Noah's Ark replica in works to battle warming

Activists build it to attract attention to rising temperatures, and sea levels

	Material for Greenpeace's ark sits near mount Ararat in Agri, eastern Turkey, on Sunday.
Manuel Citak / Greenpeace via AP

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updated 11:21 a.m. ET May 16, 2007

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Greenpeace announced Wednesday that it's been building a replica of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat — where the original Biblical Ark is said to have landed after the great flood — in an appeal to world leaders to take action against global warming.

Turkish and German volunteer carpenters are making the wooden ship on the mountain in eastern Turkey, bordering Iran. The Ark will be revealed in a ceremony on May 31, a day after Greenpeace activists climb the mountain and call on world leaders to take action to tackle climate change, Greenpeace said.

"Climate change is real, it's happening now and unless world leaders take urgent, decisive and far-reaching action, the next decades will see human misery on a scale not experienced in modern times," said Greenpeace activist Hilal Atici. "Those leaders have a mandate from the people ... to massively cut greenhouse gas emissions and to do it now."

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"This Ark sends that clear message on behalf of all the world's citizens," she said.

Many countries are struggling to address global and national standards for carbon reduction. This week, U.N. delegates are meeting in Germany to prepare for December negotiations on a new set of international rules for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. The new accord would succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012.

IMAGE: ARK
Manuel Citak / AP
The ark is seen under construction last Saturday.
Climate change will also be on the agenda when the Group of Eight major industrialized countries — the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia — meet in Germany in June.

Global warming is not just about rising temperatures, but also potentially melting ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland, which could raise sea levels by several feet or more over time.