This fall, to raise awareness of the climate change crisis, adventurer Alex Bellini will spend up to 12 months living on an iceberg off the coast of Greenland. ©From the video “Adrift 2015,” Alex Bellini

Last year, 2014, was the warmest on record since 1880, according to scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. What is even more telling is that nine of the 10 warmest years since modern records began have now occurred since 2000.

Since 1880, the global average temperature has increased about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit, with most of that warming occurring during the last three to four decades. That trend is largely driven by the increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, caused by human emissions.

Alex will live in a Survival Capsule, adapting his lifestyle as the iceberg melts. ©From the video “Adrift 2015,” Alex Bellini

To raise awareness of this crisis, this fall Italian adventurer Alex Bellini has decided to live on an iceberg, broken off from a glacier in northwest Greenland. In a project he calls “Adrift,” he will spend up to 12 months on his cold, floating platform in order to witness the last phase of its life, before it melts away.

During his iceberg adventure in Greenland, Alex will reside in a Survival Capsule, a personal safety system designed by aerospace engineers based in Seattle, Washington. As the iceberg gets smaller and less stable, Alex will have to adapt his lifestyle and habits within his spherical home. He hopes that the adjustments that he will have to make will get people thinking about parallels in their own lives as our world warms. We will all need to be willing to change and adapt.

Heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, caused by human emissions, are causing our planet to rapidly warm. ©NASA Goddard

Watch the two videos below. In the first, from NASA, you’ll see a visual rendition of how our planet has warmed since 1880. In the second, Alex talks about his upcoming iceberg sojourn.

I’m not sure if Alex’s adventure will succeed in raising awareness about our rapidly warming planet or whether it’s just a publicity stunt. But if he should manage to cause even a little more attention to be paid to the climate change crisis, he deserves at least some credit for trying. We could certainly use some new ideas.

Here’s to finding your true places and natural habitats,

Candy