Ep.73: Con el agua al cuello - Serie Cambio Climático - Parte 2

Nuestra vida en la Tierra está ante el más grande desafío de la humanidad: El Cambio Climático. Esta es una serie de tres episodios en los que abordamos tres elementos: A) Qué es el cambio climático, B) Cómo nos afecta y C) Qué podemos hacer para enfrentarlo. 

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
For any of us. When wetalk about the weather, we basically think
about how hot or how cold aplace is and if it rains or if
it doesn' t rain too much. These are, say, the factors
that one more associates with the conceptof climate. However, the climate or
climate state anywhere on the planet isa much more complex sheath that includes other

(00:31):
elements that interact with each other anddetermine what we really call time, as
when we say Heike, how timeis out there is not raining these days.
And so we could say that climateis the average weather conditions of a
region in long periods of about,twenty, thirty or more years, while

(00:54):
what we call time are variations oftime or days or sometimes weeks, of
that general climate characteristic of a region. To give you an example. In
the previous episode of this series wewere talking about how we always learned that
in Santa Marta and most of theCaribbean, the climate is warm, dry

(01:18):
sunny and with few rains, yesor no. However, there are days
when the weather in Santa Marta orin some parts of the Caribbean, can
be rainy or cloudy and even witha certain fried. And that' s
the difference. The climate is somewhatbroader, more general, the longer term
and bigger, we could say,and time is the most local thing.

(01:48):
And this sheath is important to know, because the variations that we are living
now with this climate change are notone- day or one- week pods,
but are big changes that affect theglobal climate throughout the earth and quickly
alter the weather patterns that we wereused to in the last forty- fifty

(02:09):
years or more. That the Caribbean, and especially Santa Marta, is a
territory where it only rains between Apriland June and between September and October,
and the rest of the year sunran nothing. My brother that Vaina already
changed us and will keep changing.Look how it' s rained in the

(02:31):
last few years. In December,imagine you of that Sheath instead of crazy
breeze, rain showers have arrived onthe Day of Veils. How about And
in February of this year, twothousand twenty- four fell tremendous showers in
the middle of carnival. It's not like that' s never happened.
That' s not true. Ihave records that in the year eighty

(02:53):
- nine it rained very hard inFebruary and in March on the entire Colombian
coast, including in Santa Marta.But the sheath is that these rains in
December and February are going to becomemore and more normal and over the years,
it is very possible that in SantaMarta it takes us all year with
short breaks of summers or summers.That sheath has no return. That'

(03:20):
s gonna be it. You seethat another example of these changes in climate
rhythms is what has happened in theNetherlands in recent years. Winters are getting
less cold and more rainy when wearrived in this country twenty- eight years
ago, twenty- five years ago, almost in winters snowy lakes and canals

(03:40):
were always frozen and we went skatingon natural ice everywhere a very rich sheath.
But that sheath now is a lotof a week. Every winter the
cold gets cold and san is over. Then the temperature stays out there at
five degrees. Every day it rainsand with that gray cloud above it that

(04:04):
goes from Madrid to Moscow, thatdarkens everything itself pote vay Navarro and the
rest of the year. Every monthhere breaks a new record. The rainiest
spring, the coldest summer, thedriest autumn. Look, for example,
my wife, who is Dutch,tells me that when she was a little

(04:27):
hairy. Since the 30th of Marchof each year, his mother kept in
the attic, in the garrilla ofthe house, all winter clothes, blankets,
jackets, long briefs, wool sweaters, etcetera, etcetera. And since
the first of April, when springbegan and the temperature was already close to

(04:48):
about twenty degrees, people only worelight clothes, shorts, shorts, camiseticas,
clothes, their ethercytes, light andsuch. But now, Brother,
this year, for example, untilthe beginning of June, we had temperatures
that were around ten degrees and sometimesa little less, a sheath rarely seen,

(05:10):
but that little by little shows usthat the patterns that we had always
known and seen were being recorded fora little over a hundred years have begun
to change and change drastically and quicklyin the last twenty twenty twenty- five
years. As I explained to youin the previous episode, climate change can

(05:33):
be a natural sheath, but weput in the accelerator for burning sheaths down
here and producing smoke. But alot of people wonder why warming the atmosphere
is causing us so much tangled weywhy, well, it turns out that

(05:57):
the temperature of the atmosphere sends thestop, especially what happens on the surface
of the earth. Let' sstart by saying that the currents of air,
that is, the winds, aremoving, as we said, from
the coldest to the hottest, becausenow those movements of winds are different.
Sometimes they go faster, sometimes theymove in the opposite direction as they did

(06:21):
before, sometimes they go slower andas the winds drag clouds on one side
and on the other. These newmovements can lead rains to where there have
never been rains before, or theycan lead more rains to where it used
to rain, but not so much. And all of that can cause,

(06:42):
for example, floods to occur nowin those places that were not prepared to
receive so many rains, or thosenew air currents can drag clouds to the
opposite side and thus generate droughts insome areas where there were no droughts before

(07:08):
to continue entanglement with global warming,it turns out that the waters of the
oceans, of the world' sseas, have also been warming up.
And that is a problem more orless a cypote problem that complicates the panorama,
because this makes the sea water evaporatefaster and when the water evaporates,

(07:29):
it becomes that in clouds. Ifor not, then there are more clouds
for the winds to drag from oneside to the other and so there is
more water to fall. Rather,with just these two little things I'
m telling you, the changes inair currents and the warming of the seas
can already see the disorder or,rather, the new climate order that we

(07:53):
have on the planet because of thegases that as CEO two and the least
we have been producing and we continueto produce more and more with our industrial
and daily activities. They change theair currents, they change the sea currents.

(08:22):
The sea warms up a little bitand as soon as a lot of
people are sure to keep telling meto do it, but why so much
bully and so much fuss. Whatis the real problem and the answer is
simple. If the pods follow,how they go. This is going to
get worse and our life on Earthis going to get more and more complicated.

(08:45):
Perhaps not for us, the oldones, since we are already in
the last ones, but for ourpeeled ones, for our great- grandchildren
and, as they say, forfuture generations. This is from the Caribbean

(09:09):
and other tulips and I' mCarlos Flores Urbina. I am a biologist,
but above all the pods, Iam a bad- born on the
shores of the Caribbean Sea and atthe foot of the majestic Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta. I' m talkingto you from Holland. Before I continue,

(09:33):
I want to remind you once againthat making this podcast, with interesting
and quality episodes, you have acamellito. There are many hours of research,
a lot of late nights and weekends. Locked here giving this a lot
of time dedicated to interviews, tocontrolling and verifying the information and support material

(09:54):
that I am getting, in additionto the costs of equipment for recording,
editing and generating the final product,as well as hosting the episodes on the
different digital or husting platforms, asthe peeled ones of that sheath all call
all this. I do it withgreat pleasure so that you can enjoy it.

(10:15):
So I invite those who value mywork to support me with a monthly
financial contribution, signing up on mywww platform. Patreon with Slash from the
Caribbean and other tulips. Thank youvery much. Episode seventy- three.

(10:37):
With water around the neck series,climate change. Part two, although many
people say hey, but check thatthe temperature goes up to one or two
rich graditos imagine Bogotá warmica, orthe people here in Holland who imagine that

(10:58):
in the winters they will be ableto go to the beach and sit under
a palm tree, catch the sunand such and take a crazy coconut watching
it sunset I wish it were thatbad to see the panorama and although suddenly
in a few years. If wehave coconut palms here, on the beaches
of Holland or Bogotá, we don' t need to wear a jacket,

(11:20):
sweater or anything like that anymore.The problem is that global climate change is
going to affect pods that are reallyimportant to humanity. One of the things

(11:41):
that will be affected and that arealready being affected in many parts is agriculture.
On this I would like to giveyou an example. Imagine that for
cotton cultivation, farmers have a clearidea that the crop will make them a
profit. They have to sow theseed from March to April to take advantage

(12:03):
of the sun of March and thefirst rains of the year in April so
that the semillitas germinate very quickly andso the bushes begin to grow strong and
without problems, then taking advantage ofthe rains that must continue to fall until
more or less June and then fromJuly, that is when the flower of
the cotton begins to ripen and tocome out that white and beautiful speck,

(12:28):
since it is already supposed to enterthe summer and it will not rain more
or it will rain much less.And so in August September, before it
starts raining again, you have tocollect the harvest from the well dried specks,
to make the bales and ready,to collect the ticket. That kind
of thing, sort of, madegreat features. It works that good sheath.

(12:48):
That was before, because now,with climate change, it can rain
on them all week before and afterthe day they thought of harvesting the speck
And if that happens, because that' s how they got there because a
wet speck is useless and worthless.The one who sows cotton in these times
of climate change spends it praying thatthe dry season and the rains will arrive

(13:13):
when they serve the matica. Imaginethat bath and this example with cotton is
repeated with many other products, notonly in Colombia, but, as I
told you, in all parts ofthe world, here in Holland and also,
among others, in Germany, Belgiumand France. In two thousand twenty

(13:35):
- three that happened with potato crops. The loss of potato crops was impressive
because something happened that had rarely occurredduring the rainy season. At the end
of the year it was very intenseand, in addition, it lasted until
the arrival of winter. The groundthen got soaked. The water table was

(13:56):
very high and the fields never managedto drain, let alone dry, and
that' s how far the potatocame. It rotted. The economic calculations
of these losses due to the damageto potato crops alone this season just passed
are eleven thousand hectares, representing millionsof euros in economic losses. Tenada and

(14:18):
all because, as I have saida few times, climate cycles are no
longer the ones we knew and theones we were used to for here There
is an interesting sheath that some mightsay are good things that bring climate change,

(14:43):
although I doubt it very much inthe town where I live, in
Holland, seeing that winters are milderin recent years a group of investors.
Since last year, I think,they started a grape growing, a vineyard
to produce wine. Imagine yourself,a sheath that fifteen or twenty years ago
we would have said that it wasimpossible to grow grapes in such high latitudes,

(15:11):
for the manes have already sown andthe maticas there go. In a
few years they expect to uncork thefirst bottle of Dutch wine. That at
first glance people say good, uh, thanks to climate change, ah chévere.
But if the climate in Holland isto become like the Mediterranean climate,
in southern France, in southern Italyor in Spain, that means that the

(15:33):
bugs from over there, like mosquitoes, crickets, opaque Paco and all that
will also be able to come here. In fact, they have always come
in the summer months, but strongwinters did not survive. But since now
there are no strong winters. Thosemanes have definitely moved to here and many

(15:54):
of those bugs from across the southhave become plagues here in the north,
because here we don' t havethe other bugs in the south. They
eat them. This is what isknown as migration or rather the introduction of
alien species, which causes immense problemsin many parts of the world. Continuing

(16:19):
with the effects of climate change,there are some that can affect us to
our health, as you hear itYou see, for example, that in
Colombia we have regions where it isalready being recorded that it is going to
rain more and more. We seeit in the valleys of the Magdalena River
and Cauca, between the two,between the mountain ranges and in the Momposine

(16:42):
depression and in sectors of the northcoast, including our Santa Marta. For
a direct effect in those areas thatwill become rainier will be the proliferation of
diseases, because you know that themore water and humidity there are in a
more tasty environment, the fungi,bacteria, mosquitoes and other bugs that can

(17:04):
potentially make us sick live there.They' re starting to worry. The
sheath is serious. The sheath isserious and that I' m just starting
with the rite, among other problemsthat will generate us from the increase of

(17:32):
the rains. There are, forexample, erosion processes in dependent areas,
mountains, hills, hills. Themore water falls, the mountains are filled
with water like a sponge and softenand begin to erode and fall to pieces
and, as we have been given, to cut down the forests, for

(17:56):
we will have more and more collapses, more avalanches and more mud going down
rivers and ravines. And that cancause. The list is long, but
only a couple of things to worrythem more can cause the tamponade or destruction
of roads that already happens, offallen bridges, of electrical towers, damage

(18:19):
to aqueducts, imagine you sliding residentialareas and clear dangers to human life.
The sheath is getting more and morehairy. Don' t pay me,
don' t pay me. Keephearing me, don' t be cowardly

(18:45):
or don' t worry. I' m not going to tell you everything
that can happen to us, justa couple more things so you can go
to bed later. I' mstill on about the sea level rise caused
by the melting of polar ice caps, which seems to have no revers because
these days they saw a documentary aboutan island called Funa Futi in the middle

(19:08):
of the South Pacific, over therein Polynesia between Hawaii and Australia. On
that little island come about six zeropeople with very common people like you and
me, who go to work everyday. The bald ones go to school
in the morning and in the afternoonthey play football in a camp there,
next to the International Airport of LaIslita. On Sundays they all go to

(19:32):
church on weekdays. Many women goto work at the craft centre, where
they sell their products there to touristsarriving on the island. And it is
that many live from tourism, takingadvantage that the beaches are paradisiacal and there
is an immense marine lagoon of seventeenkilometers long, with waters, crystal clears,

(19:53):
ships sunken since World War II andthere they take tourists to dive and
take pictures. So, that's a better atoll. Said as I
already told them, people like youor me, with their problems, but
also with their dreams, with theirvery friendly negotiations and with the desire to
push forward forever. But the sheathis that these people already know that in

(20:17):
about fifty years their entire island willbe underwater. The sea is going to
eat it, just as it hasalready begun to eat it because of the
rising water level and the erosion ofthe coastline. Every time there is a
storm, a tidal wave or asea of cam, as we call it
in Santa Marta, the waves getmore and more into the mainland and they

(20:41):
take pieces of the island, soin fifty years, about they can say
it' s over. Who lovedyou. No more going, no more
going, and one wonders then wherethose people from that island are going to
go, but also from another littleisland in that area. They will be
or better already they are part ofa new class of displaced people, people

(21:07):
who because of climate change, itis up to them to go out of
their lands, leave their things,their homes, their dead, everything they
have and migrate to where they canstart a sad new life. As for
Holland, I can tell you thatmore than half of the inhabitants here live

(21:30):
in areas that could be flooded,i e flood risk areas. And this
is because this country is flat,very flat, that, besides having parts
that are below sea level to imagineyou, up to six meters eighty below
sea level, the whole country isalso a delta or a mouth of great

(21:51):
rivers. So here the threat comesfrom both parts of the sea, which
every day rises the level and stormsbecome more straight and stronger, threatening to
commit themselves to land at any timeand from rivers such as the Ring,
the More, the Bao, theAison, which, after crossing several countries

(22:11):
of Europe, arrive here loaded withwater until its mouth on the Dutch coast.
The threats coming from the sea facethem with gigantic dams and locks that,

(22:33):
according to their calculations, could withstandextreme storms for the next fifty years
or perhaps more. Another measure theytake to defend themselves from the sea is
what they call samsupletzi or sand supplementationacross the coastline. Each year, these
manes pull sand with dredges from thebottom of the North Sea and throw it

(22:56):
all along the coast. Twelve millioncubic metres of sand each year, something
like the size of eight football stadiums, imagine and so maintain the coastline and
can also maintain the dams, dunesand other defense structures against high tides and
storms that sand. Don' tthink you throw her out there wherever she

(23:18):
falls and already as you once didwith the Chinese dredge in Santa Marta.
Nothing. These manes have studied foryears and continue to study everything about tides,
currents and winds, and so theyknow that if they throw the sand
on such a side, that sandwill be carried or transported by the currents
to the part where it is neededto strengthen the coastline. And that'

(23:44):
s all year round, every year, a job that never stops. The
other threat with water then is thatof rivers, rivers of all sizes,
some very large like the Rhine,which is born there in the Alps and
crosses Switzerland, France and Germany beforearriving in Holland. Imagine how much water

(24:08):
that curl brings when it rains upthere in its basin or when, for
example, in the spring, thesnows of the Alps begin to thawed.
That' s an impressive body ofwater that goes down to Holland to the
Netherlands. With this sheath of climatechange. The situation for Holland is complicated

(24:36):
because, in addition to the amountof water that already attracts the Ring and
the other rivers that cross the country, if it starts to rain here very
much and intensely, as happened thisyear. In the spring, the risk
of flooding in many parts of Hollandis much higher. Since the 18th century,
the Dutch have managed the waters ofthese rivers, building a system of

(24:59):
exclusive canals and mills and more recently, gigantic jet pumps that move water all
the time, taking it out ofwhere there is a lot and sending it
to where there is little or throwingit into the sea. And as if
that were not enough, they havea national program called space for rivers,

(25:23):
where they have defined very large areasof land that can let flood on purpose
to avoid, for example, damageand vital infrastructure. Many would think that
Holland was already prepared to withstand thefloods and sea level rise. But nothing,
brother. They know it' snot like that. These people work

(25:44):
for him every day, that researchesmore, builds more, adapts more and
constantly invents new solutions to keep allthe inhabitants, as they say with dry
feet and now returning to the effectsof climate change worldwide. As for the

(26:08):
sea, we are having an additionalproblem and the sea is becoming more acidic.
Without going into detail so as notto get entangled, I' m
just telling you that' s becauseof the levels of the blessed, ceo
two in the atmosphere. Then,when the sea becomes more acidic, that

(26:30):
acidity dissolves everything in the seabed andthat is made with lime, imagine you
know what things are made with limethere in the sea, because all the
shells of oysters, snails, chipichipisand as if that were not enough,
corals also imagine that. The concernis that in the year two thousand and

(26:55):
fifty, that is, around thecorner. If it goes on like this
in that year, it will fallif there are no corals or bugs with
shells. For those of you whodon' t know what the importance of
corals is in our lives, Irecommend listening to episodes twelve and thirteen of
the Tairona Blue series. That's where I tell you that complete story.

(27:22):
The effects of climate change on landcontinue to be investigated. There are
scientists working on that day and night. However, there is a long way
to go to know everything Surely thereare many other things and effects that we
will discover. Over time, modelscontinue to fit new records. The important
thing is that humanity, we all, do not let our guard down and

(27:48):
that we are always attentive, althoughmany believed that this series of that,
climate change, came to this point. I am sorry to disappoint you and
to say no, that there isstill one more episode, perhaps the most

(28:11):
complicated, although I think it willbe the most important one, because it
is in which I am going totell you what we can do not to
leave to our bare ones such aproblem that we have gotten into in recent
years, because what we are leavingyou so far is what we call environmental
debt, a debt that, ifit continues to grow, will prevent you

(28:34):
from enjoying what we have been ableto enjoy in twenty, thirty or forty
years. The earth is no longergoing to be the same as we live
in. That' s clear.So piles if you want to make someone
for your peels and pay any ofthe dues of such environmental debt or at
least amortize the interest on the debt. Don' t miss the next episode.

(28:56):
We can all put our bit ofsand. That' s for sure.
Before I say goodbye again, Iask those who value my work to
subscribe to the www platform. Patrencom Slash del Caribe y otras tulips.

(29:18):
There you can choose the level ofsupport you want to give me one dollar
a month, three dollars a month, or five dollars a month. And
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up for free and share the platform' s link with more people, this

(29:40):
is from the Caribbean and other tulipsand I' m Carlos Flores Urbina.
Thank you so much for listening tome and Chao