Marmolada, Reinhold Messner: “But what a fatality. We do nothing to save the earth”

“It is a tragedy resulting from global warming. But we cannot wash our souls by saying that the fault lies with climate change and patience, as if it were a supernatural and unpredictable event: in reality, nature is never at fault, it is our fault that we know very well that we are responsible for global warming, but that we do nothing to reverse the trend. We have lived with the myth of infinite growth for decades, and this is the result “. Thus Reinhold Messner, 78, the mythical mountaineer, the first to climb all 8,000 without oxygen. He speaks without filters. Massacre on the Marmolada: 6 dead, 9 wounded, missing Messner his mountains are crumbling? “It’s bad to hear but roughly this happens. What we are witnessing is part of a global change and many events like this will repeat themselves. Many seracs will come down, many landslides will descend from steep spills no longer held still by the frozen ground, the so-called permafrost, many glaciers will continue to retreat at an accelerated rate, as happens all over the world. In 30-40 years on the Alps there will be few glaciers. On Ortles, Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, something in Switzerland. Already injured by the depopulation, my mountains are increasingly scarred by global warming, but this is the reality “. The avalanche of the Marmolada is therefore not a fatality, as those who would like to minimize it say. “But what a fatality. Yesterday it was ten degrees at the top of the mountain. Ten degrees is enormous. It doesn’t exist.” What do similar temperatures mean for a glacier? “They mean death, and not that slow. The high temperature accelerates the melting of the ice that is corroded from the inside: it causes the seracs to fall because with this heat a lot of meltwater circulates under the glacier, real streams, and this mine base the seracs “. Pictures of the …