‘It made me cry’: photos taken 15 years apart show melting Swiss glaciers

lemme in@lemm.ee to World News@lemmy.world – 570 points – ‘It made me cry’: photos taken 15 years apart show melting Swiss glaciers
theguardian.com

A tourist has posted “staggering” photos of himself and his wife at the same spot in the Swiss Alps almost exactly 15 years apart, in a pair of photos that highlight the speed with which global heating is melting glaciers.

Duncan Porter, a software developer from Bristol, posted photos that were taken in the same spot at the Rhone glacier in August 2009 and August 2024. The white ice that filled the background has shrunk to reveal grey rock. A once-small pool at the bottom, out of sight in the original, has turned into a vast green lake.

“Not gonna lie, it made me cry,” Porter said in a viral post on social media platform X on Sunday night.

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My dad thinks climate change is a scam and "someone [i]s making a lot of money from it"

My dad also laments that the local lake doesn't freeze over like it did when he was a teenager, DRIVING on top of it with his brothers.

Totally unrelated to climate change though. Cause that's totes fake.

Also storms are more violent and frequent, winters are basically spring 2.0 now and the local river has flooded way past historic levels and could threaten the downtown area of their city within the decade.

But all that is SOOOOOOO unrelated.

The cognitive dissonance is so strange to me. I'm a native Cheesehead and it's a well documented fact that ice fishing season in Wisconsin is quickly getting shorter and shorter due to the higher winter temperatures.

Maybe it's a branding issue. What if we start referring to "climate change" as "demise of ice fishing" or "imminent collapse of the snowmobile industry"?

imminent collapse of the snow industry

That should make the tourism industry get their lobbying straight.

He is partially right - there are people making a lot of money from climate change... Or at least from causing it

To be fair there are also a lot of 'green' company scams out there too. Grifters are everywhere

I would say "some", not "a lot". Unless you know about way more "green" scams than I'm aware of.

That’s capitalism for you: one company makes money creating the problem and another fixing it! It’s double-pumped!

Talked to a random farmer last week:
"Weather is unpredictable, so wet, then hot, then cold. I need to work 36 hours straight or our hay will get wet. But I gotta feed my cows. Well, I guess this is just how it is, right?"
I really didn't know what to say to him. Evaporation, water cycle, soil compaction, diesel, methan, milk? He wouldn't even try to understand any of this. I don't want to become one of the cynical "we are fucked"-people. Everyone can change something in their lifes.

While I think climate change is a real issue and we need to do something about it, I can see the rationale behind your dad’s thoughts and childhood memories.

Is the planet getting hotter is one thing and was it caused by humans is another thing.

No, it really isn't. We know it's us now. We've known.

Don't worry. Some people I know can still go skiing, so clearly it's all fake and a non-issue.

"It won't happen in our lifetimes"

guess what mfers

I believe climate change deniers changed their tune from "it's not happening" to "it happened before, so what's the problem?" Most people believe in man-made climate change, but deniers want people to feel powerless and hopeless, and succumb to the system of continuous consumption of finite resources under capitalism.

Maybe we need analogies for what is happening that they can understand e.g. "sure, houses have burned down before...and some rooms in the house didn't burn, so you can still live in them...but usually you get off your butt and fire-proof your curtains and paint and help your upstairs and downstairs neighbour, because if you don't maybe their irresponsibility will make your insurance premium rise..."

I tried to do the same thing at Franz Josef glacier earlier this year. I didn't even get the glacier in shot.

Is that the one that says "the glacier may look like this [picture] in 2100 if global warming keeps happening" and the glacier is noticeably more receded than that?

Yes. Was there 7 years ago and it had already receded way past the 2100 pic.

Fuck that’s depressing

If only all the scientists could have predicted all of this. Maybe even tried to warn us about it and write it in signs.

Stupid scientists..

It's not the scientists fault, it's the Prussians who focused more on arms and military than social security nets and infrastructure. It's all been down hill since then

Switzerland has always been the go to holiday destination for my grandparents, parents and now me. The difference in pictures (and memories) between the generations is terrifying

We are fucked.

Reminds me of an economist who was telling everyone that a few degrees of climate change would barely cost 1% of economic growth so it would not be an issue at all. The climate scientists replied that at -4°C there was a mile of ice at the spot he was sitting and you would think that this would surely affect the economy, and that +4°C would have similar results.

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I'm sure a lot of the comments on other platforms would say something along the lines of "They obviously took one picture in the summer and one in the winter... 😒 But enjoy your antifa money 🤣🤣🤣"

I always thought the Mer de Glace at the Mont Blanc illustrates this really well. You arrive and there's a sign "the glacier was here in 1910" and that's where tourists back then.

To get to the actual glacier, you have to eall down many flights of metal stairs for about half an hour and there's several signs for different years, 1950, 1990, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2015, something like this, with the years between each sign getting shorter but the distance staying roughly the same. And from the top it's really far away.

Of course, once you actually reach the glacier, you get to the main attraction, a 3m diameter tunnel they bored 100m deep into it as a tourist attraction with ice sculptures inside. Above the tunnel you can see the remains of the tunnel from the previous year, half melted...

I first went in 2013, you had to climb down quite a long flight of steps to get to it.

Went this summer, and there's an actual gondola 🚡 to take you down to it, then 400 steps down after that

Actually horrifying

Chasing Ice remains a terrific documentary that clearly showed all of this happening 15 years ago.

the post also attracted a steady stream of comments from climate denying-accounts subscribed to X’s premium service, many of which were abusive and misrepresented established climate science

My god

Yeah, we'll deal with it when it affects us personally! Not like nature will just brush us away..right?

There is clearly a catastrophic amount of melting but the perspective, both angle and zoom, exaggerate the melting here. The older photo is more zoomed in and has the mountains higher in the frame. That gives the anti-environmental people something to work with to attempt to discredit the melting.

I put together this gif for a side-by-side comparison. The picture was taken from a slightly different location, so it's not perfect, but the difference is obvious.

So if I'm interpreting your analysis correctly, we don't just have a global warming problem, but there's also ghosts!?

More likely, it was just taken on 2 different devices. It's reasonable that the camera or phone they owned changed in 15 years.

Everyone in this sub agrees that climate change is a disastrous event, and that we're not doing enough. But as soon as you suggest changing to a system that actually may do something against it, you guys drop the t-word like there's no tomorrow.

Edit: to all of you fellas downvoting me, I have a message. Don't worry, we will surely defeat climate change by reforming capitalism against the interests of those controlling the media and our politicians through their vast wealth, as we've been achieving for the past 20 years in which the CO2 emissions have been reducing exponentially!

What's the t-word?

Is it titties? It's titties, isn't it?

I wish it was tiddies, m8

I genuinely don't know what the t-word is, though. I'm not feeling extra smart right now. Please feel free to help me out here.

I explained in a funny way to another fella: it starts with "t", and rhymes with the Sumerian god of water and patron of the city or Eridu, "Enki".

While capitalism is a big accelerator of climate change, socialism could do the same. Whether you exploit the environment for capitalist profit or the perceived profit of human society, the end result can be the same.

All animals want to exploit nature for their benefit, even if it is a short term benefit but a long term loss. Humans, and arguebly capitalism, are just more efficient. But here is an infamous example of socialism fucking the environment

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

PS People's issue isnt with socialism, it's with supporting authoritative regimes, that dont even claim to be socialist(Russia for example)

While capitalism is a big accelerator of climate change, socialism could do the same

The difference is that capitalism by its nature requires the degradation of the environment. Capitalism, by definition, needs to increase profits year after year. Unlimited growth is impossible in a finite planet with limited technology without degrading the environment, so capitalism simply ignores the climate in its quest for higher profits. After all, you can't risk getting outcompeted by another company which will be less afraid of abusing nature.

Socialism, on the other hand, doesn't need perpetual growth. The objective isn't infinite profit, the objective is higher living quality for people, which doesn't necessarily rely on increased material wealth, especially not in a context of degrading climate which negatively affects the quality of life of people. It doesn't mean socialism doesn't have to work hard to prevent degrading nature, it just means that it's not a necessary logical consequence of socialism whereas it is of capitalism.

You talk about historical proof. The reality is that historically, the groups concerned by climate change have consistently been to the left of the political spectrum, whereas the right wing (capitalism's most loyal defenders) doesn't seem to care. For 36 years we've had an International Panel on Climate Change (though ExxonMobil had reports of Climate Change being manmade since the early 70s and hid them), and for 36 years scientists have been saying the same: we're not doing enough. What's been the response of capitalist governments everywhere? "We shall continue not doing enough". How many years of capitalism in all countries failing to step up to the problem do you need to realize that capitalism simply has no incentives to solve this problem because it's fundamentally an antidemocratic system, in which the interests of a few in the owning class are held above those of the working class?

You could argue that what we have isnt true capitalism, since our current system doesnt include the environmental cost. If we could do that, then the cost of doing things would greatly increase, thus forcing capitalism to be more environmentally friendly.

I dont want to defend capitalism, but there is a potential version of capitalism that could work. Kinda how we use the replicative aggressive function of viruses for healing.

The fact that in the West, right wings are often insane, doesnt mean much. 95% of new coal power plants are built in China. Are they right wing? I think they are but tankies think China is socialist.

Obviously China has immense demand for power and it is in many ways a developing country. They took some measures to reduce the negative environmental effect. Their cities were covered in smog till recently, they had to do something.

But despite that, they still value the growth/wealth of cheap electric power.

You could argue that what we have isnt true capitalism

No, I couldn't. Capitalism doesn't need to account for every externality to be capitalism.

If we could do that

We've been trying for 36 years with no result. That's exactly my point. The people who benefit from the lack of account of externalities are the ones in control of the system.

but there is a potential version of capitalism that could work

That version of capitalism is "let's make the public opinion guided by the scientific research make the environmental decisions". At that point, why stop with accounting for externalities and planning the economy as a whole in a democratic fashion? Why this obsession with maintaining capitalism?

Obviously China has immense demand for power and it is in many ways a developing country

You got it. You can't expect a developing county to rely on new and expensive tech instead of cheap and reliable one during the process of industrialization. But currently, China is by far the country installing most renewables. I personally don't consider China to be very socialist, but saying they're right wing is far from the truth as well.

The problem with capitalism as well, is the competition not only between companies, but between geopolitical blocks. You can't expect China or the US to degrow when they're geopolitical enemies that are in theory threated by each other. In reality, the US is the main threatener, followed by Russia, since they're both heavily capitalist and imperialist countries with opposing interests and different capitalists who fight each other for supremacy. Unless we eliminate these capitalist threats of geopolitical fights by transcending to worldwide socialism, degrowth simply will not occur, and climate deals that harm the economy of countries won't be agreed on.

They obviously took one picture in the summer and one in the winter... 😒 But enjoy your antifa money 🤣🤣🤣

August 2009 and August 2024, but enjoy your... I don't even know? MAGA money?

Petah, what kind of money do users who suck the dicks of oil companies like?

Not sure if this is supposed to be a joke comment or just weird.

That is not how glaciers work. Please educate yourself.

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-glacier

"A glacier is a large, perennial accumulation of crystalline ice, snow, rock, sediment, and often liquid water that originates on land and moves down slope under the influence of its own weight and gravity."

perennial - "lasting or existing for a long or apparently infinite time; enduring or continually recurring."

But enjoy your antifa money 🤣🤣🤣

You know you are on an anarchist instance right?

~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~

The earth changes?! How dare it!?

I doubt anyone here actually needs to hear it, but just in case: the problem is that we're changing it, and we're changing it for the worse

Also, we're changing it far too quickly for everything else to keep up.