It’s October and I’m driving with my window opened and wearing a t-shirt. On the phone with my longtime friend José Diogo, I start considering the ascent of Kilimanjaro.
He’s reluctant. He did it once already and claims the snows are melting anyway, and his interest in doing it again, with considerably less snow...is far from enthusiastic.
What do you mean, the snows are melting down? I ask. Global warming you mean?
So, that’s what the fuss is all about – it’s really happening – global warming!
The severity of the situation was never so clear to me, as it was in that moment. It’s really serious stuff! Landscape in our planet is changing irreversibly!
It felt like I was ‘witnessing’ global warming for the first time. Al Gore’s graphs were impressive, but I forgot all about it the next day. But this striking impact of the snow cap of Kilimanjaro was really disturbing. Never a stronger image had flashed in my mind like this one.
Could it be that other people would feel the same way as I do about it? Was there a way we could show this to the world, to make it react?
I figured that, if we could get people to witness this catastrophe in real time, some of them could change the way they behave towards environment. Kilimanjaro snows are familiar to everyone – either from the Discovery Channel or from Hemingway’s novel – but the fact is, after 2015 it will disappear…irreversibly.
I called José Diogo again.
What about climbing the Kilimanjaro and placing some kind of non-scientific measurement system, a barometer of some kind, like a pole with marks or something? I asked him.
He liked it. He got the idea immediately.
What if we would cycle up the Kilimanjaro instead of climbing – that would be news worthy and, maybe, we could get to the people that way? I added.
I think it can be done, going through the least steep route, don’t think anyone has ever done it, though. He replied.
Well….that’s even better! I said.
