Public Project
Italy and Mediterranean: Global Warming Twice as Fast
Summary
In 2022, Italy had a summer of drought. In spring 2023, there were devastating floods in Italian Emilia-Romagna region. In 2024, Sicily struggles with drought, after over 12 without rain. Mediterranean unfortunately continues earning its place as climate change hotspot.
**Besides the text below, there are links in the text that refer to separate posts on my blog.**
**Besides the text below, there are links in the text that refer to separate posts on my blog.**
The few examples above are perfectly in line with a report, developed by Italian weather portal IlMeteo and Italian daily newspaper Corriere della sera and published in July 2024, that highlights the fact that the climate change in Italy and in the entire Mediterranean area is twice as fast compared to the rest of the world, with more heat and more extreme weather events. With average temperatures rising constantly, he experts now say that the future summers in Italy could last up to 5-6 months.
In 2022, I visited the two rivers mentioned earlier to photograph the area a little. Before starting, I talked to Silvia Valenti, the press officer of Italian environmental organization Legambiente who explained to me some critical details of different aspects. At the time, people were encouraged to use water as little as possible in their households in order to contribute to saving it, but Valenti refuted this logic, saying that the household consumption is just a “drop in the ocean” and the intensive agriculture is much more crucial. She also explained that both the drought and the heat might have a significant impact on electrical grid (luckily, at least in 2022 this didn’t become a serious issue). However, if you direct the water to energy production needs, the reduction will be then felt both in agriculture as well as in waterways’ ecosystems. And as to agriculture, it’s not just about food; part of the production is to obtain biomass that will then be burned to generate energy—that isn’t even renewable—and such cultivating requires tons of water.
First I traveled to a small town called Bereguardo to see river Ticino where a volunteer park ranger showed me around. The same park ranger introduced me to a local guy who had a business by the river and moved around the river also on his boat; I was supposed to return to Ticino another day to see the river on a boat, but the trip had to be cancelled due to water being too low for his motorboat.
Later I loaded my bike on a train and traveled to upstream of Ticino, which on the Italian side starts from the Lake Maggiore (the lake featured in “Farewell to Arms”). While the water shortage could be seen over there too, the situation wasn’t dramatic.
To see the river Po, I traveled—again with my bike on train—to Cremona. At the bar of a local powerboat association a woman told me that last time the river had been in that bad shape was “in 1903 or 1908”, and boating on the river was at least partially forbidden. I could see why, too; in front of a canoeing club by the river the floating docks weren’t actually floating anymore but firmly resting on rocks.
In 2024 the situation has so far been mixed; Milan had several thunderstorms in the early summer (it felt like every day ended with a brief storm), and now the days have been mostly rainless, hot and mainly sunny. Sicily on the other hand is struggling with drought instead, as mentioned earlier, but the politicians don’t seem to take it seriously. Mediterranean thus continues earning its title as one of the climate change hotspots.
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