shops won’t be allowed to import or buy more incandescent bulbs. We will be forced to gradually switch to energy efficient illumination.

In the next three years, up to 27 countries in Europe will ban incandescent bulbs. We have already talked about this topic in our blog, explaining different types of light bulbs and lamps, but now we can only support this initiative.

However, as always, there are people who dislike this. For example, some people say this is being implemented because of the market interests of large corporations. Other people claim this is not the way to go, as CFL lamps contain mercury. Anyway, we will save energy no matter what, compared to the current situation.

The problem is that we’ll need to change sockets in some cases, and people seem to be worried about this, as some retailers in Germany have reported sales increases of about 600%.

The amount of energy saved will scale up to 40 Terawatt hours per year, enough to provide energy to a small country.