Painting rocks on Chalon Sombrero (Image: BBC)
File this in unrealized parody. The BBC beats the Onion.
The World Bank has awarded a Peruvian inventor $200,000 to paint rocks white. They hope if they make them the right colour the glacier will come back…
Can painting a mountain restore a glacier?
It is the first experimental step in an innovative plan to recuperate Peru’s disappearing Andean glaciers. The World Bank clearly believes the idea – the brainchild of 55-year-old Peruvian inventor, Eduardo Gold – has merit as it was one of the 26 winners from around 1,700 submissions in the “100 Ideas to Save the Planet” competition at the end of 2009.
Although he is yet to receive the $200,000 (£135,000) awarded by the World Bank, his pilot project is already underway on the Chalon Sombrero peak, 4,756 metres above sea level, in an area some 100km west of the regional capital of Ayacucho.
There are no paint brushes, the workers use jugs to splash the whitewash onto the loose rocks around the summit.
It is a laborious process but they have whitewashed two hectares in two weeks.
“Cold generates more cold, just as heat generates more heat,” says […]
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