Lighthouse Eco

Striving for a sustainable Lifestyle

    • Duncan and Helen Porter took the first photo, right, in 2009 and revisited this year. Composite: Duncan Porter
    Climate Change Environment glaciers news

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

    Shea Woodrow Posted on
    , , ,
    Duncan and Helen Porter took the first photo, right, in 2009 and revisited this year. Composite: Duncan Porter
    Duncan and Helen Porter took the first photo, right, in 2009 and revisited this year.
    Composite: Duncan Porter

    Married couple from Bristol attract awe and abuse on X with photos that show ‘staggering’ changes in the Alps

    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 Rhône 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.

    Porter and his wife had taken the original photo from a viewpoint by a “Wes Anderson-style” hotel that has since shut, and hung it up in their kitchen. Eager to return to the mountains and let their teenage daughters Maisie and Emily see the glacier, they took a camper van trip across Europe and set out to recreate the picture.

    “But obviously the circumstance of this photo was drastically different,” said Porter. Helen Porter, a nurse, added: “I thought it was really unbelievable.”

    The carbon pollution released by burning fossil fuels and destroying nature has heated the planet 1.3C since preindustrial times. In Europe, which has warmed twice as fast as the global average, hotter summers have forced people in mountainous regions to see slow-moving glaciers melt before their eyes.

    Switzerland has lost one-third of its glacier volume since 2000, according to official statistics, and 10% has disappeared in the last two years alone.

    “A lot of people, when they see something like that, they feel quite helpless,” said Porter, who sits on the committee of a local climate action group in the south-west of England. “But from my experience there’s a huge amount they can do.”

    Related posts:

    He said he did “not want to sound preachy” but pointed to local community projects as one of the “wonderful” ways in which ordinary people can get involved in climate action, along with pushing for systemic change through the ways they vote and shop.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that – in its worst-case scenario for global heating – “nearly all glacier mass” would disappear in the coming centuries in low latitudes, central Europe, the Caucasus, western Canada and the US, north Asia, Scandinavia and New Zealand.

    The Rhône glacier has fared better than some others in Switzerland but has shrunk by about a quarter in the decade and a half between Porter’s two photos.

    “It was a very impressive glacier,” said Sonia Seneviratne, a Swiss climate scientist and co-author of an IPCC report, who visited the glacier as a teenager. “It’s very sad to see those pictures because you see how large the changes have been.”

    Users of X reacted with horror and heartbreak to Porter’s post, which has been viewed 3 million times, echoing the couple’s anguish. But 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.

    Porter said he was aware that glaciers recede and grow over long timeframes but that many of the comments in his feed were inaccurate and based on dubious sources.

    “These things are supposed to happen over really long time periods,” he said. “What people should focus on is the speed of change.”

    Advertisement

    Source:

    Ajit Niranjan at The Guardian

    Related Images:

    Tagged:

    229 COMMENTS

    36. Can you be more specific about the content of your article? After reading it, I still have some doubts. Hope you can help me.

      Reply

    59. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    65. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    90. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    115. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    138. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    144. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    162. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    180. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    185. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    194. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    209. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    222. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    223. Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

      Reply

    Leave a Reply

    Latest posts:

    The Arctic tundra is warming up and that's causing long-frozen ground to melt as well as an increase in wildfires. The region is "now emitting more carbon that it stores, which will worsen climate change impacts," explained NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad in a statement. Gerald Frost/Courtesy of NOAA
    Climate Change emissions Environment

    Arctic tundra now emits planet-warming pollution, federal report finds

    Arctic tundra, which has stored carbon for thousands of years, has now become a source of planet-warming pollution.

    Shea Woodrow
    Britain's bumblebees have been in trouble in recent years, but one nature restoration project in Perthshire has a positive story to tell Christopher Furlong
    bees biodiversity Environment insects rewilding wildlife

    Bumblebee population increases 116 times over in ‘remarkable’ Scotland rewilding project

    ‘The sound of traffic and a uniform sea of barley have been replaced by the most beautiful meadows, full of wildflowers, young saplings and the buzz of bees’

    Shea Woodrow
    Barbados' capital city Bridgetown on May 28, 2023. Xin Yuewei / Xinhua via Getty Images
    Climate Change Environment news

    Barbados Completes World’s First ‘Debt-for-Climate’ Swap

    Barbados has secured the world’s first “debt-for-climate” swap to finance crucial water and sewage projects that will help the island cope with the destructive impacts of climate change.

    Shea Woodrow
    Killer whales swim in the icy Arctic waters that are newly open to them. Photo credit: Maha Ghazal
    Climate Change Environment ocean orca sea ice wildlife

    Killer whales have found new homes in the Arctic Ocean, potentially reshaping marine ecology

    The vast ice sheets that historically kept killer whales out of the Arctic Ocean are melting as the region rapidly warms.

    Shea Woodrow
    Heavy smog in Delhi on Monday. In some parts of the city, air quality is more than 30 times the level deemed healthy. Photograph: Rajat Gupta/EPA
    air pollution emissions news pollution

    Pollution in Delhi hits record high, cloaking city in smog

    India’s capital, Delhi, imposes emergency measures including closing schools and offices and barring heavy vehicles.

    Shea Woodrow
    Denmark's Minister for the Green Tripartite Jeppe Bruus, centre, and members of the coalition in Copenhagen, Denmark, Nov. 18, 2024. (Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
    conservation Environment rewilding

    Denmark will plant 1 billion trees and convert 10 per cent of farmland into forest

    Danish lawmakers on Monday agreed on a deal to plant one billion trees and convert 10 per cent of farmland into forest and natural habitats over the next two decades in an effort to reduce fertilizer usage.

    Shea Woodrow