NEWS

The Great Swiss Meltdown

07/29/2007

The New York Times 

Winterthur, Switzerland - Some years ago, when a German critic accused me of “meteorological mannerism” because weather plays such a large role in my books, a friend came to my defense: “We happen to have a lot of weather in Switzerland.” Even our national anthem is full of meteorological phenomena: we sing of gray mists and dark clouds and sunshine’s cleansing power.

My country’s diverse topography accommodates all kinds of climates, from Mediterranean to arctic. Forecasts roughly divide the country into two parts — the north and south sides of the Alps — but weather events are far more local; it frequently happens that one valley has a full day of rain while the next basks in sunshine.

Consequently, it’s not that easy to discern the changes in climate. Not every hot summer day is proof of global warming; nor does one winter’s heavy snowfall herald a new ice age. But the number of weather-related disasters has increased significantly, and the rise in temperature in Switzerland since the 1970s is double the average for the Northern Hemisphere.

The change is most clearly visible in the shrinking of our glaciers, which have lost almost 50 percent of their surface area in the past 150 years; half of this loss has occurred in the last 30. Some 100 out of our nearly 2,000 glaciers have already disappeared, and researchers predict that most will have melted away by 2050. The trend is unmistakable and some scientists fear it is irreversible. In the ski areas, some glaciers are covered with plastic sheeting during the summer months to delay the process at least a little. More radical measures are politically difficult; they would require that we reduce our consumption of fuel and gasoline, and scarcely anyone is ready for that.

A dangerous fatalism has spread among many Swiss. They are happy to see the water in the lakes getting warmer, and view the disappearance of the glaciers as a sad but not necessarily bad development. They blithely forget that the ice is also our reserve supply of drinking water, and make light of the fact that the ground is thawing along with the glaciers, sending mudslides into the valley. The tragic stories are rare, and they are reported on the daily news more as entertainment than admonition.

Most Swiss live in stable houses in the lowlands, far from the crashing slopes and the brooks swelling into raging rivers. Those who are affected bravely clear the debris. Then a feeling of solidarity courses through our country, and only spoilsports ask what is the cause and who is to blame. When catastrophe strikes, the TV does not call upon climate experts but instead interviews the men from the fire department, the heroes of the hour.

Landscapes in Switzerland bear ample witness to the most recent ice ages, when glaciers moved gigantic amounts of material and gave our land its form. The last ice age, which ended 11,000 years ago, brought about a mass extinction of the larger mammals. For humans this was an opportunity: the beginning of farming and raising livestock. Heaven knows who will profit from the current climate changes. But chances are great that this time we will be among the losers.

More than 30 years ago — I must have been about 12 — a couple of friends lowered me into a crevasse with a rope. We were practicing crevasse rescue, and for almost half an hour I dangled 10 meters down inside the mighty glacier, while the others rigged a block and tackle above. The ice overhead shone blue in the light, and below me the crevasse grew narrower and narrower until it disappeared in the darkness. Strangely, I was not at all afraid — on the contrary, I felt safe and secure.

That’s the first thing the mountains teach us: a mixture of reverence and humility. Only the beginner thinks they can be mastered. The glaciers may melt, the rock faces may break apart, the slopes may slide, but the mountains will still be there long after we have vanished from the earth.