Married couple from Bristol attract awe and abuse on X with photos that show ‘staggering’ changes in the Alps

A tourist has posted “staggering” photos of himself and his wife at the same spot in the Swiss Alps almost exactly 15 years apart, in a pair of photos that highlight the speed with which global heating is melting glaciers.

Duncan Porter, a software developer from Bristol, posted photos that were taken in the same spot at the Rhone glacier in August 2009 and August 2024. The white ice that filled the background has shrunk to reveal grey rock. A once-small pool at the bottom, out of sight in the original, has turned into a vast green lake.

“Not gonna lie, it made me cry,” Porter said in a viral post on social media platform X on Sunday night.

  • Transporter Room 3@startrek.websiteEnglish
    148·
    5 months ago

    My dad thinks climate change is a scam and “someone [i]s making a lot of money from it”

    My dad also laments that the local lake doesn’t freeze over like it did when he was a teenager, DRIVING on top of it with his brothers.

    Totally unrelated to climate change though. Cause that’s totes fake.

    Also storms are more violent and frequent, winters are basically spring 2.0 now and the local river has flooded way past historic levels and could threaten the downtown area of their city within the decade.

    But all that is SOOOOOOO unrelated.

    • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      51·
      5 months ago

      The cognitive dissonance is so strange to me. I’m a native Cheesehead and it’s a well documented fact that ice fishing season in Wisconsin is quickly getting shorter and shorter due to the higher winter temperatures.

      Maybe it’s a branding issue. What if we start referring to “climate change” as “demise of ice fishing” or “imminent collapse of the snowmobile industry”?

      • P1nkman@lemmy.worldEnglish
        26·
        5 months ago

        imminent collapse of the snow industry

        That should make the tourism industry get their lobbying straight.

    • finestnothing@lemmy.worldEnglish
      49·
      5 months ago

      He is partially right - there are people making a lot of money from climate change… Or at least from causing it

      • greenskye@lemm.eeEnglish
        131·
        5 months ago

        To be fair there are also a lot of ‘green’ company scams out there too. Grifters are everywhere

      • Amanda@aggregatet.orgEnglish
        5·
        5 months ago

        That’s capitalism for you: one company makes money creating the problem and another fixing it! It’s double-pumped!

    • Teppichbrand@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      Talked to a random farmer last week:
      “Weather is unpredictable, so wet, then hot, then cold. I need to work 36 hours straight or our hay will get wet. But I gotta feed my cows. Well, I guess this is just how it is, right?”
      I really didn’t know what to say to him. Evaporation, water cycle, soil compaction, diesel, methan, milk? He wouldn’t even try to understand any of this. I don’t want to become one of the cynical “we are fucked”-people. Everyone can change something in their lifes.

    • deleted@lemmy.worldEnglish
      216·
      5 months ago

      While I think climate change is a real issue and we need to do something about it, I can see the rationale behind your dad’s thoughts and childhood memories.

      Is the planet getting hotter is one thing and was it caused by humans is another thing.