29 December 2018
As a child I loved storms, and as an adult, too, I’ve felt an excitement in the presence of dark skies, lightning, thunder, the rushing sound of water, puddles, the smell of wet clothes. I also like fine weather, but for me the smell of the air before the rain has something more.
Whenever it rained, my mother had endless warnings. She was afraid I’d catch a cold, she bundled me up till I was almost suffocating, she worried about wet feet. But I dreamed of splashing with my feet in the rain water; I wanted to feel my hair pasted to my head, the drops sliding into my eyes. As a child and adolescent, I experienced rain as a promise of adventure—the exposure of the body to the wild, a challenge to the swelling, threatening sky. And as a woman I loved spring; I’d happily lie in the sun, but I adored autumn, too, even the arrival of the cold. I never worried about weather: heat, humidity, wind, rain, snow, cold—the more I was outside, the better. The seasons were time running pleasantly in a circle, like a happy dog chasing its tail.
A few decades ago, out of curiosity, I began to read about climate change. At first it seemed a kind of reactionary pessimism: increase in the greenhouse effect, global warming, rising ocean temperatures, melting glaciers, the end of the world on the horizon. I read in my usual way, wanting to understand and form an opinion, but also to fantasise. In fact I didn’t understand much, I didn’t fantasise much. Was it possible the ultimate devastation of the planet was among the many devastations caused by the human race? Was it possible the animal man, that infinitesimal piece of nature, in the course of his brief history had managed to irreversibly damage all the rest?
As a girl I learned that, while progress was unlimited, not many enjoyed its fruits. Yet if the means of production and consumption could be straightened out, things would advance in a just manner. What we learn when we’re young is difficult to correct. So for a while I calmed myself, by embracing the opinion that climate change had always been there and that man had very little to do with its latest manifestations. All very wrong: I kept reading, and I repented.
And now I’ve become obsessive. I repeat to friends and relatives: the sea level is rising, the ice is melting, greenhouse gases are increasing, the atmosphere is warming, and it’s our fault, the fault of the way of life and production imposed on us: it has to be changed immediately. Mainly, though, my lighthearted pleasure in the seasons has disappeared. Now I hate these eternal summers, I’m afraid of the furious heat that starts early and won’t end. And the black skies with the rain cascading down terrify me, making streets into rivers, burying people and things under the mud.