Italy is blessed with a good climate all over. Even the colder North tends to have a good few weeks of enjoyable warmer weather in the summer, and the presence of the sea on three out of four sides of the country means plenty of our regions enjoy mild winters, too. And if you love cool, crisp air, nothing is better than the Alps, or the balmy eveningsE of Tuscan or Piedmontese hills.
But things have been changing fast. I, for one, can testify the summers of my childhood and adolescence were quite different from today’s and we’re not talking a century ago, just the 1980s and 1990s. For a number of years, Europe has been hit by what we call caldo Africano during the summer months, caused by Africa-originating anti-cyclones that bring scorching hot air to the Old Continent. Of course, Mediterranean countries, Italy included, get the worst of it.
Last week, northern regions’ temperatures ranged anything between 32 and 35 degrees, with higher peaks in the Pianura Padana and in cities. But it’s been the South and our main islands, Sardinia and Sicily, to suffer the most, notably also because of the incredible losses caused by wildfires.
There is a place in particular we can use as an example of what’s going on, the Sicilian town of Floridia, in the province of Siracusa, which unwillingly reached international fame because of last week’s unprecedented temperatures of last week. In a recent New York Times article, author Jason Horowitz explains Floridia did have some interesting claims to fame even before, with, once upon a time, a Bourbon king’s wife as a ruler, famous local produce – snails in particular – and the youngest mayor in Italy, Marco Carianni, who is only 24.
But last week, on Wednesday, Floridia became the hottest place in Europe, hitting 49 degrees Celsius, or 119.84 Fahrenheit. Weather historians have been quick to point out that was the highest temperature reached in Europe ever, or at least since records have been kept.
This is not natural for Italy, not even for a Sicilian summer. These temperatures are disastrous for our country in more ways than one: there is, for a start, the increased risk of wildfires, a risk that, with 38% of our territory covered in forests, is high in every region. Since the beginning of the summer the heat, along with unpredictable winds, have caused extensive wildfires especially in Sicily, Calabria, and Sardinia, but also in other areas, including the Rome province of Lazio, where a town had to be evacuated.
Then, there are the damages to farming: take Floridia again, for example, where full orchards of verdello variety green lemons have been destroyed by the heat, literally burning while still on the plant. And it isn’t only citrus fruit that pay the consequences, but other typical cultivations of the area like grapes, too, to the point some have been thinking to switch to more heat-resistant fruit, like avocado.
Similar has been the fate of the town’s famous snails, which are widely farmed in surrounding fields and are a protagonist of local, traditional cuisine: as Viviana Pappalardo, a young farmer, said to Horowitz, snails literally burned inside their shell.
This heat is unnatural and it isn’t only difficult to handle for people, it can cause immense problems to the economy, too. Pappalardo says it well: “People don’t understand that the damage is everywhere,” but, she continues, “All of us who work in this sector, in agriculture, understand it.”
And agriculture, the ancestral mechanism through which earth, water, and air feed humanity, is at the heart and at the root of our own very survival, let’s not forget it.
This heat is, of course, a danger to us human beings and to our four-legged friends, too. At the height of last week’s heatwave, many villages and cities turned into ghost towns, with people avoiding to leave the house, where electric fans and air conditioning made the temperature more bearable. Those who work outdoor weren’t given the option though, and while suggestions to keep hydrated and avoid being out in the hotter hours of the day are all true and welcome, one wonders if, in temperatures this high, they are actually sufficient.
Truth is, it isn’t only this summer that should worry us, it’s the past 20 we’ve been living through: hotter and hotter, dryer and dryer, we’ve been sailing further away from our beloved – and much envied—Mediterranean climate, straight into the arms of tropical weather. More proof of it is, in fact, the regular floods Italy has been experiencing in recent years: once upon a time – but not so far back – floods were a once-in-a-lifetime event, something you may experience, perhaps but not necessarily, once in your life, depending on where you hailed from. Nowadays, we have a bona fide floods season, which starts usually around October and lasts until the winter cold arrives.
What does this all tell us? That non ci sono più le stagioni di una volta, “seasons are no longer the same,” as our elders would say, but firstly, that we need to take action before it’s too late. Climate change is real and is now knocking hard on our door: Venice risks to drown, the South could turn into a desert, floods could change our territory and geography. We can adapt or we could try to fix things while (or if) we still can: it’s a huge step, but perhaps one it’s time to consciously take.
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