Environment Story by Marco Piemonte

The Carso Knows Climate Change Well, and You?

By Marco Piemonte

Who is Carso?

The Carso (Karst) is a rugged and fascinating promontory, dotted with small stone villages, with a viewpoint from which the gaze can enter the blue of the sea, also known as the Karst plateau is a historical region, a rocky limestone plateau that stretches between Friuli-Venezia Giulia (Italy), Slovenia and Croatia, historically known for having been the scene of violent battles during the First World War, between Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops.

The Karst is full of thousands of caves of various sizes, some of these caves are open to the public, and the most famous are the Giant cave, the caves of San Canziano and the Postojna caves.

The Karst is crossed by a very rich network of paths, which can be traveled on foot or by mountain bike, which branch off through the various aspects of the landscape: from the reforested hills with black pine, to the meadows, up to the stony karst moor, passing through the characteristic vegetation karst, better maintained in the less urbanized areas. In the fascinating eastern edge of the Italian peninsula, white limestone rocks, red sinkholes and large expanses of green cross between light Mediterranean breezes and the bora.

Yes, the Karst lives, it has a soul, just like you who are reading this article of mine, on July 19, suddenly, this living being catches fire and the flames rush south, towards the villages of the Duino- Aurisina district, in truth of the Karst very little remained mostly scrub yellowed by drought that is quickly becoming a flame.

And so it was.

The impact of climate change is manifesting itself more strongly this summer than in previous years, confirming a trend that sees increasing temperatures and environmental disasters; a scenario widely predicted by the studies of the past decades. In several points of the globe, in this regard the earth is giving us important signs of suffering that now, having reached a stone’s throw from our gardens and our homes, we can no longer ignore.

In drought conditions, the Karst is a land sensitive to the flare-up of fires, so much so that a recent study on the impact of climate change on the aquifers of these areas has highlighted the characteristics of this particular soil that expose it to flames: its great permeability allows the immediate infiltration of water into the subsoil; the rains and melted snows sink into underground waterways that quench the thirst of the surrounding non-karst areas, while very few watercourses remain on the surface. The karst soil absorbs the water, drains it deeply and remains dry until the next rains. The heat of the last few summers is therefore a crucial factor for the spread of fires, since the quality of the soil, dried by drought, does not allow for the retention of the moisture necessary to dampen the flames. “Coniferous forests are like gasoline with this drought”.

For the health of a soil so susceptible to water infiltration, such as the karst one, the presence of woodland vegetation on the surface is fundamental: essential for the infiltration and storage of water in underground systems, the karst flora is protective. , a blanket over the underground waterways that regulates the temperatures and the microclimate of the area, above and below ground.

In short, the Karst is well aware of climate change and despite the overwhelming evidence, many deny the risks our planet is running.

Many people around the world believe that climate change is an invention, or at least that it is an event that is not imminent and all in all less dangerous than the data indicate. For this reason, social psychologists, cognitive scientists and neuroeconomists have long been questioning what are the reasons for climate denial.

I believe that the answer lies in the functioning of the brain., Or rather, to activate our alarm system, it is not enough that a stimulus is and envelops the whole area in a heavy and pestiferous blanket. An apocalyptic sunset, where ash and smoke are rekindled by the reflections of the sun, transforming the spectacle of the sun setting over the Gulf of Trieste into a macabre warning. A heavy, gloomy atmosphere, far from all hope.

This tragedy has violently reminded us how everything we take for granted at any moment can be destroyed, only in these moments of pain and adrenaline do they make us find cohesion and unity, for our land and the desire to collaborate with a goal. common and a purpose: to defend the beauty of our planet and life together, the only fire that we will never put out.

In fact, the climate change risk remains high, where greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere should be drastically reduced by 2050, a date still perceived as distant from the vast majority of the population, just as geographically distant appears the North Pole, whose ice is melting, and Southeast Asia, devastated by the floods. It is this space-time gap that determines the detached attitude towards environmental issues, an attitude amplified by the defensive mechanism of repression, which we unconsciously use in many contexts to chase away worries. “It is a process that is completely analogous to the one we carry out with regard to other equally fearful thoughts, such as that of death, for example.

For this reason, initiatives such as the community called “Carsoniamoci” are born, an initiative born under the wing of the National (Italy) and European Association, the “Green Hydrogen Project” which deals with Ecological Transition and Hydrogen, Carsoniamoci to raise funds from make available to families and the Public Administration for targeted interventions but above all to disseminate the above, transferring correct information and again to keep alive the memory of this fire that devastated the wonderful Karst.

Marco Piemonte

eYs Magazine, Italy