Roma, Italy. Novembre 2012. Sun.
Maybe nowadays I’m paying more attention, but I can’t remember a November so warm in Rome.
The small tomato plant in my balcony has finally produced two cherry tomatoes. I didn’t switch on the heating yet (temperature inside the house has never gone below 17 degrees Celsius: I didn’t turn mad!). I keep on wearing the same clothes day by day.
Green leaves and blue sky in Rome’s November 2012
I find out that there’s a way to double check. The website ilmeteo.it publishes the weather data related to the last years at this link, for any Italian city.
I extracted a small statistic about November in Rome in the last five years:
Numbers may look “impersonal”, but they don’t lie.
With small up and downs the temperature is raising relentlessly. When my eye falls on 2007 , medium Temperature 10,4 degrees, I shiver a little bit.
This November in Rome we had almost only sunny days. We had only an emergency: the Tiber flood: the river suddenly flooded after the heavy rains in Tuscany.
No good news.
Bristol, UK. November 2012. Flood.
In 2005 I spent November in Bristol, UK. It was so cold that I bought: the longest socks ever, the longest jacket ever and a collection of gloves and scarves. In the morning I was looking out of the window and everything was white: it wasn’t snow it was “Frost”: in the night it was so cold that the earth was freezing: it was very impressive. Even the rain was not light but a real english rain! I remember the sensation of being washed out by rain while opening the door to get out and the “horizontal rain” while looking at the rain falling near a street lamp on the bridge crossing the Severn.
But in the end it was me who was not used to it, for the English everything was normal.
Not this November. This November Bristol , Somerset and all the South-West is being hit by the worst flood of the last years: it continues to rain on the earth already melted by water of the previous rains with tragic consequences (yesterday a tree has fallen killing a camping girl of 21). The streets have become rivers, people are struggling.
Bristol streets flooded in these November 2012 days
New York, USA. November 2012. Storm Sandy.
What shall I say. Sceintists has explained that the reason is very simple: the ocean temperature is raising. The warmer temperature of the sea surfaces causes storms. Storms bigger and bigger.
It was Radiohead concert to push me: yes, the Greenpeace stand about the Save the Artic campaign! From their website I followed a link to a beautiful article published by Rolling Stones that you can read here.
After reading I decided to try to understand something more about Climate Change: since I was basically ignorant on the argument and since I keep a good memory of Leo Hickman’s book “My life stripped bare” I recalled that Leo wrote also a book for children about Climate Change with the amazing title “Will Jellyfish Rule The World?“: I decided a teen-age book was a good start for me.
Even though since I was reading the book in Englush I spent at least 15 minutes asking myself who was Doctor Greenhouse and which his so called “Greenhouse effect” (Thanks Leo for clarifying that the greenhouse gases are so called after the house you put plants in winter not after a man ;)) ) the book is a real good starting point:
the truth hurts, but I think only the truth can open our eyes and only with eyes open we can proceed instead of loosing ourselves forever along the way: therefore I am feeling better now that I know a little piece more of the truth: ignorance hurts more.
The countries that met in Kyoto for the first time in 1997 to discuss climate change had already clear the problem: the CO2 emissions are responsible for the global warming, that due to the current emission’s trend is proceeding.
The disaster to avoid is the raise of the global temperature of more than 2 degrees.
The only way to avoid it is reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gases emissions.
The country that met in Kyoto were agreeing on the problem, not on the solution.
15 years later how is it going?
Awarness is increasing. Famous people like ex US vice-president Al Gore, author of the documentary “An inconvenient truth” , are using their popularity to bring to the masses attention the problemla. But it is not enough yet.
The last Climate conference in Durban , South Africa, in Dicember 2011, has been boicotted by major countries governments: the US did never sign the Kyoto protocol, and this time Russia, Giappone e Canada “stepped back” from their commitment.
Oil multinationals are trying to dig the artic to extract more oil to introduce in the system ( to be burn increasing CO2 emissions) : from Leo’s book I discovered that by burning the CURRENT reserves of Oil we would already emit enough CO2 to reach the 2 degrees warming goal!
In 2011 the world scored the record of CO2 emissions in history.
In a report the World Bank (!!) alerts that at the current emission rate in 2060 the global temperature will have increased 4 degrees.
Do you feel helpless?
You can download the World Bank report at this link.
Starting today (by chance), 26th November 2012 to Dicember 6th, the countries that signed the Kyoto paper (UNFCCC) are meeting again in Doha for the World Conference on Climate 2012. The commition works can be followed at this link and on Twitter (ash tags “#unfccc #cop18”) where comments can be sent and shared.
We don’t lack the information. We have the chance to understand what’s happening and to avoid that also this Conference on Climate Change fails in the general indifference.
One of my favourite songs (Bad, U2) says : “If I could I would, let it go : but I am wide awake, I am not sleeping.”
Don’t sleep. Stay awake.
Eco Log 