Simona Azzolini’s Post

THE DELUSION OF “BAD WEATHER”   In "my" part of #Switzerland, a small triangle of land that stretches 100 km from the Alps southward and is home to less than 400’000 Italian-speaking people, a territory of steep mountain valleys and spectacular waterfalls, of charming lakeside towns and busy cities, over the last two weeks two events killed six people.   Massive rainfall on Saturday 22 June caused huge rock-and-mudslides around the town of Lostallo (photo below), tore down homes, killed three people (one was found 8 km down the river), and destroyed a segment of a crucial highway.   More thunderstorm and heavy rain killed three people last night in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley. At least one is still missing. Hundreds had to be evacuated, the region is without power and drinking water, a bridge was carried away.   I describe these two events not only because this small region is home, but to use them as an illustration. Similar things have happened in Italy, in France, and elsewhere in Switzerland during the last few days. The world-famous ski resort of Zermatt for instance was flooded twice in a week. And more dreadful things of much larger scale have happened around the world: devastating floods in Brasil, Nepal, the American Midwest; deadly heatwaves in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan; etc.   These events have become central to every discussion. We talk a lot about them.   It is striking however how they are always framed as "weather" (as in: it’s a freak event; an unusual season; a "once-in-30-years" rainfall), as anomalies in an otherwise stable pattern. I just read an article by SonntagsZeitung, a leading Zurich-based paper describing Lostallo as "Unwetter-Gemeinde", the "bad-weather town". TIO, the leading online news portal in the Italian-speaking region talks of "maltempo" (bad #weather): as I write, it has that word in three of the first six headlines of its homepage.   Rarely they are framed as "climate" (as in: it’s the pattern itself shifting, the system breaking down), and when someone does, many get immediately cranky and aggressive. A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament attacked the Swiss weather service yesterday because they had issued an alert, accusing them of attempting to "climate-brainwash people": that was just hours before those people died in Fontana. In France, during the campaign for today’s parliamentary elections, candidates talking about #climate change got viciously harassed, threatened, and ridiculed.   We are at a doubly dangerous moment. The climate, biodiversity, the environment are shifting into disequilibrium, and it is man-made (fossil fuels, etc). At the same time, too many don’t want to hear about it - don’t disturb my way of living, “my rights", “my freedom", my consumption, "unless China acts…", etc – and that denial and self-delusion seem to be deepening in parallel with the growing uncertainty and increasing anxieties.   (Posted 30 June 2024) (Photo: Keystone press agency)

THE DELUSION OF “BAD WEATHER”   In "my" part of #Switzerland, a small triangle of land that stretches 100 km from the Alps southward and is home to less than 400’000 Italian-speaking people, a territory of steep mountain valleys and spectacular waterfalls, of charming lakeside towns and busy cities, over the last two weeks two events killed six people.   Massive rainfall on Saturday 22 June caused huge rock-and-mudslides around the town of Lostallo (photo below), tore down homes, killed three people (one was found 8 km down the river), and destroyed a segment of a crucial highway.   More thunderstorm and heavy rain killed three people last night in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley. At least one is still missing. Hundreds had to be evacuated, the region is without power and drinking water, a bridge was carried away.   I describe these two events not only because this small region is home, but to use them as an illustration. Similar things have happened in Italy, in France, and elsewhere in Switzerland during the last few days. The world-famous ski resort of Zermatt for instance was flooded twice in a week. And more dreadful things of much larger scale have happened around the world: devastating floods in Brasil, Nepal, the American Midwest; deadly heatwaves in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan; etc.   These events have become central to every discussion. We talk a lot about them.   It is striking however how they are always framed as "weather" (as in: it’s a freak event; an unusual season; a "once-in-30-years" rainfall), as anomalies in an otherwise stable pattern. I just read an article by SonntagsZeitung, a leading Zurich-based paper describing Lostallo as "Unwetter-Gemeinde", the "bad-weather town". TIO, the leading online news portal in the Italian-speaking region talks of "maltempo" (bad #weather): as I write, it has that word in three of the first six headlines of its homepage.   Rarely they are framed as "climate" (as in: it’s the pattern itself shifting, the system breaking down), and when someone does, many get immediately cranky and aggressive. A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament attacked the Swiss weather service yesterday because they had issued an alert, accusing them of attempting to "climate-brainwash people": that was just hours before those people died in Fontana. In France, during the campaign for today’s parliamentary elections, candidates talking about #climate change got viciously harassed, threatened, and ridiculed.   We are at a doubly dangerous moment. The climate, biodiversity, the environment are shifting into disequilibrium, and it is man-made (fossil fuels, etc). At the same time, too many don’t want to hear about it - don’t disturb my way of living, “my rights", “my freedom", my consumption, "unless China acts…", etc – and that denial and self-delusion seem to be deepening in parallel with the growing uncertainty and increasing anxieties.   (Posted 30 June 2024) (Photo: Keystone press agency)

THE DELUSION OF “BAD WEATHER”   In "my" part of #Switzerland, a small triangle of land that stretches 100 km from the Alps southward and is home to less than 400’000 Italian-speaking people, a territory of steep mountain valleys and spectacular waterfalls, of charming lakeside towns and busy cities, over the last two weeks two events killed six people.   Massive rainfall on Saturday 22 June caused huge rock-and-mudslides around the town of Lostallo (photo below), tore down homes, killed three people (one was found 8 km down the river), and destroyed a segment of a crucial highway.   More thunderstorm and heavy rain killed three people last night in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley. At least one is still missing. Hundreds had to be evacuated, the region is without power and drinking water, a bridge was carried away.   I describe these two events not only because this small region is home, but to use them as an illustration. Similar things have happened in Italy, in France, and elsewhere in Switzerland during the last few days. The world-famous ski resort of Zermatt for instance was flooded twice in a week. And more dreadful things of much larger scale have happened around the world: devastating floods in Brasil, Nepal, the American Midwest; deadly heatwaves in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan; etc.   These events have become central to every discussion. We talk a lot about them.   It is striking however how they are always framed as "weather" (as in: it’s a freak event; an unusual season; a "once-in-30-years" rainfall), as anomalies in an otherwise stable pattern. I just read an article by SonntagsZeitung, a leading Zurich-based paper describing Lostallo as "Unwetter-Gemeinde", the "bad-weather town". TIO, the leading online news portal in the Italian-speaking region talks of "maltempo" (bad #weather): as I write, it has that word in three of the first six headlines of its homepage.   Rarely they are framed as "climate" (as in: it’s the pattern itself shifting, the system breaking down), and when someone does, many get immediately cranky and aggressive. A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament attacked the Swiss weather service yesterday because they had issued an alert, accusing them of attempting to "climate-brainwash people": that was just hours before those people died in Fontana. In France, during the campaign for today’s parliamentary elections, candidates talking about #climate change got viciously harassed, threatened, and ridiculed.   We are at a doubly dangerous moment. The climate, biodiversity, the environment are shifting into disequilibrium, and it is man-made (fossil fuels, etc). At the same time, too many don’t want to hear about it - don’t disturb my way of living, “my rights", “my freedom", my consumption, "unless China acts…", etc – and that denial and self-delusion seem to be deepening in parallel with the growing uncertainty and increasing anxieties.   (Posted 30 June 2024) (Photo: Keystone press agency)

THE DELUSION OF “BAD WEATHER”   In "my" part of #Switzerland, a small triangle of land that stretches 100 km from the Alps southward and is home to less than 400’000 Italian-speaking people, a territory of steep mountain valleys and spectacular waterfalls, of charming lakeside towns and busy cities, over the last two weeks two events killed six people.   Massive rainfall on Saturday 22 June caused huge rock-and-mudslides around the town of Lostallo (photo below), tore down homes, killed three people (one was found 8 km down the river), and destroyed a segment of a crucial highway.   More thunderstorm and heavy rain killed three people last night in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley. At least one is still missing. Hundreds had to be evacuated, the region is without power and drinking water, a bridge was carried away.   I describe these two events not only because this small region is home, but to use them as an illustration. Similar things have happened in Italy, in France, and elsewhere in Switzerland during the last few days. The world-famous ski resort of Zermatt for instance was flooded twice in a week. And more dreadful things of much larger scale have happened around the world: devastating floods in Brasil, Nepal, the American Midwest; deadly heatwaves in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan; etc.   These events have become central to every discussion. We talk a lot about them.   It is striking however how they are always framed as "weather" (as in: it’s a freak event; an unusual season; a "once-in-30-years" rainfall), as anomalies in an otherwise stable pattern. I just read an article by SonntagsZeitung, a leading Zurich-based paper describing Lostallo as "Unwetter-Gemeinde", the "bad-weather town". TIO, the leading online news portal in the Italian-speaking region talks of "maltempo" (bad #weather): as I write, it has that word in three of the first six headlines of its homepage.   Rarely they are framed as "climate" (as in: it’s the pattern itself shifting, the system breaking down), and when someone does, many get immediately cranky and aggressive. A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament attacked the Swiss weather service yesterday because they had issued an alert, accusing them of attempting to "climate-brainwash people": that was just hours before those people died in Fontana. In France, during the campaign for today’s parliamentary elections, candidates talking about #climate change got viciously harassed, threatened, and ridiculed.   We are at a doubly dangerous moment. The climate, biodiversity, the environment are shifting into disequilibrium, and it is man-made (fossil fuels, etc). At the same time, too many don’t want to hear about it - don’t disturb my way of living, “my rights", “my freedom", my consumption, "unless China acts…", etc – and that denial and self-delusion seem to be deepening in parallel with the growing uncertainty and increasing anxieties.   (Posted 30 June 2024) (Photo: Keystone press agency)

THE DELUSION OF “BAD WEATHER”   In "my" part of #Switzerland, a small triangle of land that stretches 100 km from the Alps southward and is home to less than 400’000 Italian-speaking people, a territory of steep mountain valleys and spectacular waterfalls, of charming lakeside towns and busy cities, over the last two weeks two events killed six people.   Massive rainfall on Saturday 22 June caused huge rock-and-mudslides around the town of Lostallo (photo below), tore down homes, killed three people (one was found 8 km down the river), and destroyed a segment of a crucial highway.   More thunderstorm and heavy rain killed three people last night in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley. At least one is still missing. Hundreds had to be evacuated, the region is without power and drinking water, a bridge was carried away.   I describe these two events not only because this small region is home, but to use them as an illustration. Similar things have happened in Italy, in France, and elsewhere in Switzerland during the last few days. The world-famous ski resort of Zermatt for instance was flooded twice in a week. And more dreadful things of much larger scale have happened around the world: devastating floods in Brasil, Nepal, the American Midwest; deadly heatwaves in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan; etc.   These events have become central to every discussion. We talk a lot about them.   It is striking however how they are always framed as "weather" (as in: it’s a freak event; an unusual season; a "once-in-30-years" rainfall), as anomalies in an otherwise stable pattern. I just read an article by SonntagsZeitung, a leading Zurich-based paper describing Lostallo as "Unwetter-Gemeinde", the "bad-weather town". TIO, the leading online news portal in the Italian-speaking region talks of "maltempo" (bad #weather): as I write, it has that word in three of the first six headlines of its homepage.   Rarely they are framed as "climate" (as in: it’s the pattern itself shifting, the system breaking down), and when someone does, many get immediately cranky and aggressive. A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament attacked the Swiss weather service yesterday because they had issued an alert, accusing them of attempting to "climate-brainwash people": that was just hours before those people died in Fontana. In France, during the campaign for today’s parliamentary elections, candidates talking about #climate change got viciously harassed, threatened, and ridiculed.   We are at a doubly dangerous moment. The climate, biodiversity, the environment are shifting into disequilibrium, and it is man-made (fossil fuels, etc). At the same time, too many don’t want to hear about it - don’t disturb my way of living, “my rights", “my freedom", my consumption, "unless China acts…", etc – and that denial and self-delusion seem to be deepening in parallel with the growing uncertainty and increasing anxieties.   (Posted 30 June 2024) (Photo: Keystone press agency)

THE DELUSION OF “BAD WEATHER”   In "my" part of #Switzerland, a small triangle of land that stretches 100 km from the Alps southward and is home to less than 400’000 Italian-speaking people, a territory of steep mountain valleys and spectacular waterfalls, of charming lakeside towns and busy cities, over the last two weeks two events killed six people.   Massive rainfall on Saturday 22 June caused huge rock-and-mudslides around the town of Lostallo (photo below), tore down homes, killed three people (one was found 8 km down the river), and destroyed a segment of a crucial highway.   More thunderstorm and heavy rain killed three people last night in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley. At least one is still missing. Hundreds had to be evacuated, the region is without power and drinking water, a bridge was carried away.   I describe these two events not only because this small region is home, but to use them as an illustration. Similar things have happened in Italy, in France, and elsewhere in Switzerland during the last few days. The world-famous ski resort of Zermatt for instance was flooded twice in a week. And more dreadful things of much larger scale have happened around the world: devastating floods in Brasil, Nepal, the American Midwest; deadly heatwaves in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan; etc.   These events have become central to every discussion. We talk a lot about them.   It is striking however how they are always framed as "weather" (as in: it’s a freak event; an unusual season; a "once-in-30-years" rainfall), as anomalies in an otherwise stable pattern. I just read an article by SonntagsZeitung, a leading Zurich-based paper describing Lostallo as "Unwetter-Gemeinde", the "bad-weather town". TIO, the leading online news portal in the Italian-speaking region talks of "maltempo" (bad #weather): as I write, it has that word in three of the first six headlines of its homepage.   Rarely they are framed as "climate" (as in: it’s the pattern itself shifting, the system breaking down), and when someone does, many get immediately cranky and aggressive. A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament attacked the Swiss weather service yesterday because they had issued an alert, accusing them of attempting to "climate-brainwash people": that was just hours before those people died in Fontana. In France, during the campaign for today’s parliamentary elections, candidates talking about #climate change got viciously harassed, threatened, and ridiculed.   We are at a doubly dangerous moment. The climate, biodiversity, the environment are shifting into disequilibrium, and it is man-made (fossil fuels, etc). At the same time, too many don’t want to hear about it - don’t disturb my way of living, “my rights", “my freedom", my consumption, "unless China acts…", etc – and that denial and self-delusion seem to be deepening in parallel with the growing uncertainty and increasing anxieties.   (Posted 30 June 2024) (Photo: Keystone press agency)

THE DELUSION OF “BAD WEATHER”   In "my" part of #Switzerland, a small triangle of land that stretches 100 km from the Alps southward and is home to less than 400’000 Italian-speaking people, a territory of steep mountain valleys and spectacular waterfalls, of charming lakeside towns and busy cities, over the last two weeks two events killed six people.   Massive rainfall on Saturday 22 June caused huge rock-and-mudslides around the town of Lostallo (photo below), tore down homes, killed three people (one was found 8 km down the river), and destroyed a segment of a crucial highway.   More thunderstorm and heavy rain killed three people last night in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley. At least one is still missing. Hundreds had to be evacuated, the region is without power and drinking water, a bridge was carried away.   I describe these two events not only because this small region is home, but to use them as an illustration. Similar things have happened in Italy, in France, and elsewhere in Switzerland during the last few days. The world-famous ski resort of Zermatt for instance was flooded twice in a week. And more dreadful things of much larger scale have happened around the world: devastating floods in Brasil, Nepal, the American Midwest; deadly heatwaves in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan; etc.   These events have become central to every discussion. We talk a lot about them.   It is striking however how they are always framed as "weather" (as in: it’s a freak event; an unusual season; a "once-in-30-years" rainfall), as anomalies in an otherwise stable pattern. I just read an article by SonntagsZeitung, a leading Zurich-based paper describing Lostallo as "Unwetter-Gemeinde", the "bad-weather town". TIO, the leading online news portal in the Italian-speaking region talks of "maltempo" (bad #weather): as I write, it has that word in three of the first six headlines of its homepage.   Rarely they are framed as "climate" (as in: it’s the pattern itself shifting, the system breaking down), and when someone does, many get immediately cranky and aggressive. A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament attacked the Swiss weather service yesterday because they had issued an alert, accusing them of attempting to "climate-brainwash people": that was just hours before those people died in Fontana. In France, during the campaign for today’s parliamentary elections, candidates talking about #climate change got viciously harassed, threatened, and ridiculed.   We are at a doubly dangerous moment. The climate, biodiversity, the environment are shifting into disequilibrium, and it is man-made (fossil fuels, etc). At the same time, too many don’t want to hear about it - don’t disturb my way of living, “my rights", “my freedom", my consumption, "unless China acts…", etc – and that denial and self-delusion seem to be deepening in parallel with the growing uncertainty and increasing anxieties.   (Posted 30 June 2024) (Photo: Keystone press agency)

THE DELUSION OF “BAD WEATHER”   In "my" part of #Switzerland, a small triangle of land that stretches 100 km from the Alps southward and is home to less than 400’000 Italian-speaking people, a territory of steep mountain valleys and spectacular waterfalls, of charming lakeside towns and busy cities, over the last two weeks two events killed six people.   Massive rainfall on Saturday 22 June caused huge rock-and-mudslides around the town of Lostallo (photo below), tore down homes, killed three people (one was found 8 km down the river), and destroyed a segment of a crucial highway.   More thunderstorm and heavy rain killed three people last night in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley. At least one is still missing. Hundreds had to be evacuated, the region is without power and drinking water, a bridge was carried away.   I describe these two events not only because this small region is home, but to use them as an illustration. Similar things have happened in Italy, in France, and elsewhere in Switzerland during the last few days. The world-famous ski resort of Zermatt for instance was flooded twice in a week. And more dreadful things of much larger scale have happened around the world: devastating floods in Brasil, Nepal, the American Midwest; deadly heatwaves in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan; etc.   These events have become central to every discussion. We talk a lot about them.   It is striking however how they are always framed as "weather" (as in: it’s a freak event; an unusual season; a "once-in-30-years" rainfall), as anomalies in an otherwise stable pattern. I just read an article by SonntagsZeitung, a leading Zurich-based paper describing Lostallo as "Unwetter-Gemeinde", the "bad-weather town". TIO, the leading online news portal in the Italian-speaking region talks of "maltempo" (bad #weather): as I write, it has that word in three of the first six headlines of its homepage.   Rarely they are framed as "climate" (as in: it’s the pattern itself shifting, the system breaking down), and when someone does, many get immediately cranky and aggressive. A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament attacked the Swiss weather service yesterday because they had issued an alert, accusing them of attempting to "climate-brainwash people": that was just hours before those people died in Fontana. In France, during the campaign for today’s parliamentary elections, candidates talking about #climate change got viciously harassed, threatened, and ridiculed.   We are at a doubly dangerous moment. The climate, biodiversity, the environment are shifting into disequilibrium, and it is man-made (fossil fuels, etc). At the same time, too many don’t want to hear about it - don’t disturb my way of living, “my rights", “my freedom", my consumption, "unless China acts…", etc – and that denial and self-delusion seem to be deepening in parallel with the growing uncertainty and increasing anxieties.   (Posted 30 June 2024) (Photo: Keystone press agency)

THE DELUSION OF “BAD WEATHER”   In "my" part of #Switzerland, a small triangle of land that stretches 100 km from the Alps southward and is home to less than 400’000 Italian-speaking people, a territory of steep mountain valleys and spectacular waterfalls, of charming lakeside towns and busy cities, over the last two weeks two events killed six people.   Massive rainfall on Saturday 22 June caused huge rock-and-mudslides around the town of Lostallo (photo below), tore down homes, killed three people (one was found 8 km down the river), and destroyed a segment of a crucial highway.   More thunderstorm and heavy rain killed three people last night in the Fontana area of the Maggia valley. At least one is still missing. Hundreds had to be evacuated, the region is without power and drinking water, a bridge was carried away.   I describe these two events not only because this small region is home, but to use them as an illustration. Similar things have happened in Italy, in France, and elsewhere in Switzerland during the last few days. The world-famous ski resort of Zermatt for instance was flooded twice in a week. And more dreadful things of much larger scale have happened around the world: devastating floods in Brasil, Nepal, the American Midwest; deadly heatwaves in India, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Pakistan; etc.   These events have become central to every discussion. We talk a lot about them.   It is striking however how they are always framed as "weather" (as in: it’s a freak event; an unusual season; a "once-in-30-years" rainfall), as anomalies in an otherwise stable pattern. I just read an article by SonntagsZeitung, a leading Zurich-based paper describing Lostallo as "Unwetter-Gemeinde", the "bad-weather town". TIO, the leading online news portal in the Italian-speaking region talks of "maltempo" (bad #weather): as I write, it has that word in three of the first six headlines of its homepage.   Rarely they are framed as "climate" (as in: it’s the pattern itself shifting, the system breaking down), and when someone does, many get immediately cranky and aggressive. A right-wing member of the Swiss parliament attacked the Swiss weather service yesterday because they had issued an alert, accusing them of attempting to "climate-brainwash people": that was just hours before those people died in Fontana. In France, during the campaign for today’s parliamentary elections, candidates talking about #climate change got viciously harassed, threatened, and ridiculed.   We are at a doubly dangerous moment. The climate, biodiversity, the environment are shifting into disequilibrium, and it is man-made (fossil fuels, etc). At the same time, too many don’t want to hear about it - don’t disturb my way of living, “my rights", “my freedom", my consumption, "unless China acts…", etc – and that denial and self-delusion seem to be deepening in parallel with the growing uncertainty and increasing anxieties.   (Posted 30 June 2024) (Photo: Keystone press agency)