From the flanks of the Folly Glacier, just above Samoëns in the French Alps, the view is somewhat diminished.
The ice has thinned, fractured, and retreated-leaving behind a scarred landscape of raw rock, exposed moraines, and an unspoken sense of loss.
Here, in the shadow of this now‑virtually‑extinct glacier, it’s as good a place as any to reflect on the headlong acceleration of the planet’s protective ice disappearing from sight.
ARTE has begun broadcasting the documentary Glaciers, Enquête sur une disparition (Glaciers, Enquiry on a Disappearance), a 90‑minute journey into the vanishing ice of our planet.
From the Alps to Greenland, the film follows glaciologists, engineers, and local communities as they document ice‑sheet collapse, accelerating climate warming, water‑security threats, and the growing risk of disasters such as ice‑dam bursts and mudslides sweeping away entire towns and highways. The camera doesn’t shy from the grim reality: glaciers are retreating faster than many models predicted, and life all around is more precarious.
Literally above our heads, the Glacier du Folly, a relic of the last ice age, is going through its final death pangs. It still disgorges avalanches frequently enough, almost to be ignored. One captured on a short video last week seems to be taking on a life of its own on social media, with close to 40,000 views and counting.
The dramatic changes being witnessed, puts the urgency of Europe’s steps to stall climate change into perspective. Alpine and Pyrenean glaciers lost about 40% of their volume in the last 23 years. That’s how quickly the situation has worsened. Glacier retreat is already causing reduced summer river flows, unstable slopes, rockfall, glacial-lake flooding, and direct threats to villages and mountain routes. Farmers even truck water to cows grazing on some steep slopes.
Now Europe is asking conventional farmers to reduce their carbon footprint. But persuading farmers to shift from the once reliably profitable conventional agriculture towards an uncertain future in regenerative farming is no easy matter.