Earth's message is loud and clear



Historically, climate change has been a controversial scientific thematic to be justified to the general public.
Since the beginning of the steadily increasing trend in global warming which started in the 1980s, scientists have faced difficulties in unanimously convincing the public that there exists strong positive correlation between anthropogenic GHG emissions and global warming.
People would not be persuaded by the experiential values with which the changes in seasonal variability impacted their every day life. However studies found that the distrust in climate change was negatively associated with the annual global temperatures of the previous year as well as positively associate to the rise of conservative political parties (Hornsey 2022). As a result of these two root causes, it is clear that the unavoidable increase in the global temperatures as well as the political mobilization by elites and advocacy groups in the latest years have been critical in influencing climate change concern (Brulle 2012).

In between the Alps of Northern Italy, climate change impacted heavily both the landscape and the economy. The decrease of the snow season to only 38 days in 2017 pushed local communities to produce artificial snow in order to keep up the 30 billion dollar ski industry in the region (44% of the overall worldwide sector) (Jeffrey, Time). Moreover, warming in the mountain environment is amplified because the temperature rise increasingly reduces the cryosphere in the region which acts as a sun's rays reflecting surface (Gobiet 2014), which as well has a noticeable contribution to changes in the species distribution and abundance (Carlson 2017).
A recent example of extreme events has been the collapse of the Marmolada Peak, one of the most well known destination in the Dolomites. Attribution science recognizes the episode as a direct result of the severe drought in Europe during summer 2022 which is increasingly weakening the glacier (Horton 2022).

Climate change's global awareness is rapidly growing and this is the only pathway which will allow us to shape a more optimistic image of our future. The so called "Climate Clock" is a movement expanding all around the world to sensibilize towards a prompt action on climate change. It predicts 6 years left to change our adaptation and mitigation policies in order to prevent the impacts of climate change irreversibly. One has been recently installed in Letna Park in the city of Prague where I currently live.

Considering that no place on Earth will be by now unaffected by climate change, the current focus should be both on mitigation policies in order to try and contain the global warming to 1.5°C and at the same time adaptation plans especially for the regions where the changes will be irreversible  (Vince 2022). 

Achieving safe settlement for hundreds of millions of migrants could require the compulsory purchase by international consensus of land held by current states, with compensation and a stake in the new cities and their industries. It could require a new kind of international citizenship. It could mean richer, safer ­latitude states becoming ‘care­ taker states’ for poorer, more vulnerable ones, during the crisis period of global heating until planetary restoration. It could involve charter cities, states within states, the extinction of some of the 200 nation states and consolidation of the remaining few into regional geopolitical entities. There are many alternative visions to today’s status quo of nation states, borders and passports – which are, after all, relatively recent.
Time, 2022

References:

Hornsey, M.J., Chapman, C.M. and Humphrey, J.E. (2022), Climate skepticism decreases when the planet gets hotter and Conservative support wanes, Global Environmental Change, 74, p. 102492. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102492. 

Brulle, R.J., Carmichael, J. & Jenkins, J.C. (2012), Shifting public opinion on climate change: an empirical assessment of factors influencing concern over climate change in the U.S., 2002–2010. Climatic Change 114, 169–188 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0403-y

Helena Horton (2022), Events like Italian glacier collapse likely to increase as planet heats, The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/04/marmolada-italian-glacier-collapse-likely-to-increase-as-planet-heats. Accessed on: December 6, 2022

Jeffrey Kluger, The Big Melt, Time. Available at: https://time.com/italy-alps-climate-change/. Accessed on: December 6, 2022

Gobiet A, Kotlarski S, Beniston M, Heinrich G, Rajczak J, Stoffel M. (2014), 21st century climate change in the European Alps – A review. Science of the total environment 493.

Carlson B Z, Corona M C, Dentant C, Bonet R, Thuiller W, & Choler P. 2017. Observed long-term greening of alpine vegetation–a case study in the French Alps. Environmental Research Letters.

https://climateclock.world/

Vince, G. and Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World. (2022) Where we'll end up living as the planet Burns, Time. Time. Available at: https://time.com/6209432/climate-change-where-we-will-live/ (Accessed: December 6, 2022).



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