‘I’m scared for my children’: The elderly Europeans terrified about the Med’s changing climate

In recent weeks southern Europe has basked in unseasonably hot conditions, with drought in Italy and Spain, wildfires in Cyprus, and the Acropolis in Athens forced to shut due to unsafe temperatures.

A number of Telegraph readers have commented on articles about climate change in the Mediterranean. Some say that the climate has changed, but query whether the shifts are man-made or part of a natural cycle. Others question the data, arguing that the weather in Europe has, in fact, changed little over the years. Hot summers, drought and wildfires, they argue, have always been part of the southern European climate.

We interviewed five octogenarians living in Mediterranean countries to ask for their own personal experiences of the changing climate in Europe, throughout their lifetimes.

“I am scared for my children and their children”

89-year-old Giorgos Milonakis grew up in the mountain village of Ziros, on the Greek island of Crete

“When I was a boy just after the big war we knew how the seasons would be. We would harvest our olives in early spring and our grapes in September to make wine and raki.

“We had long dry summers. We could go out and have fun and we knew the rain would come in autumn. Last year it was so hot we had no grapes at all and because of the heat and the terrible winds we had very little olives or olive oil. As for rain, some years it doesn’t come at all, or it rains down so hard it melts whole towns in mud and water.

“Of course we have had bad years before, but I can’t remember it this bad. We are frightened of fires now. Before, we would party all summer and make meat on barbecues. Now barbecues are not allowed in the hot season and we are careful with fireworks or machines that make sparks.

“But also it is strange that night-time is often cold now, when the days are so hot – perhaps that’s why we have so much wind. We also have these big clouds – I don’t remember that before. They settle on the mountains at night, it looks like the mountain is in a piece of cotton.

“When I watch TV, panagia mou! (Mother of God!) – now it’s all about the weather: storms, floods, people dying with heat. They say here in Greece we will be in trouble because of this climate change. Ten years ago I would have laughed, but now sometimes I’m scared for my children and their children.”

Interviewed by Heidi Fuller-Love

“Now we see huge hailstones weighing half a kilo”

92-year-old Gino Cetrini lives on Lake Orta in northern Italy’s Lake District with his 85-year-old wife, Elisa

“When I moved to Lake Orta from Le Marche in the 1960s, I remember it used to rain day and night. In summer, there would be rain; in spring, it rained; in autumn, it rained; although winters were quite dry, with little snow.

“In 2022 and 2023, though, it all seemed to change. Last summer, the water level of Lake Maggiore dropped by so much that boats were no longer able to safely navigate – and it was the same on the Po River. The drought was terrible. This year, it seems more like the 1960s, although the weather patterns are more extreme.

“Now we get torrential rains – it rains like crazy, with six months to one year of rain coming down in just two days. And all that water has nowhere to go. Our infrastructure – our bridges, river banks – can’t cope. In Emilia-Romagna there were floods again a few days ago. When it rains in torrents like that it’s a real mess. It didn’t used to be like that 20 years ago.

“Now we see huge hailstones raining down too, weighing about half a kilo. And when it comes to heatwaves, Italy now seems to be divided in two. From the north down to Rome, it’s just about fine, but further south of Rome, especially in Sicily, the weather is becoming unbearable – it’s nearly desert-like there now. I don’t remember it being like that when I was a child.”

Interviewed by Kiki Deere

“It was always hot, but we didn’t have these intense heatwaves”

In Split, Croatia, retired fisherman Frane Dorić (80) and retired actor Boris Ugrin (85) meet every morning for coffee or a cold beer.

Frane Dorić says: “Climate change is difficult to evaluate. When we were young we didn’t wear shoes, we walked around barefoot in summer, and the paving stones were always very hot. It’s different when you’re young. My childhood gave me so much joy.

“We didn’t have air-conditioning or heating. Or fridges. That started in the 1960s and at first only a few people had them. Instead we would keep food in a moškador, a box made from a wooden frame covered by a fine net, so flies couldn’t get in, but air could pass through.

“In the 1950s, in summer we would transport huge one-metre blocks of ice, in boxes, by steam boat to the island of Brač. People loved it, when we got there it was like God had arrived – they’d have a party and give us free beers.

“As a fisherman, I would go out on the sea everyday at 5-6am, regardless of the weather. In those days we didn’t have weather forecasts. We knew ourselves, especially the fishermen, how to predict the weather. There were more fish before, that’s for sure. In summer, the fish market only worked from 7am to 8am. There were inspectors who would close it when they saw the fish might no longer be fresh. We used to dry fish too, hung outside, such as tabinja (similar to cod), and we would salt sardines to preserve them in barrels.

“We’ve always had summer thunderstorms that occasionally caused floods. But we haven’t had droughts like this before.

“Split is backed by three mountains. Diocletian [Roman Emperor from 284–305AD] travelled a lot and had many advisors, and he chose this location [to build his palace]. The climate is good. It has always been hot in summer, but we get a gentle breeze off the sea, “s mora” they call it on the islands, which is cool and refreshing. We used to get more snow here in Split in winter, too – in 1956 it was very deep, around 50cm.

“Are humans causing the heatwaves we’re seeing? I believe so. All that goes into the atmosphere, it’s toxic. That’s why richer countries are now moving towards solar and wind power, which are cleaner but still expensive. I’ve thought about getting a solar panel for the roof myself, but they cost around €15,000 (to buy and install) and only pay back after around ten years.”

Boris Ugrin says: “I believe the experts. It was always hot, but we didn’t have these intense heatwaves, like this year and last summer.

“When I was a kid, we didn’t have air-conditioning. Mother would cover us with a wet sheet when we went to bed so we could sleep. The roads were of tarmac, not asphalt as we have now, and in summer when it was hot the tarmac would melt and you would stick to it when you walked.”

Interviewed by Jane Foster

“The council is getting worried about water supplies”

Brian Chatterton, a former minister of agriculture, moved from Australia to Umbria in 1990

“I had no intention of becoming a farmer, but residents in the tiny hamlet where my wife and I made our home refused to let us neglect the olive trees on our property. So we rose to the challenge.

“There’s been very little change, overall, in the amount of rain. What we have is more extremes. Rain arrives at unexpected times. There was one dreadful November a couple of years ago when we just couldn’t get out to pick the olives. More and more often it comes down with such force that it just runs off rather than soaking into the ground.

“These new weather patterns – coupled with erosion caused by farming methods with a dangerous disregard for the needs of the soil – are changing the way Italy looks. Sunflowers are so much part of the Italian countryside. But they develop in July and August using the moisture from spring showers retained by the soil. No gentle spring rain, no moisture, no sunflowers.

“Up north, in the Po Valley, climate change is altering the landscape in similar ways. One year the river’s so low that the sea is flowing back up the river bed; the next year the Po’s overflowing and the banks are being washed away. Those huge green expanses of rice growing along the river are disappearing. And where are northern Italians going to get their risotto rice from?

“Average temperatures are rising year by year, too. Everyone can feel that. And we all just seem to accept the hotter temperatures as normal. My contacts are telling me that Umbria’s regional council is getting worried about domestic water supplies. In what’s known as the “green heart of Italy,” water is pumped into homes from aquifers: if these dwindle, storage will become an issue.”

Interviewed by Anne Hanley