There is something deeply out of tune in the images that flow these days on our screens. A city of art like Milan transformed into a turbid river, with floods of Seveso, hail and fallen trees. The Acropolis of Athens, a thousand -year symbol of western civilization, closed due to the excess of heat. Large chicchi as large as eggs that break through greenhouses, roofs, windshield in the rustle. And then Crete who burns, the Texas that drowns, 1,500 more deaths in Europe in a few weeks, only for the heat.
Yet the way we still tell these events – “Bad weather”, “Emergency”, “Extreme season” – It makes us stumble in reality.
It is not bad weather. AND climatic collapse. These are no longer a question of alarms launched by “too pessimistic” scientists or scenarios in the 2100s. It is now. It’s here. It is happening simultaneously, everywherewith devastating effects affecting lives, cities, economies, symbols. The climate simply,
The sky started “to fall”
In Northern Italy and Frusinate, the hailstorms of the last few weeks have not only been violent. They were out of scale. Chicchi large as tennis balls have devastated cultivation, cars, roofs. The videos circulate in loop: broken windshield, destroyed greenhouses, tomato fields and corn razed on the ground in a few minutes.
According to the report “The climate in Italy in 2024”, of Snpa – National system for environmental protection, in the last 10 years the frequency of extreme hailstorms in Italy has increased by 35%. And the reason is physical: warmer = more water vapor in the atmosphere = greater energy available for violent phenomena.
The World Weather Attribion also confirms this, according to which global warming makes these events “more likely and more intense”: 4 billion people (about 49% of the world population) have experienced at least 30 days more than extreme heat (hottest than 90% of the temperatures observed in their area in the period 1991-2020), whose probability has increased at least twice due to the climate change caused by man.
This Escalation of extreme events It is not the result of the case, but of an increasingly unstable atmosphere and full of energy: warmer = more steam = more violence in phenomena.
And in the meantime Athens stops. The acropolis closed due to the excess of heat is more than a news from the news: it is a symbolic scene. Culture itself must surrender to the new climatic era. At 44 ° C you don’t walk, you don’t work, you don’t visit. You survive.
The heat that kills in silence
In daily bulletins there is often an essential fact: the heat kills.
And it does so in silence. As the case that became viral of the clinical garbage after an afternoon shift under the Extreme heat in Barcelona.
According to the preliminary data published by Eurostat and Eeabetween the end of June and the beginning of July they estimate About 1,500 excess deaths in the city like Milan, Rome, Lisbon, Paris, Madrid. The elderly, the workers exposed, the fragile people. It is a massacre that does not make noise. Just as the fact does not make the fact that even Alaska has just emitted its first alert for the heat.
There are no strong images, but merciless statistics. And the increase in these deaths is clearly related to the intensification of heat waves: longer, more early, more lethal. The climatic models provide that in the next century the number of deaths caused by the heat could increase in cities, even when efforts are made to ensure the safety of people.
Where it does not burn, it floods
In the meantime, the water does its devastation work. In Lombardyentire neighborhoods of Como, Bergamo, Milan They found themselves underwater. Mud, blackout, landslides. The images seem to come from another continent, from a dystopian future. But no: it is the Po Valley of 2025. The rain, today,. And find a soil tried by drought, unable to absorb.
According to all the analyzes available Europe (and Italy) have seen a doubling of serious alluvial events in the last 20 years. The fault? Unstable climate and inadequate management of the territory.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in Texasthe situation is even worse: Over 100 deaths from a flood called “millenary”. Among the victims, too 27 Girls guests of Camp Mysticswept away by a sudden and unstoppable wave.
In short, there are no more “extraordinary” events if they take place every month. Climate collapse is this: The disorder that becomes normal.
The Mediterranean is a pressure cooker
If there is a place that embodies today’s climatic paradox, it is the Mediterranean.
The temperatures of the sea, according to the latest surveys, came to overcome the +5 ° C compared to the seasonal average. It is a very serious anomaly, which changes everything. It feeds sudden storms, accelerates evaporation, affects marine ecosystems, fish, algae, food networks.
And I can also say it from direct experience: a few days ago I was in Sicily, in a point where until a few years ago it was not possible to enter the water even in July, so much was cold. This year, however, it looked like a spa. A surreal, unnatural heat that removes all doubts: the sea is changing skin. And it’s not a good sign.
TO Cretethe flames devour hectares of Mediterranean scrub, pushing hundreds of people to evacuate their homes and tourist facilities.
Tourism, agriculture, health: nothing is safe.
In the United States? Same script, same disaster
In the United States, the phenomenon is identical. Temperatures above 120 ° F (49 ° C) in Arizona and Nevada. Record increases of the deaths related to heat. Infrastructures that give way. City without water. The health system is already in crisis in the poorest bands. The struggle for climatic survival has already begun. And it shows a cruel reality: The most vulnerable people are also the least protected.
In these hours, in many Italian and European regions, temperatures are going down. You can breathe. You sleep better. But be careful: this apparent climatic truce is an illusion. The current thermal drop does not mean that the crisis is over.
On the contrary: the abrupt alternation between extreme heat and violent rains is one of the most typical characteristics of the climatic instability we are experiencing. We are not saving ourselves. We are oscillating. And each oscillation is wider, more unpredictable, more dangerous than the previous one.
But then, is it all lost?
No. And this is the point. The future is not entirely written. Every action, today, can slow down – or aggravate – what will happen tomorrow. We are not powerless.
We are guilty if we stay still. We have tools, technologies, ideas, data. For years now. We know that reduce emissions, Decarbonize energy, protect soils, rethink mobility, act for climatic justice They are possible choices. But a turning point is needed.
The world, and Europe in particular, is going through an already underway climatic collapse, not a future perspective. It is the continent that is heating more quickly, with direct impacts on daily life and economy. And if we are slowing down, it is not enough: an ambitious, resilient and collective transition is needed.
It is not bad weather. AND the price that we are paying, with the account that is going up more every day. If it is the man who causes the disaster, it is Only the man who can stop him. And this, after all, It is the most important news of all.
