Richard Voice-Over: Join us for a journey along the Rhone, one of the world’s great rivers, a waterway spilling from the roof of a continent, where the vital source of all life springs, bringing health, wealth, pleasure and inspiration. It’s a river that lights cities, powers the world’s best rail systems and slakes the thirst of millions. What bounty has this blue gold bestowed? How has it been harnessed, explored and celebrated?
Adventures with purpose. They not only quicken the pulse and fire the synapses, but are also journeys of enlightenment and discovery, odysseys that make a difference. Our guide is Richard Bangs, the father of modern adventure travel, leader of 35 first descents of rivers around the globe. A mountain climber, and renowned author, Richard brings a lifetime of experience to... Adventures with purpose.
Richard On-Camera: Water is over-tapped, and under-tended in many parts of the world….but not here….How has this alpine haven resisted the temptation to bleed its most precious resource?
R VO: Switzerland is the water castle of Europe. Some six percent of the continent’s fresh reserves are found in this mountain refuge. The Rhone, Rhine, Danube and Po all launch their journeys here. The Rhone spills into Western Europe’s largest alpine lake: Lac Leman to the French, Lake Geneva to the English.
R VO: Since Roman times good people have marveled at this sea of a lake and its embrace of sky-scratching peaks. Water has the velocity and weight to influence the course of entire communities, societies, and states. It has the power to move mountains. It is a paean to peace and a cause of war. And everyone, everywhere requires it.
R VO: The water of this lake provides endless recreation, nurtures the vineyards above its banks and provisions the kitchens that line its shores. The Rhone, virile and resolute, takes a nap here beneath the Alps before it courses through France and fetches up the Mediterranean near Arles. Of the scenery, the poet Lord Byron penned “I saw their thousand years of snow/ On high-their wide long lake below/ And the blue Rhone in fullest flow.”
R VO: My quest takes me upstream along the Rhone from Lake Geneva to visit the communities and towns along its shores. Then I climb through the great Rhone Valley high to the wellspring in the pristine peaks of the Urner Alps.
R OC: One of my favorite authors, Herman Melville, wrote that water’s “gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.” Could this lake, with its wide unblinking eye, fashion the character and soul of its people?
R VO: If so, the waters that coil this basin have lent a buoyant pride to its principal city, Geneva. Financial powerhouse, home to scores of international organizations and symbol of Swiss neutrality, Geneva pulses and shines, bright and clean as the little sea it sits upon.
R VO: Geneva straddles the Rhone as it glides from the lake. The left bank is the old town, dominated by its soaring cathedral, while the right bank holds the Red Cross, the World Health Organization and the UN European headquarters, to name but a few. Affluent, multicultural and hard working, the people of Geneva take pleasure and solace from the shades and shadows, the dreams and reveries, of their ever-restless water.
R VO: Water shapes this city, floating its sailboats, steamers and water taxis, flickering like butterflies of light next to promenades, and luring bathers to its beaches. And because water is Switzerland’s precious blue gold, the study of water is serious business here.
Prof. Martin Beniston: The ACQWA Project is a big European project that is assessing changes in water resources in mountain regions like the Alps where snow and ice are major components of the hydrological cycle. Of course, in a warming climate, snow and ice will be dwindling quite rapidly and this means there will be changes in water quality, water quantity, the timing of water and so on.
R VO: You’ve been assessing this for a couple of years now?
MB: We’ve been doing this kind of work for a number of years with quite a number of partners around Europe because of course what takes place in the Alps is going to impact quite heavily the downstream regions in Germany, France, Central Eastern Europe. So three hundred million people could be affected by changes taking place in this small part of the world.
R VO: The astounding fact that three hundred million people depend upon the water that issues from Switzerland’s glaciers spurs on programs like the University of Geneva’s ACQWA Project to find solutions to rising global temperatures. The inconvenient truth about water is that they're not making any more of it. More and more people, however, continue to depend upon it and demand more of it. If water is the oil of the 21st century, Switzerland is a very rich place indeed. Can the people here pave the path for better understanding and protection of the world’s water? Can they ignite the way to an equilibrium between people and aqua pura?
R OC: This fountain is the very symbol of Geneva, firing 465 feet high—a football field and a half--a liquid exclamation point in the city’s harbor.
R VO: Built in 1886 as an outlet for excess water pressure in the city’s pipes, the first jet was a mere 98 feet. But over the decades the popular plume has risen to claim the spot as one of the world’s tallest water columns. To watch it is to witness poetry. Its stem unfolds into petals of white rose, then overflows on an invisible slope. Who could not be happy watching water dance?
R VO: Everywhere Geneva’s fountains kiss the sky, sing lullabies to babies, paint lovers in beautiful light, and spark profound thoughts to gazing souls.
R VO: Place du Bourg-de-Fours is the heart of old Geneva today as it was as far back as Roman times. The streets we see today take us back to the 1540’s when a Christian theologian persuaded the people to condemn the excesses of the Catholic Church and embrace reform.
R VO: That theologian was named John Calvin, a Frenchman recruited to bring the Protestant Reformation to Geneva. He changed the course of history and shaped the moral fiber of Geneva. Before the Protestant Reformation, the Cathedral St. Pierre was adorned with statues and frescoes, but during the Reformation, the people stormed the church and destroyed all the ornamentation. What’s left is the austere stone interior and Calvin’s stiff backed chair from which he preached.
R VO: Romans inhabited this hill long before Christianity made its ascent. But as time peeled away, layers of older basilicas and Roman ruins came to light underneath St. Pierre.
R VO: Excavations in recent years have uncovered older churches beneath this one and a well dug to deliver water to the baptistery where full body submersions took place. Water was supplied through pipes of wood and lead. Pressurized into a font, a small stream fell on the neophytes waiting to be washed by the gracious waters of life.
R VO: From the roof of the cathedral there are grand views of the city and the expansive lake.
R OC: Not so long ago, Lake Geneva was becoming turbid and toxic. But today, miraculously, the water is clear as a poet’s eye.
R VO: I meet with Gerard Luyet, an official from the Geneva Water Department, to learn more.
R OC: So Switzerland is known for its wine and its wine tasters. But I understand you also have water tasters. What do they do?
Gerard Luyet: Yes, they take samples from different places all around the country and try to distinguish if you have special tastes in the water.
R OC: And what are they looking for? Are they looking for a particular aroma or a taste?
GL: They are looking for the iron, if the chlorine is in excess, if the color is not good, the taste of mud sometimes. The water we deliver is very close in terms of quality to the Evian water, except the price.
R VO: If you prefer to drink on the lake rather than from it, any number of Geneva’s pleasure boats offer gastronomical cruises. The Savoie, one of five Belle Époque paddle steam boats, chugs its way up the lake. Huge paddle-wheeled steam boats have churned Lake Geneva for two centuries and recently, in a move to better ecological balance, some of the diesel-powered boats have been “resteamed.” with all new steam engines. Built in 1914, the Savoie exudes elegance and the food on board is not your average snack food. The Michelin-starred chef serves up gourmet fare.
R OC: Geneva has a reputation for being a bit staid, but on weekends on the water, it can get a little racy.
R VO: On fine days, people take to the lake in droves and the water waltzes with sails and spinnakers. Sail races are ever popular and high performance sailboats are built just for this lake.
R VO: Switzerland won the America’s Cup in 2003 and 2007. It’s a land-locked country. How did you do that?
Alec Tournier: In fact we have so many lakes and we are the second country in the world in number of boats per inhabitants. In our club we are organizing more than 40 regattas in a year, so with a lot of clubs around the lake, it’s possible to do your sports every weekend, every day if you want.
R VO: Billionaire Ernesto Bertarelli founded Team Alinghi, the two-time America’s Cup winner. He grew up sailing and has spent many an afternoon tearing across this Alp-kissed lake.
R VO: Part playground, part highway, Lake Geneva is the watery magnet that brings together all the villages on its shores. Trains and boats link these villages and their vineyards, castles, and looming mountain peaks.
R VO: I make a lakeside entrance to a romantic little town called Nyon. The Romans settled on this gentle-sloping hillside for the water, its abundance and quality. A thirteenth century castle holds sway over the town, positioned to watch the lake.
R VO: Ten thousand years of lake history is the subject at the Musée du Léman. Enormous barges once hauled goods back and forth on the lake, and for centuries people have sought sustenance from its watery depths.
R VO: Now what about the fish? There’s usually a finite population of fish. If the human population continues to grow, how do they sustain the fish population in the lake?
Carinne Berlola: Well, we had a lot of troubles a few decades away with pollution but now lots of efforts have been made, you know, in order to clear the waters, And also they maintain a very low amount of fishermen--120 fishermen, not more.
R VO: What type of fish do they have here?
CB: We have about thirty different species on the lake but we eat only five or six.
R VO: Christian Lochmeier is one of the family fishing operations permitted to fish on Lake Geneva. Perch is the fish of choice. Hundreds of kilos of perch are hauled out of these waters each day. The arctic char and the lake trout are also popular. Locals motor out to retrieve their catch and deliver it fresh to restaurants.
R OC: He just told us that the trap has to be faced this direction, towards Geneva, because this is the current where the fish swim into the trap and they can’t come back out again.
R VO: Fishing is highly regulated as to the size and type each fisherman can pull from the waters. The Swiss appetite for the local fish is legendary.
R OC: Look at this perch. It could not be fresher. I was there. It was caught this morning, just two hours ago.
R OC: Water excites the soul and rests the eyes. It stirs the imagination and lulls us into dreams. It is the magic that brings people to the Swiss Rivera, Lake Geneva’s north coast.
R VO: Anchoring this playground of Europe is lovely Lausanne. It’s easy to see why this town attracted the Romantic poets…the water here binds the mind to inspiration. Literary salons flourished in the late 19th century, and when Dickens visited, he commented that he never saw so many book sellers as he did on the steep streets of Lausanne.
R VO: The old town sits high above the lake and little fountains splash in the narrow back streets. Victor Hugo, another literary visitor, described his view from the cathedral at night: “I saw the lake above the roofs, the mountains above the lake, the clouds above the mountains and the stars above the clouds. It was like a staircase where my thoughts climbed up step by step and broadened at each new height.”
R VO: The waterfront of Lausanne is known as Ouchy, and its castle is now an atmospheric hotel, once a place of redoubt, now a house of repose, a fortress whose lost history was written in water. Outside the windows water dances against widespread views to the French Alps, and beyond.
R OC: Hello, hello, hello. Nice to meet you.
Reto Daeppen: Welcome aboard.
R OC: Are you a pirate?
R VO: Ouchy also has spawned its own band of pirates. The Ouchy Pirates own and operate a vintage Lake Geneva barque. Built in 1932, it is one of the last remaining freight-carrying sailboats, once used to carry heavy goods from France to Switzerland. Now it carries tourists out to the mountain-fringed lake.
RD: You see there, there is a hole in the forest.
R OC: You made that hole?
RD: No, no.
R OC: It’s a quarry. So you brought the rocks…
RD: The rocks were very reputated because very strong. And all of them—the stone you see here—were transported at that time with this kind of boat. And from the east to the west of the lake it’s about 70 kilometers, 100 kilometers. If you had to go with a horse or whatever at that time, it was a long time. Many money and everything. And that was a very good possibility to carry a lot of weight because the water is supporting this weight. And if you had a good wind, you could in two days reach Geneva from Bouveret sometimes.
R VO: So this is a hard working boat for a long time.
RD: Yeah, exactly.
RD: When you are on the lake, the quiet thinking and the serenity, and nobody can explain that. You feel it here, on the boat, and this is the magic of the lake.
R VO: On fine days, Lausanne sparkles like a splash of water in sunlight, but with stormy weather it can terrify like the walking dead. In 1816, the poet Percy Shelly stayed in a villa near here with his wife to be, Mary, and the poet Lord Byron. One stormy night they decided to tell horror stories. The wild electrical storms on the lake sparked Mary Shelley’s story, Frankenstein.
R VO: Sunny or stormy, the towns that hug the lake are subject to its many moods. The town of Vevey is known as the birthplace of milk chocolate and for harboring Charlie Chaplin after he was accused of “un-American activities” during the McCarthy hearings. He was refused entry back into the United States and stayed in Vevey for 25 years.
R VO: At the chocolatier Poyet, Vevey’s two claims to fame merge into one divine delight.
Translator for Blaise Poyet: These shoes represent Charlie Chaplin’s shoes, the only official chocolate in the world which represents something of Charlie Chaplin. And Mr. Poyet has developed this chocolate—he studied Charlie Chaplin’s personality and he took three major aspects of his personality. First of all, he was a very strong character, so he put really dark chocolate in it. Then there was the romantic side of him, so he put caramel which is sweet. And then he put one which would represent originality because he changed film-making--he put pine nuts in it. And these three tastes kind of symbolize Charlie Chaplin.
R VO: Making chocolate is a long standing tradition here. In 1867, a chocolatier named Daniel Peter got talking one day with his neighbor, Henri Nestle. Nestle was working on a baby food formula using condensed milk, and Daniel had the idea of merging milk with chocolate. He spent his life on the project, trying again and again to refine the process of extracting water from the milk and combining it with chocolate.
R OC: The pure sweet water of Switzerland not wets the seeds of inspiration, but is the essential ingredient for the great food and wine of Europe.
R VO: The arteries of the earth, rivers claim the spirits of life. Another oxygenated path is the wine trail, which leads from the Belle Epoque seat of Vevey. I’m heading up into the hills to sample one of Switzerland’s best kept secrets.
R VO: Le Train des Vignes, one of Switzerland’s many electric trains charged by hydro-power, ascends like water running uphill into the Lavaux wine region. Ever since the Romans first set up camp, grapes have been cultivated, quaffed, and hoarded here.
R VO: Centuries ago, monks dug out many of these steep terraces, built walls to keep the land from sliding and fashioned gutters and drains to control the rain water. The rain and sun infuse dozens of varietals of grapes on these slopes. Wine trails allow visitors to walk from vineyard to vineyard, stopping at caveaux for tasting. About half of Swiss wine is white, made from the Chasselas grape and the Gamay and Pinot Noir grapes create the red wine.
R OC: How long has your family been vintners?
Alain Chollet: Yes, it’s a pretty young family here in the vineyard of Lavaux. We stay now for four generations.
R OC: Four generations... That’s young here.
AC: Lots of families stay here for now 700 years.
R OC: Seven hundred years… That’s heritage. The wine is legendary here, as you say. But I don’t believe I’ve ever seen this label before. Why is that?
AC: In Switzerland we just produce the third that we drink in Switzerland. So we don’t export so much, maybe just less than one percent.
R OC: So 99% stays here and you get to enjoy it.
AC: Of course. We keep it very close. Cheers. Santé.
R OC: Paths, roads and highways all crumble with time. But water if respected is the everlasting way.
R VO: The mountains around Lake Geneva grow steeper at the eastern edge – this is known as the Haut-Lac Supérieur.
R OC: Water, in the right geography, can be the toll booth of empires. In the 12th century, this great castle arose on a narrow strip of land boxed in between mountains and water.
R VO: It was the powerful Savoy counts who ruled these shores and built the Chateau de Chillon. With the tolls and duties they levied on trade from Italy, they decked out their halls and regal lakeside rooms. But the dungeon held those who defied the regime. One such prisoner was a young Genevan, François Bonivard, who spoke out against the Duke of Savoy in favor of an alliance with the Swiss. He spent six years in chains until the army from Bern released him. Soon thereafter Geneva joined the Swiss Confederation—making this ring of cantons even stronger. Byron’s poem The Prisoner of Chillon depicts this gloomy hole: “There are seven columns, massy and grey/ Dim with a dull imprison'd ray/ A sunbeam which hath lost its way.”
R OC: Lord Byron came here in 1816?
Jean Pierre Pastori: Yes. Exactly.
R OC: And why did he come here? What was his reason?
JPP: I suppose he made a tour of the Lake of Geneva. And this region was famous because Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the writer, wrote part of La Nouvelle Héloïse, his novel and spoke of Chillon. I suppose he was impressed by the romantic character, situation of the castle.
R VO: Not far from Chillon, the Rhone empties into the lake. Here, on the edge of this busy waterway, a little nature estuary teeming with wildlife unfolds from the bow of my solar-powered boat. This is the start of my journey ascending the regal Rhone to the water castle of Europe.
R VO: Longfellow called it the Royal River, “born of sun and shower, in chambers purple with the Alpine glow, wrapped in the spotless ermine of the snow.” The Rhone flows through a deep glacial valley. The name of this region is simply valley, or Valais.
R VO: This is the French speaking region of Switzerland, known for its pure water, wine and cheese, and giant ice-cloaked mountains. Nearly all of the high peaks in Switzerland pierce the sky over the Valais, and spill their wealth to the glens and bowls below.
R VO: My journey takes me up the Rhone Valley, crisscrossing the river, up the side valleys to bubbling spas, great hydroelectric dams, mountain retreats, massive fields of ice and finally to the source of the Rhone.
R OC: Water is what makes Switzerland tick. About 17% of the country’s power comes from this reservoir. When Switzerland was cited in a recent study as the most environmentally sound country on earth, much of the credit went to its wise use of water, especially for power. At 930 feet high, the Grande Dixence Dam is one of the tallest gravity dams in the world. But a changing climate that cooks and shrinks the glaciers is reducing the watershed; threatening the dynamic for hydro. Some predict a reduction in hydro-generated energy at a rate of 7 percent a year going forward.
R OC: This is sort of the focal point. Everybody is looking to Switzerland for answers. Are there answers?
Professor Martin Beniston: Well, there’s no simple and unique answer. We know that much of the increase in greenhouse gases comes from the fossil fuel sector, so we need to tackle that one first if we want to have a measurable and sustained influence on future warming. So I think that’s the bi g stumbling block. If there was an easy solution to this, I think we’d have put it into effect a long time ago already.
R OC: But you do see a big transference to hybrid cars and now electric cars. And I’ve seen a lot of Smart cars around Switzerland.
MB: Exactly. No, I think people are aware that, whether it's climate-related or not, resources are getting rarer in many parts of the world, including here, and so conservation is also part of the equation to try and reduce our imprint on the climate system and on the global environment in general.
R VO: The mountains here are fountains of glaciers. And the glaciers are the great ice ploughs set to work ages ago to grind and grate the side valleys of the Rhone. Everything is moving, everything flows downwards. Streams of songs and scents…water carrying colorful pebbles, pieces of plants, microorganisms and the chromosomes of life. But the source of this rich water is dwindling; the mighty glaciers are melting. Future generations may ask what we did to save the glaciers and perhaps we will say we looked to Switzerland.
R VO: Here in the shadow of a glaciated Alpine peak, everything becomes clear and the truth grinds down to the heart of the earth. For our grandchildren to enjoy these vistas, to hike and ski and soak in this beauty, we need to do our part to turn back the hands of time.
R OC: What can people do locally to help preserve the quantity and the quality of the water here?
MB: Well, I think one of the reasons for undertaking research in these aspects is to have a sort of view sort of 10 to 50 years down the road to see how these resources are going to change and start thinking in advance of how we can adapt to some of these changes. It's not because is climate is changing that there won't be any more water, for example. It's not going to disappear totally. But the seasonality of water is going to be different from today, which means, for example, hydropower generation is not going to be quite the same as we know it today. So hydropower utilities are going to have to think about how to manage this sort of new annual distribution of water. The same for agriculture, tourism... Ski tourism at the moment relies quite heavily on artificial snowmaking during certain critical times of the winters, and that's going to change in a warmer climate as well. So you might have to think about what other kind of tourist attractions you can offer in the mountains beyond simply carrying out skiing during the winter months. You're sort of shifting to more summertime activities. The mountains could be more attractive in the summer. They'll be cooler than the sort of overheated lowland regions and things like that. So, I mean, there are quite a few things that can be put into effect through adaptation at zero cost, basically. So it's not a matter of investing heavily for the future. It's a matter of thinking now about how we're going to manage some of these situations.
R VO: Behavioral changes.
MB: Exactly.
R VO: Glaciers carved the Valais and all its side valleys and each of them is different. The valley at Leukerbad is capped with a cirque of stone. Beneath it, dozens of thermal springs bubble up their alms, rich in calcium sulphate.
R OC: There must be a few things a soak in a mineral springs here won’t cure….but I don’t know what they are.
R VO: Throughout time, mankind has turned to water for its healing properties. The Romans believed in the concept of health through water and ever since people have swum and soaked in thermal pools looking for relief, restoration or just relaxation.
R VO: The temperature can reach 123 degrees, but it’s cooled and filtered for guests. Hot water increases blood circulation, eliminates toxins, stimulates the liver and aids digestion. Leukerbad spas offer all kinds of intimate connections with water, from scrubs, rubs or mud baths. But just soaking in a blue pool with an embrace of mountains all around is therapeutic enough.
R VO: The water is well employed here – first it heats the hotels, then the hot pools. In winter it is run under the streets to de-ice them and then finally it generates electricity before it flows down to the Rhone.
R OC: In far too many places around the world, I've had to drink from bottles because the water was not safe or clean, but here in Switzerland, you can drink pure mountain water from thousands of outdoor fountains. Ahh.
R VO: What makes the mountains beautiful is that somewhere, everywhere, they hide the jewels of water. While water gurgles up in town, little mountain lakes lie cradled in the pass on high. Mark Twain took on the Gemmi Pass, then struggled, descending these cliffs into Leukerbad by means of a “path as steep as a ladder.” A modest hike takes me to the brook that feeds what Twain called “the lonely little lake called the Daubensee.” Hiking is a breeze in Switzerland, with paths and routes accessible to everyone.
Anna Bezzola: I think there's still a bit of a misconception that coming to the Alps entails being mountaineers or being climbers, that it's not accessible to everybody, that not everybody can actually enjoy them, and it's not true. I love the Alps because here you can hike from one village to another. So you get the cultural aspect. You get the nice, cold beer waiting for you at the end of the hike…
RB OC: Or a grappa…
AB: Or a grappa that it's at the end of dinner. So you can get the comforts, but most of all is that you really visit the villages. You have, particularly in Switzerland, everywhere you go is different history. It's a different tradition, different cultures. And to me, that's very important.
R VO: The further one climbs in the Rhone Valley, the more spectacular the architecture of Nature, the exquisite roughness, the dramas of violence and beauty. I’m headed to an icon: the great crooked Swiss mountain, the Matterhorn, in search of the perfect reflection.
R VO: Zermatt is the Matterhorn’s rapt audience, a cluster of chalets huddled at the base of this floating castle. The city is car-free and green--visitors choose between horsepower or electric taxis. Zermatt’s water originates from 86 springs and is piped into homes, hydrants and fountains. It is 95% pure spring water and subversively delicious.
R VO: The formidable Alps, once feared as the haunt of demons, were tamed by a cog and a wheel and soon the grand vistas drew tourists from around the world. Swiss hydro power has single handedly created the world’s best railway system, and fashioned runs that defy logic, such as the Gornergrat. This ride is the rare one that comes up to the brag about it, and then exceeds it.
R VO: More than twenty peaks higher than 13,000 feet lock and nuzzle this lordly ridge, and the hiking is literally sublime, as the Romantics would have scribed. In time, I find my mirror. The lake known as the Riffelsee doubles the Matterhorn, every jag, every streak of snow perfectly copied. And what an echo of light, water and wonder it is. Percy Shelly mused that “Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.”
R OC: Water is divine and hellish, delicious and deadly. I have sailed it, sipped it, hiked its tributaries. Now I’m going to raft the Rhone.
R VO: Rafting the upper Rhone is an easy jaunt for families. I love the challenge of a rapid river, but breezing down this glacier-fed run is a delight as well. The Rhone has carried people and goods for centuries. Early travelers took coches d’eau, water coaches, pulled along by horses on footpaths along the shore. Goods on barges were tugged upstream by dozens of horses.
R VO: The strings of its strength, the magic of the mother Rhone, its moods and colors and music, flow from the tributaries which in turn feed from snows and glaciers high in the Alps. On the northern side of the Rhone, the mighty ice blanket known as the Aletsch Glacier straddles some of the highest peaks in Switzerland.
R OC: The Aletsch Glacier holds in its icy vault enough water to provide all of Switzerland with drinking water for decades.
R VO: A glacier is the wise old man of the future as the water locked beneath the wrinkles, fractures and fissures eventually thaws and renders forth, nourishing all life down valley, and beyond. This glacier, the longest in the Alps, earned UNESCO World Heritage status for the enormity of its deliverance. Wretchedly, this whale of ice is dying, shrinking at a rate of half a football field per year. Scientists predict it will be gone in another hundred years. Collectively, Switzerland’s glaciers have lost about 15 percent of their surface in the last 20 years and the rate of loss has accelerated in the last decade.
R VO: How much has the glacier shrunk since 1860?
Hanspeter Holzhauser: Since 1860, the glacier shrunk about, uh...concerning the volume, about 26% to 30%.
R OC: Wow, a third, almost. That's a lot.
HP: And the length changed about 4 kilometers.
R OC: This photograph was taken right where we're standing in 1865. What a difference.
HP: It's a very great difference. You see the middle Aletsch Glacier, and it's shown very clearly. And the confluence and the starting of the middle moraine here, the middle Aletsch Glacier, and great Aletsch Glacier.
R OC: So the middle Aletsch Glacier is almost gone.
HP: It's almost gone. You see a little brown color there-- brown, blue, bluish color there. You see the end of the glacier
R VO: A retreating glacier means rising oceans, less fresh water for humans, the wreckage of winter tourism and destabilization of mountainsides. Look at it in broader terms--more than three quarters of the world’s fresh water is stored in ice. What can be done to stem this ebbing tide?
HP: We must start now because the climate system is very fragile, the ice, and also very complicated, also, but also very slow. It's a slow system. And if you put in the system one factor, it can be a long time, yes, in the future until it reacts. And if you don't make now some decisions to reduce the greenhouse forcing gases, we have a problem, because a scientist has calculated that if you start now, the time is about 30 to 50 years until it reacts. Yes, the effects, yes. Yes.
MB: Of course, awareness through education is of course the key factor, conservation. And then if you want to address sort of on an individual basis various climate issues, well, it's energy conservation—switching from normal light bulbs to low-energy light bulbs, switching from big SUVs to maybe lighter hybrid vehicles, for example--as a first step. So there are a lot of things that appear to be very small steps on an individual basis, but if everybody does that, then collectively, you start to have a grip on a very complex system, and you can start making inroads to start resolving some of these problems.
R VO: There’s a saying: “Faith is like electricity. You can't see it, but you can see the light.” The people of Fiesch, the little town at the base of the Aletsch Glacier, are trying a faith-based approach to stop the melting.
R VO: In 1678 the villagers took a sacred vow to lead honorable lives in exchange for protection from the glacier advancing on their village. Every year they commemorate the oath in a parade to the church. Now that the glacier is going the other way the people have appealed to the Pope to let them reverse the vow and pray for the glacier to survive.
Reverend Pascal Venetz: But now we pray that the glacier will become bigger, that we have enough water for our beautiful area here. And it was a big process. We have to go first to the bishop and then to the Pope. And at the end, after 3 years, now it's working in this way, that it means that we will pray that the glacier will become bigger again.
R VO: So the Pope gave you his blessings?
PV: Yeah, of course.
R VO: Fiesch is one of several mountain towns that blooms in a region known as the Goms. This is the uppermost Rhone Valley. You cannot have peace without clean water; and conversely clean, ample water promotes peace, such as felt in the wooden homes and churches up this funnel-like valley. Open the door to one of the austere churches and you are bedazzled by gilded baroque interiors. More than seventy such jewel-box churches send their spires rising toward the mountain tops.
R VO: Water here has always been brisk, bountiful and timely, christening the grasses that feed the cows who deliver the milk and cheese and nourishing the little sun-burnt towns and their hearty inhabitants.
R VO: The rich and creamy cheesy dish, raclette, originated in the Valais. Locals claim they can taste the meadow and mountain wildflowers in this smooth, savory cheese. A half wheel is melted, then scraped onto a plate. Potatoes and gherkins are dipped into the hulking physique of cheese, while in the distance cow bells clang and the mountain greenery turns to sweet milk.
Peter Gschwendtner: Many years ago, they prepared it because it's coming from the Alps. They produce the cheese in the Alps, and after-- they don't have electricity. So they put it on the fire, on the open fire. They put it on a rock close to the fire, and then it's melting.
R VO: So what is it that makes this cheese so special?
PG: First I think it's our grass, our good grass what we have here. This grass meets fresh air, and mostly the good water what we have from the glacier is flowing down, and on the way down, it's getting clean. And then it comes undefiled, and it helps to grow up the grass. And the cow takes them, eats them, and after, we have very good milk, and it makes a special cheese.
R VO: That's the whole process.
PG: Yes.
R VO: The wieldy and regal Rhone is just a sprightly stream here in its upper reaches. In the course of its long journey, these waters will drop six thousand feet and marry a thousand tributaries before slipping its surly bonds into the sea. I am climbing to the source code, the birthplace of so much of European élan vital, to the spot where the first tears trickle from the Rhone Glacier.
R OC: In 1818, the Rhone Glacier came to here, where I’m standing. Now it’s way up there, so far we can’t even see it.
R VO: The Rhone Glacier, like the Aletsch, has shrunk. It too is predicted to vanish within a hundred years.
R OC: There is the same amount of water on earth as when the dinosaurs walked. The cycle of evaporation and rain is unchanged. Yet the human population has sky-rocketed, so much so that the water we possess may soon be insufficient.
R VO: In this catacomb of ice lies the future of our world. How we protect this frozen tincture of life, how we share this precious resource, how we manage, use, and consume it will determine our fate.
R VO: This crystalline source once so mighty it carved the entire Rhone Valley is now, by comparison, an ice cube. Fortunately, the Swiss, who have safeguarded their water castles throughout history, know that real change, dedicated science, enterprise and attention are needed The Swiss have solved unsolvable puzzles before…from piercing trains through mountains, to pinning time to precision, to seizing peace during war. Perhaps the Swiss can now lead the way to protecting this precious water castle of Europe.
R VO: Water has given mankind so much. Everything, you might argue. What now can we do to protect water? We can find solutions to climate change, purify what we have polluted, and help people all over the world achieve access to secure, safe and sufficient fresh water. We can travel to see the glacier-wrapped peaks, marvel at the valleys these icy plows have carved and try to find solutions, big and small.
R OC: It’s a daunting task, but here in the bright mountain air of Switzerland, beyond the bounds of the insurmountable, anything seems possible.
R VO: What you can do…
- Consider how you can conserve water and energy every day.
- Learn more about climate impact from the ACQWA Project.
- Visit water.org, Matt Damon's site dedicated to clean water and the website for Freshwater International.
- Visit Switzerland and see for yourself.
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