In the beginning was a sound. That of the calving of a glacier which separates from the continent. And it’s an understatement to say that it’s impressive. Just like the work of Aline Pénitot. With a sensitive intelligence, a true respect for the listener – whom she knows, even on the most arduous seas and mountains, to take on board with her -, the author, among others, of the series Les Pacotilleuses and Forgetting Moby Dick, will have succeeded this time in making “scientific” and “poetic” rhyme. To truly understand what is happening here, now, in our climates.
And since, in this case, there is no reason for suspense, let’s say it straight away: the observation is not alarmist, it is alarming. The threats of climate change are now in the present – ??and some have already come true. And this is not the affirmation of a particularly sensitive soul, but rather the conclusion of the greatest specialists on the issue, who, each in their field of expertise and investigation, repeat it to us on the microphone by Aline Pénitot.
She thus questioned those who went to search in the marine and terrestrial sediments, in the traces of the fires. And first “In the Memory of Ice”, title of the first episode. After having us put on our skis to see the Girose glacier in the Alps, she questions Jérôme Chappellaz. And then to highlight his titles, not to make noise or flatter any ego, but so that the undeniable competence is heard and leaves no room for climate skeptics.
Paleoclimatologist, research director at the CNRS, professor at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne, former director of the French Paul-Emile-Victor Polar Institute, Jérôme Chappellaz has led numerous expeditions in polar environments. Also testifying will be Catherine Ritz, glaciologist and climatologist at the Institute of Environmental Geosciences in Grenoble; Amaëlle Landais, paleoclimatologist, research director at the CNRS and at the Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory of Gif-sur-Yvette (Essonne), and many others.
A little tune of “Don’t Look Up”
And before them: the glaciologist Claude Lorius, who died on March 21 at the age of 91 (episode 2). It’s remarkable to be able to hear it like this thanks to Hervé Pierre, who here is the wonderful reader of extracts from Voyage dans l’anthropocène (published by Actes Sud in 2011 and co-written with Laurent Carpentier, journalist at Le Monde).
His heirs, Jean Jouzel (glaciologist, paleoclimatologist, winner of the Vetlesen Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Earth sciences) and Valérie Masson-Delmotte (paleoclimatologist, researcher at the Climate and Climate Sciences Laboratory environment), signed, on September 14, a column in Le Monde, of which here is an extract: “Faced with the acceleration of extreme climatic events which places us at a tipping point in our civilization, we, scientists and experts, call National Assembly and the French government to take ambitious measures (…). The time has come to abandon fossil fuels (…). The summer of 2023 should serve as a warning: the devastating consequences of inaction are now indisputable. »
Also undeniable is the warming of the oceans (episode 3). However, underlines Aline Pénitot, “the ocean absorbs a quarter of the CO2 produced by humans and concentrates fifty times more carbon than the air”. In the last episode, to the sound of a forest on fire, she reminds us that forests are the second carbon sink after the ocean. “In France, according to the IPCC, the CO2 storage capacity of forest ecosystems has been halved in around ten years. At what point will they stop absorbing CO2 and, on the contrary, become a source of carbon for the atmosphere? »
Let’s say then that Aline Pénitot’s series could have a little air of Don’t Look Up with Claude Lorius as Leonardo DiCaprio. Except that it is not fiction. Moreover, on her Facebook feed, the one who is usually so discreet and so measured wrote, when she had just finished editing with Gilles Blanchard – whose sensitive production must be saluted here, making the film flow, episode after episode, a document as exceptional as this sound a hundred thousand years old – and as a village bell rings in an ever-closer distance: “I did not expect that the latest news from climates of the past, thus accumulated over four hours, provide a clear observation of the climatic shift that we have been able to initiate. Not to that extreme. »
Let’s face it, neither do we. But let’s insist a little and reiterate how necessary the work of Aline Pénitot is and hope, with Jean Jouzel, “the construction of a more prosperous and resilient world for all”.
