A future melting away: rivulets from the Northern Schneeferner glacier run into a small lake on the Zugspitze plateau, Germany. The once-vast glacier is expected to be gone by mid-century
© SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES)
The hospital looks, at ground level, like any other hospital. Newer, perhaps. Shinier than what one might be used to, with its gleaming white partitions, armchairs of royal blue, and a radiant striplamp atop each of its 300 beds. But look up, and the artifice is revealed. Above the rows of neat cubicles, the hall’s roof hangs cavernously overhead: exposed pipework, spotlights, vast glowing exit signs.