Iceland might just have the perfect solution for cooling off heated political debate: activists there have been bidding to secure a seat of power for one of its most famous glaciers by making it president.
Snæfellsjökull is a glacier-capped volcano in western Iceland. It’s thought to be around 700,000 years old, but campaigners say that at the current rate of melting it could vanish altogether within the next half a century.
Aiming to position the climate crisis centre stage in Iceland’s presidential election on 1 June, they set out to have Snæfellsjökull’s glacier included on the ballot. Although they ultimately failed to garner sufficient signatures in support of the nomination, activists behind the candidacy bid say it’s just the beginning.