Global warming or climate crisis ?

Real time
Last Saturday the town of Wil distributed two energy-saving light bulbs to each household (at least to those who cashed in their coupons). Wow, that's pragmatism for you. It may be a small step, considering the whole energy situation, but one has to start somewhere.

Bravo!

Yes, Swiss people are very pragmatic. After Al Gore's Oscar-winning film hit the screens here in November 2006 practically everyone is now climate savvy. It took almost a year, but it's a very interesting phenomenon. At first, some people tried saying, that not all scientists agree on "global warming". But after one report after another repeated the mantra, what can one say. I was convinced from the start, because I am an avid reader and choose my activities with care.

Historical

16 years ago I worked as a guide at a scientific fair, the Heureka, in Zurich. One of the exhibitions chornicled photographically the following findings. The rests of a well-preserved body was found near the Matterhorn in Switzerland. How was it found after hundreds of years. The tentative story of melting ice in the alps had started to be told.

A couple of years later a much better preserved mummy was found in nearby Austria (bordering with Italy). Another one, I thought. If you read attentively, it was claimed, that the five thousand year old mummy has been buried in 'permanent" snow in the Alps all these years and that is how it was preserved. How did this snow melt, after 5 thousand years, was what I asked myself.

I like to ask questions, but I also like to find answers and explanations.

After twenty years in Switzerland and Germany, the permanent snow, the white mountains of the Alps (from afar, in my case), was shocked to suddenly see brown patches on mountains, and some years later even brown mountains part of winter. What was happening ?

Another key incident was 2003. I was visiting my father in the hospital and the weather was very, very hot. Then I noticed that the nurses didn't know how to deal with the unaccustomed temperature. They were closing all the windows and shutters, to "not let the heat in"!! If you read avidly, like I did, you would have found out that thousands of old and sick people died in Europe" FROM THE HOT WEATHER, an some of those were in care! The French wrote very candid reports, later published in the internet. (They didn't hide what happened).

The interspaced warmer days in winter were comfortable. And even the warmer periods in summer are actually nice. Why travel to Spain, when you can stay at home ? Global warming is fun, we joked at the beginning.

I didn't see those two mummies I told you about (although I saw an Egyptian one in the library in St. Gallen last year), but I did see how the Swiss were reacting to the unusual (for them) heat. Those old people who died, because of wrong responses to the heat IN EUROPE FOR GOODNESS SAKES really shook me up. Those were totally unnecessary deaths, I thought.

So I decided to speak up more about the climate situation.

Now, one of the most difficult problems is to "prove" that it is there. After Al Gore, I don't need to argue much, the thousands of scientistis working on the IPCC reports, and this week all the governemnt leaders debatting the situation, show that it really is happening. But, why am I not speaking about "global warming". There are many reasons. First of all, there are pockets of comparatvely warm temperatures being measured, but there are also comparatively colder stretches sometimes. At the end of the day, if you add up and measure the average temperature, youget a mathematical "warming". But tell that to K.'s son in Africa who called to tell his relatives how abnormally cold the weather had been. IN AFRICA ! I've heard the same about sme places in Brasil. Some places have been flooding, while others are drying up. That's why I speak and write about the climate "crisis".

There is a famous magazine in Switzerland, which says, that global warming can't be "proven".
Then the scientific editor (who argued this on television) mentioned the different extremes which have been happening. Arguing against "global warming" like I heard, is like using arithmetic to prove Einsteins theories. But, then if you look into Benoit Mandelbrots theories you can see clearer. I am happy to say, that I once saw one of his lectures here in Switzerland and the climate crisis can be explained if you use the chaos theory, I believe.

Forget about a simple "average warming" of the whole planet. If you see the extreme temperature changes, and compare them in time, then you can see what is changing. Al Gore tries to explain this, and I'm glad that numerous people believe him. But why isn't anyone trying to use the chaos theories more.