Our memorial for Okjökull, the first of Iceland’s major glaciers to fall to climate change, was meant as a global call to action and in memory of a world melting away. Our gathering began at the base of Ok mountain and culminated in a ceremony at the top, at the site of Ok’s demise. There, we said some words, and had the youngest among us push Ok’s memorial plaque into place.

Our small service on the barren edge of Iceland’s central highlands captured global attention and was covered by more than 10,000 media outlets in nearly every country in the world. The story was distributed by Reuters, Agence France Presse and AP and featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Der Spiegel and Le Monde, The Guardian, USA Today and CNN and televised widely in Australia, Germany, India, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Rachel Maddow devoted a whole segment to Ok and even unlikely venues like Popular Mechanics and Elle gave it full features.