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Famed Painting ‘The Scream’ Targeted by Climate Activists

People look at Edvard Munch's "The Scream" at the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway, Sunday Jan. 13, 2019. (AP)
People look at Edvard Munch's "The Scream" at the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway, Sunday Jan. 13, 2019. (AP)
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Famed Painting ‘The Scream’ Targeted by Climate Activists

People look at Edvard Munch's "The Scream" at the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway, Sunday Jan. 13, 2019. (AP)
People look at Edvard Munch's "The Scream" at the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway, Sunday Jan. 13, 2019. (AP)

Norwegian police said two climate activists tried in vain Friday to glue themselves to Edvard Munch’s 1893 masterpiece "The Scream" at an Oslo museum and no harm was reported to the painting of a waif-like figure appearing to scream.

Police said they were alerted by the National Museum of Norway and had three people under their "control." A third person filmed the pair that tried to affix to the painting, Norwegian news agency NTB said.

The museum said that the room where the glass-protected painting is exhibited "was emptied of the public and closed," and will reopen as soon as possible. The rest of museum remained open.

Police said there was glue residue on the glass mount.

A video of the incident showed museum guards holding two activists, with one shouting "I scream for people dying." Another shouted "I scream when lawmakers ignore science" as someone shielded "The Scream."

Environmental activists from the Norwegian organization "Stopp oljeletinga" — Norwegian for Stop Oil Exploration — were behind the stunt, saying they "wanted to pressure lawmakers into stopping oil exploration." Norway is a major producer of offshore oil and gas.

It was the latest episode in which climate activists have targeted famous paintings in European museums.

"We are campaigning against ‘Scream’ because it is perhaps Norway’s most famous painting," Astrid Rem, a spokesperson for the Norwegian group, told The Associated Press. "There have been lots of similar actions around Europe. They have managed something that no other action has managed: achieve an extremely large amount of coverage and press."

Two Belgian activists who targeted Johannes Vermeer’s "Girl with a Pearl Earring" in a Dutch museum in October were sentenced to two months in prison. The painting wasn't damaged and was returned to its wall a day later.

Earlier this month, climate protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum and a similar protest happened in London, where protesters threw soup over Vincent van Gogh’s "Sunflowers" at the National Gallery. In both those cases, the paintings also weren't damaged.

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Swiss Glacier Melt Exceeds Average in 2024 after Hot Summer

This photograph shows the Rhone Glacier and its glacial lake, formed by the melting of the glacier, above Gletsch, in the Swiss Alps, on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
This photograph shows the Rhone Glacier and its glacial lake, formed by the melting of the glacier, above Gletsch, in the Swiss Alps, on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
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Swiss Glacier Melt Exceeds Average in 2024 after Hot Summer

This photograph shows the Rhone Glacier and its glacial lake, formed by the melting of the glacier, above Gletsch, in the Swiss Alps, on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
This photograph shows the Rhone Glacier and its glacial lake, formed by the melting of the glacier, above Gletsch, in the Swiss Alps, on September 30, 2024. (AFP)

Swiss glaciers melted at an above-average rate in 2024 as a blistering hot summer thawed through abundant snowfall, monitoring body GLAMOS said on Tuesday.

Earlier this year, glaciologists had celebrated heavy winter and spring snow dumps in the Alps, hoping this would signal a halt to years of hefty declines or even a reversal of losses.

But with average August temperatures a few degrees above freezing even at the 3,571 meter high Jungfraujoch station perched above the Aletsch Glacier, scientists measured record ice losses across the country that month.

Overall, GLAMOS said Swiss glaciers lost 2.5% of their volume this year which was above the average of the past decade.

"It is worrying to me that despite the perfect year we actually had for glaciers, with the snow-rich winter and the rather cool and rainy spring, it was still not enough," said Matthias Huss, Director of GLAMOS.

"If the trend continues that we have seen in this year, this will be a disaster for Swiss glaciers," he added.

One of the factors that accelerated the losses this year was dust from the Sahara, the report said. This gives ice sheets a brown or rosy hue which inhibits their ability to reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere.

Pictures posted by Huss on social media during data collection trips in recent weeks showed muddy streams snaking through ice sheets so thin that rocks and gravel protruded.

"There is really a relation you build up with the site, with the ice, and it hurts a bit to see how the rocks are simply taking over," he told Reuters earlier this month, while measuring ice on the Pers Glacier in eastern Switzerland.

More than half of the glaciers in the Alps are in Switzerland where temperatures are rising by around twice the global average due to climate change.

Last week, the Swiss government gave approval to revise segments of its border with Italy since the melting of the icy ridges between the two countries has reshaped the watersheds which fix the boundary.

If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the Alps' glaciers are expected to lose more than 80% of their current mass by 2100.

Earlier this year, Europe's top human rights court ruled that Switzerland was not doing enough to arrest the impact of climate change. The Swiss government denies this.