The Greatest Grift of All (6): Swiss Glacier Collapses, the Science™ Points at Climate Change™ w/o Any Data
Much like in the case of the Covid shitshow or the Ukraine-Russia conflict, experts™ and journos™ close ranks in spinning the narrative as one of climate catastrophism, although evidence is lacking
Earlier this week, a glacier turned into a gigantic avalanche of rock and mud, and when the stony masses raced downhill, the village of Blatten, Switzerland, was buried:
The above avalanche occurred on 28 May 2025, and, needless to say, it took journos™, politicos™, and experts™ a few days to all get on the correct™ messaging: it’s the climate catastrophe, stupid!
Before we delve into that, a few lines from Wikipedia, that spook-created and lobby-infested repository of what I consider ‘common knowledge’ (spoiler: it’s a Wikipedia link: pun intended) on the village of Blatten, Switzerland:
2025 glacier collapse
On 28 May 2025, at 15:24 CEST,[8][9] approximately 90% of Blatten was destroyed by a landslide due to the collapse of the Birch glacier.[10][11] A seismic signal equivalent to a magnitude 3.1 earthquake was recorded at the moment of the landslide.[8][11][12] An area approximately 2 km long, 200 m wide and 200 m deep was buried by the debris cone, extending on both sides of the valley.[13]
Debris destroyed large parts of the village and ice, earth and rock blocked the Lonza River, forming a lake.[14] Smaller landslides in the preceding weeks had led to the partial evacuation of the village on 17 May 2025 and then a full evacuation of the remaining residents on 19 May 2025, thus preventing mass loss of life. One person has been reported missing.[1]
Now that we’re all on the same page, we may as well talk about the background.
Legacy Media Framing: Climate Catastrophe™ Galore
Personally, apart from breathless commentary of aerial footage (just look for ‘Blatten Felssturz [landslide]’ on Eviltube), I was quite surprised that it took until 30 May for the massive agit-prop to pour out of every orifice of our free press™, courtesy of journos™, politicos™, and experts™.
While I’m not getting into details just now, here are some representative examples I more or less randomly picked from my DuckDuckGo-mediated online search on 31 May 2025):
3-4 days ago, a search for the terms ‘Blatten landslide’ (orig. Blatten Gletscherabbruch) returned quite factual and distinctly non-hysterical results
By 30 May 2025, however, legacy media was filled with climate catastrophism reporting™, e.g. German state broadcasters Deutsche Welle surmised ‘How Melting Glaciers Change the World’ (29 May 2025) while ARD quoted a climate scientist as follows (30 May 2025)
Austrian state broadcaster ORF similarly conveyed a ‘Climate Scientist’s Harsh Words’ (30 May 2025) while—and this is my personal favourite in this nonsense—Norwegian state broadcaster NRK considers the landslide a ‘new type of avalanche’ (30 May 2025) while the list of legacy media outlets citing Wallis state geologist and natural hazards expert (orig. Naturgefahren-Experte) Raphaël Mayoraz’s statement—this is a ‘historically unprecedented’ (orig. historisch beispiellos) landslide—is legion (this quote is from Der Tagesspiegel, 28 May 2025).
Needless to say, I am reminded, once again, of George Orwell’s 1984, in particular the following quote:
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
And while I could go one annoying you with seemingly endless hysteria revolving around a landslide—and, remember, there never were any such landslides before—here’s a few lines from the NRK piece to drive home two points:
First, while the initial reporting provides a few minutes of footage, the amount of hot air and, frankly, BS produced since that fateful afternoon on 28 May 2025 is staggering: the discrepancy between the event and the endless blablabla that ensued, however, is very much the same nonsense that happened when, back in late December 2019 and early January 2020, a random pedestrian allegedly collapsed on the street (remember that one?)
Second, in the same vein, the discrepancy between that which we know for sure (a landslide, in fact, happened) vs. that which is said out loud, repeated ad nauseam, and conveyed with the conviction that ‘thus spake the Science™’ similarly reminds me of comparable cult-like chants of ‘safe & effective’. These days, however, those who question the media-spouted narrative are once again, and similarly so, labelled as ‘climate deniers™’ (which, needless to say, also comes with the guilt-by-association with what Normal Finkelstein labelled The Holocaust Industry [1998], i.e., has distinctly manufactured qualities).
Please join me going down yet another rabbit-hole.
As always, non-English content comes to you in my translation, with emphases and [snark] added.
‘Nature Senses This’: Glaciologist Explains What Happened
The Birch Glacier was the only one in Switzerland that was growing. Glaciologists noticed this last year. Matthias Huss says: ‘That was a sign.’ And he explains how glacier ice turned into water within seconds yesterday.
By Sabine Kuster, Luzerner Zeitung, 29 May 2025 [source; archived]
Glaciers flow. Constantly. High up, they are fed by fresh snow, and the gradient pulls them downwards. Up to the point where the temperatures are so high that the glacier tongue melts faster than the ice flows in. But when a glacier suddenly flows several metres instead of a few centimetres a day, something is wrong. The measuring systems installed on the opposite side of the mountain in the Lötschental have registered the increasing movement in recent weeks [see, it’s not that people didn’t know; as an aside, I’ve lived in Switzerland from 2010-20, and landslides were a near-constant concern esp. in those areas that are located quite high up, which is why the Swiss Geological Survey put up all those measuring devices in the first place…none of this is unknown or even unknow-able—legacy media reporting™ is merely a function of journos™ pretending to care™ and know™ about this issue right now…].
But a year ago, Swiss glaciologists noticed that the Birch Glacier was the only glacier in Switzerland that was not shrinking but advancing [oh, would you look at that: might the growing ice masses have played a role in the landslide?]. The glacier tongue was even growing in height, increasing in thickness by up to twenty metres.
That is very, very unusual. Nature sensed this. We only know this from glaciers in the Himalayas or the Karakoram Mountains [huhum, so, not all glaciers worldwide are melting ‘due to anthropogenic climate change’, which begs the question—doesn’t the excess heat affect all glaciers equally?].
Thus Matthias Huss, glaciologist at ETH Zurich [faculty profile; he’s as mainstream as they come]. Glaciers all over the world are almost all melting due to global warming [see the framing?].
Huss assumes [that’s the key word: you see, we non-experts™ may not be permitted to speculate but if a credentialed expert™ does so—and the word assume tells you there’s no data to back up this statement—it’s alright] that the Birch Glacier as a whole has nevertheless lost mass [please ask an expert™ how a glacier may be growing while ‘nevertheless lose mass’, that is, absent any significant environmental changes, such as air pressure or the like]—but has grown at the bottom because a lot of pressure has been built up by rockfalls in recent years [note the absurdity: the glacier grew, which put pressure on the lower layers (here I could see mass gain due to compression), which is why the landslide occurred]:
The pressure caused ice to melt under the glacier and the glacier began to slide. When the weight became too great, it slid away in one fell swoop [where would that pressure come from if, as Dr. Huss assumes, the glacier ‘lost mass’? I’m sorry not sorry, but that’s a contradiction if there ever was one].
‘An incredibly energetic process’
This released an enormous amount of energy: around 9 million tonnes of debris, water, and ice raced 1000 metres downhill into the valley. ‘That's an incredibly energy-intensive process,’ says Huss [remember, he’s the credentialed expert™ and neither you or I are, hence at we, the rabble, may be permitted to do is—marvel at the profundity of this statement]. As a result, a lot of the ice turned into water during the fall, which further accelerated the landslide [this is all high school-level physics, by the way: friction causes heat, which melts the ice].
Nevertheless, Huss assumes [once more, there’s no data] that ice is still bound in the debris cone in the valley [well, what is there to say: it may be so, but since the entire area is cordoned off, hence all everyone has are drone, helicopter, and satellite images] and that the mass is still relatively loose [sounds plausible]:
But it’s difficult to say how dense the cone actually is and how much water from the river it will let through over time [the debris is blocking the path of the river Lonza, which creates the real danger of a secondary avalanche/mud-flood should—when, rather than if—water from the river erodes the debris blocking its path and/or simply overflows the barrier].
It wasn’t just Federal Councillor Albert Rösti who spoke yesterday of a millennium event: glaciologist Huss also says ‘this is extremely rare’. For centuries, Blatten in the Lötschental remained untouched by the glaciers. So did the rising temperatures trigger the catastrophe? Huss says: ‘Although the connection with climate change still needs to be investigated in more detail, it certainly exists.’ [well, that ain’t convincing me any time soon]. However, such a catastrophe is always caused by a chain of unfortunate events:
That was very bad luck! I’m still speechless when I look at the pictures. I would never have thought that a village could simply disappear here. [really? Why did you people put up all those monitoring systems? I mean, if was something you’d never expected, that’s the definition of self-serving grift, eh? Also, show some self-respect here, Dr. Huss, for you—the glaciologist—just told everybody that you scientific models boil down to chance]
The main cause was the landslide on the Nesthorn, which increased the pressure on the glacier, which was already lying on a cushion of water. And as the final tragedy in this chain, the Lonza formed the reservoir yesterday, which also caused the houses in the village that had initially been spared to disappear.
Something Comparable Has Only Ever Happened in the Caucasus in 2002 [oh, so the whole event was neither ‘historically unprecedented’ but also something studied?]
Matthias Huss knows of only one comparable event in the world: in 2002, an avalanche with debris crashed onto a glacier in the Karmadon Gorge in the Caucasus, which subsequently thundered down into the valley and claimed the lives of around 140 people [may they rest in peace]. Russian, Swiss, and Canadian researchers investigated the event and wrote in a 2005 study:
Several aspects of the event are extraordinary, i.e. the large ice volume involved, the extreme initial acceleration, the high flow velocity [this means a lot of friction-deriving heat], the long travel distance and particularly the erosion of a valley-type glacier, a process not known so far.
It seems to have been repeated in the Lötschental. The catastrophe was seen coming here. The population could be evacuated. But more was not humanly possible.
‘The 2002 rock/ice avalanche at Kolka/Karmadon’
Here are a few more lines from the above-referenced study by C. Huggel et al., which bears the full title, ‘The 2002 rock/ice avalanche at Kolka/Karmadon, Russian Caucasus: assessment of extraordinary avalanche formation and mobility, and application of QuickBird satellite imagery’ and appeared in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (2005) 5: 173–187.
The below lines follow immediately the ones cited by Ms. Kuster above:
The analysis is based on QuickBird satellite images, field observations, and ice-, flow- and thermomechanical considerations. QuickBird is currently the best available satellite sensor in terms of ground resolution (0.6 m) and opens new perspectives for assessment of natural hazards. Evaluation of the potential of QuickBird images for assessment of high-mountain hazards shows the feasibility for detailed avalanche mapping and analysis of flow dynamics, far beyond the capabilities of conventional satellite remote sensing. It is shown that the avalanche was characterized by two different flows. The first one was comparable to a hyper-concentrated flow and was immediately followed by a flow with a much lower concentration of water involving massive volumes of ice. The high mobility of the avalanche is likely related to fluidization effects at the base of the moving ice/debris mass with high pore pressures and a continuous supply of water due to frictional melting of ice [p. 173].
Like in Switzerland, the ice/rock avalanche was a long time coming:
Slope instabilities in the Dzhimarai-khokh NNE wall have already been observed in the summer months of 2002 prior to the main avalanche event. Mountain climbers reported widespread and significant rock and ice failures and related debris flow and rockfall activity over a width of about 1 km indicating that extended parts of rock and ice in the source wall and adjacent slopes had been in unstable conditions (A. Glazovsky, pers. communication). According to the data recorded by nearby seismic stations, the slope failures between July and September 2002 are not related to seismic activity [pp. 175-6].
On p. 176, the following paragraph is found:
In fact, thermal conditions affecting ice and water within rock fissures have probably played a major influence. Bedrock stability in cold mountain areas can be especially low in warm or degrading permafrost (Davies et al., 2001; Gruber et al., 2004). Based on data from a former weather station near Karmadon, a mean annual air temperature (MAAT) of −6±2◦C at the lower and −11±3◦C at the upper end of the detachment zone are estimated [that’s a model for you, specifically one of ‘mean annual air temp’ (note the connection to global such models] (Haeberli et al., 2003). Bedrock surface temperatures in the detachment zone may thus be estimated at about −5 to −10◦C, indicating bedrock conditions of cold permafrost [that means water freezes, isn’t it? Note the following sleight-of-hand when it comes to ‘splainin’ how ‘cold permafrost’ in sub-zero temperatures (that is, according to their ‘estimate’) becomes unstable due to warm temperatures]. The thermal conditions, however, are complicated by the existence of hanging glaciers in the Dzhimarai-khokh NNE wall. Such steep ice bodies can induce significant thermal anomalies to the underlying bedrock since latent heat dissipation from percolating and refreezing meltwater at the firn surface often involves phase equilibrium temperature at the ice/bedrock interface behind the frozen ice front [get that: it’s too cold for the bedrock to be warmer than -5 to -10 degrees Celsius, but because there may be some meltwater at the top of the glacier, we arrive at the following chain-of-events] (Haeberli et al., 1997). Hence, it is reasonable to assume that the Dzhimarai-khokh failure zone was in a complex condition of relatively cold/thick permafrost combined with warm or unfrozen parts and meltwater flow in steeply inclined and heterogeneously permeable material favoring high and variable water pressures [see how good the Science™ is at ‘splainin’ things?].
What is meant is there are nearby hot springs, which indicates a lot of confounders, incl. moisture, warm air meeting cold air, warmth coming from the ground, etc., all things that are hard-to-impossible to quantify and put into any kind of model™ (as an aside, every time someone mentions ‘complex’ or ‘complexity’ without offering a definition and/or intelligible explanation, it’s likely that the subsequent lingo means, ‘I dunno, but I assume this to play a role’, but that might spell the end of credentialed expertism™…).
The main take-away here is: Dr. Huss and his glaciology colleagues surely know of the paper and its many limitations:
Clear and unambiguous evidence from field observations at the site on the potential existence of hot springs and gas liberation in the slope failure zone is therefore missing presently.
This all reminds me of Antarctic models™ that assumed massive melting losses, which was wrong as ‘observations’ showed massive gains:
Here’s some more academese prose from the conclusions of the paper [pp. 185-6]:
The erosion of Kolka glacier is not yet well understood but reasonable assumptions [sic] suggest that a high-energy impact on the glacier in critical conditions of stability (high en/subglacial water pressure) occurred. The process of the Kolka avalanche motion is instructive and important for the understanding of the mobility of large-volume ice avalanches by strongly reduced friction and fluidization processes moving in different flow waves [that’s a different thing to study, by the way]. It has been shown that large high-mountain walls in permafrost conditions have the potential for large failures depending on the susceptibility determined by geological factors. If a potentially unstable glacier is within the range of impact, a large disaster cannot be excluded [that’s the functional analogy of a statement like, ‘riding a motorcycle without a helmet has the potential for disaster depending on the susceptibility determined by traffic factors’: the Science™, hard at-work]. Continuous monitoring of such potentially critical situations is of crucial importance [of course, and thus the greatest grift of all continues].
Before I continue with the next paragraph, I merely note that if undergraduates wrote such a shitty conclusion in their 3rd-year papers, I’m inclined to mildly smirk and offer advice on how to write a proper argument. Christoph Huggel, we note, is a Professor of Geography at the U of Zurich, and he stands in as pars pro toto for many researchers working in STEM subjects who may be better at statistics than I am, but their writing skills surely suck (and that’s putting it mildly). Back to the conclusions of the paper:
Beyond the process analysis, it was an objective of this paper to evaluate the potential of QuickBird satellite images for assessment of glacial and high-mountain hazards [see, the paper was about something else: access to expensive (third-party, i.e., grant-funded) access to satellite imagery]. QuickBird is thereby representative for new satellite systems such as IKONOS or Orbview-3. The use of QuickBird imagery has been demonstrated for estimates of avalanche dimension, analysis of flow formation and dynamics, and for topographic measurements in combination with digital terrain data [note that the paper revolved partially, if not mainly, around getting these images to look at stuff ex post-facto, which is—akin to the fundamentally historical method of describing stuff that happened based on tech-mediated images: where’s the essential difference to what I do as a professor of history?].
Bottom Lines
Are you convinced yet that your CO2 emissions—from driving, eating, and breathing, you pesky, walking environmental insult—are driving these avalanches?
If not, there’s little I—or the Science™, for that matter—have to offer for you.
We note, in passing, that the available data from Switzerland shows clearly that the landslide didn’t happen accidentally.
We note, further, that the Birch glacier had been, in fact, growing, as told by Dr. Matthias Huss, glaciologist at ETH Zurich (that would be Switzerland’s MIT equivalent frequently ranking among US Ivy League peers).
Thus, based on the available evidence—specifically the comparative account of a 2002 landslide in the Caucasus range discussed above—suggest that we don’t really know much about either landslide.
If you, however, are inclined to believe that human CO2 emissions are warming the planet—as shown in ‘global annual average mean surface temperatures’, i.e., another set of models™—and that this warming causes many glaciers to melt but not the Birch glacier, I suppose there’s not a lot more to say.
In a few years, once the many studies and papers about this media event have been peer-reviewed and studied, we’ll now more™ about this. We note, therefore, a third meta-aspect of the Science™, that is, whenever there’s something new and totally hyped, everyone who can plausible claim any kind of expertise™ in any aspect of said event will abandon his or her long-standing research trajectory and simply move into that new field, if only for the drastically improved prospects of grant funding, i.e., grift. Remember, though, that any kind of reminiscences of the Covid shitshow are, of course, purely accidental.
So, don’t fall for the hype; and please join me tomorrow as we’ll go through a comparison of the ORF and NRK pieces linked above to demonstrate the utter absurdity, lack of data, and nonsense-peddling by both experts™ and journos™.
Sigh.