Over 200 visitors at the public evening
Thursday, 19. October 2017
Is the Engelberg Valley prepared for climate change?
The large public gathering at the Hotel Terrace in Engelberg showed that the climate change affects a lot of people. More than 200 persons, some of them standing, followed the exciting two-hour discussion about the observed impacts of climate changes in the Engelberg Valley. On the podium, the biologist Dr. Andreas Moser, NETZ Natur, the Engelberger farmer and politician Marta Scheuber, the Tourism Director of Engelberg, Frédéric Füssenich, as well as the responsible councilor of the Kanton Obwalden and scientistDr. Josef Hess. The moderator, Prof. Dr. Iwan Rickenbacher, actively involved the public in the debate.
«We can not turn the wheel back»
At the beginning of the evening Prof. Dr. David N. Bresch from the ETH Zurich showed that the effects of climate change are not reversible: “According to a study by the University of Friborg, about 90 percent of the glaciers in the Central Swiss Alps will be felled by 2090. And the climatic scenario of MeteoSwiss shows that the frost-free days of the Titlis are reduced by 25 to 50 days by 2060. There will be about 20 days less fresh snow. The Engelberg Valley experiences the changes and corresponding consequences sooner than the rest of Switzerland, as the recent natural events of this summer show.
In the following, the panelists discussed the improvements in flood protection, biodiversity, the nature of tourism, and further topics. The audience was also actively involved in the event.
At the end of the evening, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Prof. Dr. Verena Briner was thankful for the intrested audience and said, “Let us take all these votes so that our actions will become a snowball that is getting bigger and more effective.” The nightcap, offered by Han’s Europe’s, was used by many participants to discuss the effects of climate change and the votes of the evening.
