TURKEY: Noah's Ark rebuilt to show climate change threat

Environmental activists in eastern Turkey have rebuilt Noah's Ark on the lush green foothills of snow-capped Mount Ararat, where legend says the vessel came to rest. The wooden boat, which volunteers are racing to complete under bright sunshine by the end of May, is part of a growing wave of initiatives to raise global awareness about climate change and is timed to coincide with next month's G-8 Summit in Germany. "The answer in this myth was a flood, a climate catastrophe, and that is what is going to happen now and the sins of the human beings are sins against the environment and nature and if we don't stop that immediately and do everything against that it could happen that we get another flood or a new climate catastrophe," said Wolfgang Sadik, campaign leader for Greenpeace, which is behind the project, as carpenters hammered away at the Ark's bow at an altitude of 2,400 metres. In the past, adventurers explored the mountain, near the borders with Iran and Armenia, in search of the original Ark. Turkish troops now patrol the region in search of Kurdish guerrillas engaged in a bloody separatist insurgency. Climate change has recently gained greater political currency. U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week discussed ways to narrow U.S.-European differences on the subject before the G8 summit. New French President Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged to put the fight against global warming at the heart of his foreign policy. The "LiveEarth" rock concerts in July are designed to raise further public awareness of the dangers. The rising interest comes after the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in a report that carbon dioxide emissions should at least halve by 2050 to avoid climate changes which the European Union says would be dangerous. But there are deep divisions on ways to tackle the threat. Germany wants G8 countries at next month's meeting to agree to the IPCC target and promote carbon trading as a way to penalise greenhouse gas emissions. But U.S. chief climate negotiator Harlan Watson said last week the United States will continue to reject emissions targets or cap and trade schemes and will fight climate change by funding clean energy technologies. The international debate is a world away from the idyllic slopes of Mount Ararat, where shepherds graze their sheep and swallow circle the brightly-coloured tents of the two dozen activists involved in the Greenpeace project. The mountain, up which horses last week hauled timber for the boat, seems likewise a world away from the nightmare scenario of natural disasters, food crises and disease which campaigners forecast will occur in the coming decades. "Climate change is everybody's problem and not one single person can stop this problem. All governments need an immediate action plan and another industrial revolution on renewables for example and the public really needs to be aware of its energy consumption" said Erkut Erturk, Turkish coordinator of the project. Rising seas are a central concern of climate change. The U.N. climate panel says seas are set to rise 18-59 cms this century, up from 17 cms in the 20th century. If all of the Greenland ice melted in coming millennia world sea levels would rise by about 7 metres. If the amount of ice stored in Antarctica melted they would rise by about 60 metres. According to Greenpeace, Turkey itself is failing itself to take the issue of climate change seriously, with the fastest rising emissions among OECD countries. Ankara plans to build nuclear power plants to meet rapidly growing energy needs of its 74 million-strong population. The volunteers camped out on the remote mountains of eastern Turkey, are hoping the symbol of the Ark, well-known to Jews, Christians and Muslims, will resonate around the world. In the ancient story, God decides to punish humanity's sins by destroying life on Earth with a flood. He chooses righteous Noah to preserve life by saving his family and pairs of all the world's animal on a boat. Such a menagerie would strain the model Ark, which is just 10 metres long and four metres high. It will even be a tight fit for climbers if as planned it ultimately becomes a mountain hut. Around the time the carpenters are scheduled to complete construction, mountaineers linked to the project will scale the 5,100 metre summit of Mount Ararat, believed by many to be where Noah's Ark came to rest when the flood waters receded. Working at high altitude in a remote place, volunteers face logistical problems. They are working against the clock ahead of a May 31 ceremony, when doves will be released from the boat and an appeal made to world leaders to counter global warming. "I like very much the idea of creating something by hand. Building a boat which we can fill our wishes inside and saying that we really need some change and putting it in a special place to show the world we have to change something now," said German carpenter Dagmar Albert.

ITN Source | May 24, 2007

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