Giving Compass' Take:

• The Atlantic reports on volunteers in Iceland who literally use measuring tape to see how much the country's icebergs have melted over the years — the dedication is inspiring; the results are alarming.

• What can environmentalists learn from this grassroots effort in Iceland? And, more importantly, what are we doing to fight climate change in a measurable way?

• Here's why we must act swiftly to tackle these issues for our survival.

A 30-meter Komelon-branded measuring tape, a pencil, and a yellow paper form are all Hallsteinn Haraldsson carries with him when he travels to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland. But unfurling the measuring tape before me at his home in Mosfellsbær, a town just outside of Reykjavík, he says it is a significant upgrade from the piece of marked rope he used to bring along.

With 11 percent of the landmass covered in ice, rapidly ebbing glaciers are threatening to reshape Iceland’s landscape, and Haraldsson, 74, is part of a contingent of volunteer glacier monitors who are at the frontlines of tracking the retreat. Every autumn, Haraldsson, often accompanied by his wife and son, sets off on foot to measure the changes in his assigned glacier.

Their rudimentary tools are a far cry from the satellites and time-lapse photography deployed around the world in recent decades to track ice loss, and lately, there’s been talk of disbanding this nearly century-old, low-tech network of monitors. But this sort of ground-truthing work has more than one purpose: With Iceland’s glaciers at their melting point, these men and women — farmers, schoolchildren, a plastic surgeon, even a Supreme Court judge — serve not only as the glaciers’ guardians, but also their messengers.

Today, some 35 volunteers monitor 64 measurement sites around the country. The numbers they collect are published in the Icelandic scientific journal Jokull, and submitted to the World Glacier Monitoring Service database. Vacancies for glacier monitors are rare and highly sought-after, and many glaciers have been in the same family for generations, passed down to sons and daughters, like Haraldsson, when the journey becomes too arduous for their aging watchmen.

Read the full article about the glacier monitors in Iceland by Gloria Dickie and Undark at The Atlantic.