The mountains are crumbling.

The mountains are crumbling. Our world is literally falling apart.

This summer, I spent some days hiking close to Mont Blanc. The routes to the summit had already been closed, since the unusually hot temperatures had destabilized the ice and the rocks. In the Italian Alps, a glacier collapse a few weeks earlier had killed eleven people and injured eight, while in the Swiss Alps old plane wrecks and corpses reappeared from the melting snow.

So I knew that the extreme weather was also affecting the alpine region. But standing in front of a majestic, 4800m tall mountain and observing roaring rockslides, again and again, and hearing, seeing and feeling the mountain crumbling, that is more than a sober fact or a rational piece of news. It is scary. Seeing the gray bedrock in empty canyons, where only a few decades ago massive glaciers descended into the valley, that is heartbreaking.

We human beings are perfectly equipped, with all the required senses, to understand what we are doing to this planet. To notice the changes. Not with our brains alone, but with our hearts. Grief. Eco-anxiety. Just listen to the unease in everyone’s voice when a conversations turns to the heatwaves, the wildfires, the floods. The everyday experiences and unusual observations: “I’ve been coming to this region for over twenty years and I don’t remember any season when there were that few berries and mushrooms here!” “We never had such intense thunderstorms and lightning.” “I usually swim in this river, now I can walk across.”

That unease is justified. This is not normal. The discomfort is there to help us and to guide us. Whatever the feeling might tell you — whether that is to eat less meat, to not vote for the guy who talks only about “technological progress and economic growth”, to join a demonstration or to quit a bullshit job — please listen. That is nature talking and she is not doing well. She needs our help.