The agony of the Mediterranean summer

For decades, the beaches of the Mediterranean have been a place of pilgrimage for masses of wage earners in search of pleasure and fun.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
23 September 2023 Saturday 11:39
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The agony of the Mediterranean summer

For decades, the beaches of the Mediterranean have been a place of pilgrimage for masses of wage earners in search of pleasure and fun. Now, the effects of the climate crisis on meteorology threaten its future.

"My generation never anticipated that this country that was so beautiful would end up in this situation. Psychologically it is disastrous, because one of the few privileges of Greece was a mild climate. Now we have nothing left". Who reasons in such a lapidary way is Petros Màrkaris, writer of dark novels. "I fear that what we knew as the Mediterranean climate will disappear," he adds.

Catastrophe comes from the Greek 'katastrophe', meaning ruin and destruction. It is the most in line with what this summer has been like for the Greeks. First a long drought and unusually high temperatures. Then a wave of fires (the one in the Evros region lasted 17 days). Finally, a devastating storm, named Daniel, which denied the best agricultural lands, in Thessaly, in the center of the country.

Márkaris is not a meteorologist, but he is good at interpreting the mood of the Greeks. The Mediterranean has always been synonymous with a mild and moderate climate. The climate explains the birth in that area of ​​the classic civilizations. It is the landscape that the upper classes will later idealize. They will travel to the South or spend long stays surrounded by that domesticated nature in what will later become the social practice of summer vacationing.

Without the fascination for the Costa Brava of writers and artists such as Josep Maria de Segarra, J.V. Foix, Eugeni d'Ors, Josep Pla, Picasso or Dalí, Catalan culture would not be what it is. Nor the European: Marc Chagall, Otho Lloyd, Dora Maar, Henri Michaux or Marcel Duchamp, among others, sought their inspiration there.

Summering slowly died out in the middle of the last century. He was a victim of the popularization of the car and the apartment. Holidays were democratized, becoming an annual break paid for by companies, one of the most important social conquests achieved in the years following World War II.

The tourism industry was a British invention. But the stage that stole the dreams of wage earners in Central and Northern Europe was the shores of the Mediterranean. If bourgeois and artists said that they traveled for rest and contemplation, what motivated the masses of workers to go to the beach was pleasure and fun.

And in small doses, also for that affordable happiness that for the British at the end of the 20th century meant moving to live in the Mediterranean. A popular television series, Living in the Sun, explained in 2007 how those dreams came true. The driver of the reality show followed the couples to the Costa del Sol. He filmed their visits to real estate agencies, accompanied them in their installation in the apartments and houses they chose to live in, tasted the paellas they improvised and shared the beers they drank in the bar next door.

Brexit in 2016 was a first setback for the colony of Britons settled in Spain (more than 250,000). Today, it is likely that this "living in the sun" advertised by the TV series is less desirable. Sunbathing and walking is pleasant (and depending on how, recommended) below 30 degrees. Today, summers add up to two to three heat waves each year with temperatures reaching 40 degrees and forcing immobility in the afternoon. Tropical nights, in which there is no way to drop below twenty degrees, have become more frequent.

The new Mediterranean meteorology has not respected this year even the most sacred icons of millennial childhood, that sugary comedy with Abba songs that is Mamma Mia. If Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan wanted to rekindle their youthful loves today on the Greek islands of Skopelos and Schiatos, where the film takes place, they would most likely be blocked by torrential rains like those that hit those islands in the first week of September

According to John Urry, father of the sociology of tourism, holidays are perceived as an essential period of our modern times. It is these days of disconnection, of getting carried away and forgetting daily worries, which favors our reset, our physical and mental restoration. Without this annual perspective of interruption, of downtime, our working life, he reasons, could become unbearable.

The tourism industry has been created on this premise, which has allowed this sector to become the first economic activity on the planet.

The tourism industry likes to think that this summer of 2023 has been exceptional, an aberration of nature. But if you look at the data coldly, they do not differ so much from previous years. They only show the slow progression of the phenomena imposed by climate change. The fires this summer have been in line with the average for the period 2006-2022. Cyclones like Daniel are becoming more frequent. As is the progression of the drought and the increase in temperatures, in line with that evolution.

Will the Mediterranean summer survive all these changes? There are those who are betting on a movement of tourists to the North. But there are also those who predict that there will be people who will have no choice but to adapt and assume that the holidays are not just a moment of placidity but include extreme situations on offer. Even if this is not in the contract.