The Alps suffer from global warming; you can help!

Dear travelers,

Most people are aware of global warming, the problems it causes, and will be causing in the near future. The Swiss Alps we all love and wish to visit are already suffering heavily from the warmer climate.

The warm Summer of this year is another sad example of rapidly melting glaciers. Today's news article on 20minuten.ch shows pictures of the process. Glaciologists predict that almost all glaciers will disappear over the next decades if global warming continues.

As a visitor to Switzerland, you can help to preserve Alpine nature:

1. Travel by train across Switzerland. This is eco-friendlier than driving, and a very pleasant way to travel;
2. Compensate for the CO2 emission of your ride or flight to and from Switzerland.

Compensating for your trip is very easy to do through the Swiss organization myclimate. You can make a donation based on the mode of transport and distance. Myclimate will use your donation for carbon offset projects around the world, including reforestation and investments in renewable energy.

A donation of € 94 compensates for a flight from Singapore to Zurich and back (one traveler). That's just a small portion of the average holiday budget, but makes a big difference in preserving the Alps for future generations. Further examples: from New York, € 56 compensates emissions. From London, only € 9 is enough. See www.myclimate.org to find the costs for your trip.

I made my donation today. I hope you do as well!

Thanks a lot, enjoy your holidays and the Swiss Alps!

Arno

Arno i notiiced the difference in just one year .

last year when i visited in late July ,there was still snow on the Mannlichen - Kleine Scheidegg trail and it opened mid June

this year in early June ,the trail was already open and the snow was almost the same as last year .

Hopefully this was just a year - year variation and not a trend of global warming ( but I fear it might be ) .

Hi vikicork,

The daily weather and the climate are only loosely related. Indeed one warm year is not necessarily related to global warming. However, the trend is clear. The best we can do is being responsible travelers: "Do the best and offset the rest" as they say at Myclimate.

Update: we've added a new page specifically about CO2 compensation:

myswissalps.com/ co2compensation