Climate Change Activists are Fundraising to Carve Trump’s Face into a Glacier

One evening not long ago, three Finnish friends got together for a couple beers. The melting ice on the beer glasses prompted the friends to discuss the melting ice caps and the gravity of climate change. One thought led to another and eventually an idea emerged—to carve the face of political indifference to the melting polar caps, Donald Trump, into an ice glacier.

In order to pursue their goal, which they quickly titled “Project Trumpmore”, the friends founded a non-governmental organization called the Melting Ice Association. The group’s chairman, Nicholas Prieto, explains that the broader aim of the group’s project is to encourage citizens around the world to put pressure on their leaders to develop policies which will stop or reverse the effects of climate change.

“The sculpture, in a sense, is not the thing that we want to do for the long term. It’s the short term,” he says. “I think that the ice sculpture would be a monument for an environmental evolution […] because people need something to rally up on. Hopefully this [will] remind people about climate change.”

The group is currently seeking €400,000 to realize their project. Prieto’s initial calculations estimate that only €150,000 will be required to carve the sculpture. The rest of the money will be used to fund a documentary discussing the complex issues encompassed by climate change.

“If we want to preserve our planet for the future generations we need to do something,” says Prieto. “[We have to change] the mindset of the people and the mindset of our leaders because I don’t believe it would be up to [us] as individuals to stop this. [We] don’t have the tools. It is about the leaders of each nation [and what] they can do to help the environment.”

Prieto says that, in considering what would make the most appropriate symbol to carve into the ice, President Trump was the only real choice.  The President’s withdrawal from the 2016 Paris Climate Accord, his repeated assertions that climate change may not be real, and his desire to be memorialized on Mount Rushmore were all taken into consideration during the project’s initial planning stages.

So, what does the U.S. President have to say about Project Trumpmore? Prior to the launch of their campaign website, Prieto sent Trump a tweet asking him if he would like to partner up with them.

“Because [President Trump] may have the money for it, and if his views are true and climate change is not real and is just a Chinese hoax, then the monument would be there for years to come in his honor, so there might be a silver lining in his mind to this project,” says Prieto.

So far there has been no response from the Trump administration.

Since the launch of their campaign website, Prieto has been overwhelmed by the response his team has received from the international community. While the project has drawn a fair number of critics, Prieto says that the response has generally been positive. He has had emails from all over the world offering support and proposing potential locations for Project Trumpmore.

Currently, the primary obstacle is raising the requisite €400,000. The group’s fundraising efforts have been hindered by their inability to establish a crowdfunding campaign as a result of  Finland’s strict crowdsourcing regulations. The group is considering joining up with other non-governmental organizations who have the licenses needed to start a crowdfunding campaign, or partnering with philanthropists who would be willing to sponsor their endeavour.

Prieto is confident that, once they have the money, finding a location for Project Trumpmore will be easy. After the fundraising has finished, he estimates that their team could be ready to carve the sculpture in as little as two or three weeks, and that the actual construction of Project Trumpmore will last about 10 days.

In the meantime, the Melting Ice Association’s message to President Trump and other world leaders remains the same: “Please consider the environment and environmental issues because there is no Planet B.”