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‘It made me cry’: photos taken 15 years apart show melting Swiss glaciers (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 6 months ago by lemmee_in@lemm.ee to c/world@lemmy.world
66 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[-] Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website 147 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[-] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 50 points 6 months ago

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"?

[-] P1nkman@lemmy.world 26 points 6 months ago

imminent collapse of the snow industry

That should make the tourism industry get their lobbying straight.

[-] finestnothing@lemmy.world 48 points 6 months ago

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

[-] greenskye@lemm.ee 12 points 6 months ago

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

[-] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Yup, and it has a name - Greenwashing.

[-] ripcord@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

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

[-] amanda@aggregatet.org 5 points 6 months ago

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

[-] Tugboater203@lemmy.world 20 points 6 months ago

A thousand year event, every year.

[-] andrewth09@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago

The hottest day on record every year

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[-] Imperor@lemmy.world 77 points 6 months ago

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

[-] Plopp@lemmy.world 38 points 6 months ago

I've seen a guy hold a snowball on TV. We're fine.

[-] veganpizza69@lemmy.world 15 points 6 months ago

In case you have felt the world be a little lighter recently, he died a month ago: https://lemmy.world/post/17387694

[-] Plopp@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago

Rarely do I celebrate people's deaths, but in some cases I do. 🎉

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 65 points 6 months ago

"It won't happen in our lifetimes"

guess what mfers

[-] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[-] Gsus4@mander.xyz 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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..."

[-] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 39 points 6 months ago

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

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[-] Timely_Jellyfish_2077@programming.dev 36 points 6 months ago

We are fucked.

[-] SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago

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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[-] Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 6 months ago

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 🤣🤣🤣"

[-] JustTesting@lemmy.hogru.ch 22 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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...

[-] MagicCuboid@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

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

[-] amanda@aggregatet.org 11 points 6 months 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

[-] cactusupyourbutt@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

to the surprise of noone

[-] humbletightband@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 6 months ago

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

[-] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 17 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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?

[-] humbletightband@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 months ago

Covered in cum presumably

[-] Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 6 months ago

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

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

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."

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[-] remer@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 20 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] remer@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Wow. Well done!

[-] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

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

[-] BrikoX@lemmy.zip 13 points 6 months ago

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

[-] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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!

[-] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

What's the t-word?

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

[-] Pacattack57@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Tendies

[-] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 5 points 6 months ago

I wish it was tiddies, m8

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[-] superkret@feddit.org 3 points 6 months ago

No, it's Testosterone

[-] NIB@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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)

[-] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

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?

[-] NIB@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

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[-] sirico@feddit.uk 3 points 6 months ago

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

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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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