Freak Winter

Two thirds of January are over and I have yet to see any snow.

This is most unusual. Granted, I don't live in the Alps or even on a hill, but even in the German valleys like mine the first snow usually falls in November. It then melts away soon, but more will come in December, and in January the landscape will be white (or at least mottled white), and stays like that until February or March.

But not this winter. We had record temperatures all through November and December. It's been raining and storming, with no snow and hardly any frost. In the first half of January we even had temperatures up to 15° C, so people where sitting outside in street cafés and the first spring flowers came out - two months too early.

I am worried. What is happening to nature if the climate keeps heating this quickly? I have seen some birds starting to build nests now, in January. Will their eggs survive if it becomes colder next month? What about the trees, which are starting to blossom now - are they going to freeze and die, or will we have cherries in April and apples in June this year? When none of last summer's moths, snails, wasps, ticks and mosquitoes freeze to death (as usually happens), will we be plagued by pests this year?

We will see. But one thing really angers me. Yesterday I heard a radio interview with some meteorologist who still doubted man-made effects in this climate change. How blind or biased can an scientist still be? Of course after a devastating storm which left 25 dead, people love to hear, "You are not responsible for this, it is just freak weather and could have happened at any time."
But it is the wrong kind of message, we need to feel responsible to change something, even if it is too late for the 25 dead of this storm and all the other victims of "freak weather" all over the planet.

Hope

When I started working as a free-lance documentary filmmaker and TV journalist, I made a number of reports about energy politics and climate change. At that time, 15 years ago, the science was already sound and believable, but politics and industry managed to make the idea of climate change sound like some mentally deranged treehugger's armageddon scenario.

I remember how much I hoped for some insights, for political movement, for people using their imagination to see and prevent a future of heat, drought, storms, melting ice and rising sea-levels. I even was naive enough to believe that my films and articles would make a difference, however little.

Kyoto came and went; but basically, neither scientific proof nor the real experience of the hottest 10 years in known history (all of them happening since then) made a difference to the rising CO² levels.

At some point I gave up making those films. Today, the electricity I use comes from renewable energies; a little difference that cost me a few cents each month - no big difference for me or the planet, but I always wished more people would do something. Just a little bit of awareness could still make a difference - oh yes, I am still naive enough to hope.

Especially since now there's another filmmaker tackling the subject: Al Gore. His film 'An Inconvenient Truth' will release soon in my country, and I am looking forward to watching it.

(see http://www.climatecrisis.net/ )

He may have a real chance to make some difference with his film. I wish him the best!