Nightswimming

A note from the hottest year on record ... until the next one beat it

Photo by Jess Loiterton

My arms make arcing breaststrokes in tepid turquoise water, slicing through its smooth thickness which envelops my skin like silk. I bob down 15 feet or so to the seabed, where the water turns darker blue, cold, invigorating. I pinch my nose as I twist my body to look upwards at the light above. As a child I feared the salt stinging my eyes, but now it no longer bothers me. Did I change, or has the water?

As I rise back up, so does the temperature. I emerge to a pastel pink sky, flush with the calm sheet of slate-silver disturbed only by the small ripples caused by my movement: I am but one human disrupting nature. A couple of candyfloss clouds hang lightly, motionless as the setting sun illuminates their crimson and purple hues.

I turn from the expanse of Mediterranean Sea to face the golden sand shoreline, formed in small calas demarcated by rugged red rock outcrops rising from the sea to form small cliffs. The air merges seamlessly with the water and I don’t feel it on my wet flesh. But its fragrance fills my nostrils: warm sweet pine; a scent unfailingly evocative of childhood holidays in France and Greece.

That same air carries a continuous chorus from unseen cicadas, hidden within the thin canopy of pinus pinea that line the clifftop. They create a surround-sound stereo effect, a constant reminder of being somewhere warm and exotic; of not being in the southern England I was born – but would never quite fit – into. Inhaling familiarity, a reassuring sense of belonging to this place is growing within me.

Ocean swimming makes me feel connected to all parts of the world. Here, in this sea, I feel reinvigorated, reconnecting with nature and my own purpose. In this age of excessive individualism and worship of the self, I need to rebel. I am the product of a secular European society; science and nature are my gods. I worship truth, fact, evidence. I honour the reality of my place in the universe, which is as inconsequential as each grain of sand on the beach.

I turn on my back, stretching my limbs so I can float, water lapping at my ears. I gaze up at the now violet sky that is becoming navy, as stars start flickering in its vast darkening canvass. Those far away tiny lights hold so many people spellbound; in moments like this I can briefly share in their celestial fascination.

Dusk now firmly arrived, I have this stretch of Tarragona shoreline virtually to myself, save for the silhouette of a lone figure with two rods cast out to catch a bounty of marisco Catalán. The moment feels idyllic and I ponder why nobody else is swimming on this July evening. Perhaps they are all too busy to take time out; perhaps I am odd for wanting to swim in darkness. My rationalist mind wrestles with a dawning sense that I might carry a hitherto concealed spirituality within me. Perhaps.

The mind wins: there is no mystery to the evolving colours above me, it can all be explained by science. The sky turns pink for a variety of reasons, including due to dust or other particles in the air. As sunlight is filtered through Earth’s atmosphere, tiny air molecules cause it to ‘scatter’ (Rayleigh scattering) and this increases as the wavelength of light decreases.

During the day we see blue photons scattered by the atmosphere away from the sun. In the evening when the sun sinks low on the horizon its beams have to travel further and pass through a greater thickness of that atmosphere to reach the observer; the blue photons are taken out, leaving reddish pink. Red light has longer wavelengths and isn’t scattered as much – so it’s more concentrated in form and can have more visual impact.

The interaction with other variables is what can make for a dramatic sunset (or indeed sunrise) on a given day. For example, depending on their precise crystal composition, the clouds themselves could be adding to the mesmerising reddening effect in the sky. This can be enhanced by another possible contributor to all that I see above me: the level of pollutants in the air.

As the tones I see are not strong on the red colour spectrum, and given my coastal location, I convince myself (without evidence) that the air quality here is probably not too bad. More certain is that the water I swim in will contain microplastics imperceptible to my human senses. Indeed, my own body and those of the stranger’s catch will contain those same plastics.

Even in a moment as consciously connected with nature as this, there is no escaping the reality that humans continue to leave an indelible imprint on this planet. The idea that the world can be free from materials we (humans) have been using is as naive as it is unreasonable. Everything we do modifies the environment in some way. The question is how and to what degree. If the impact is negligible or modest, we can live with it. If it is more, we can agree ways of managing it. Perfect solutions do not exist – not in nature, not in science, not in human endeavour.

Beyond the pine trees is the first line of apartment blocks, and then the second, merging into the grid of streets which stretches through a coastal plain municipality lying between the Serra de Llaberia mountains and pristine, crystal Balearic waters; all powered by the Vandellòs nuclear plant. About 40km north is the city of Tarragona, reached by equally pristine motorways: the N-340 running parallel to the coast, converging with the AP-7 autopista that continues further north to Barcelona.

This municipality nestled between sea and mountains is an ecosystem comprised of living organisms and the physical built environment, a fusion of biotic and abiotic interacting, co-existing. Species survive and thrive within this mixed system, protected by human laws and regulations enacted to conserve biodiversity and the environment; human schemes devised to counteract population growth, habitat destruction, pollution. Living organisms interact to regulate the atmospheric composition, constant and constantly evolving, gradually through biogeochemical cycles. Farming and agriculture serve a simultaneous dual purpose of exploitation and conservation: of land, animal, culture.

Humanity has shaped this landscape but it still retains its natural beauty. There is the familiar mix of industrial and residential, work and leisure. Natural life combines with man-made constructions, but everything is from and of the earth. Manufactured life coexists with naturally occurring life, plant with chemical, synthetic with organic, technological with manual, digital with analogue. Trees, buildings, railroads, batteries, cars. Flowers, insects, birds. Brick, steel, concrete, glass. All from Earth, some processed and produced on Earth – by us humans. The common thread is that it all requires energy to form, grow and function.

And function it does, here in this municipality of clean orderly streets and recently upgraded high-speed rail line. This interconnected grid, plugged in to all modern-day forms of communication. This place just seems to work.

But what would happen if the systems holding it all together should break down?

It’s the summer of 2023 and not so far across the sea I swim in, red alerts are issued in 16 Italian cities. This is in response to an extreme heatwave dubbed “Cerberus” by the Italian Meteorological Society – so named after the three-headed monster featured in Dante’s Inferno. A little farther east, with scorching temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius, the Acropolis in Athens is closed to visitors at the start of peak tourist season. A debate rages on the naming of the coming heatwave to follow this current one. Some favour “Xenia,” whilst others prefer “Cleon.” In the end, it will arrive as an anticyclone and be named “Charon,” after Greek mythology's ferryman of the dead. In the days to follow, in Rhodes an horrific inferno leads to the largest ever wildfire evacuation in Greece, with more than 19,000 people rescued from the island.

There is nothing mythical about these extreme weather incidents. They are the latest in a growing list of adverse climatic events wreaking havoc and displacing people; 2023 looks set to be the hottest recorded year in history.

A little farther beyond Mare Nostrum, the war in Ukraine rages on. The earlier destruction of a dam on the Dnipro River in the south of the country causes a media frenzy; in which nobody says hydroelectric power is vulnerable to attack but instead question the safety of nuclear energy. The incident raises fears for the water source used to cool reactors and spent fuel rods at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Despite the International Atomic Energy Agency being sufficiently reassured of the plant’s safety following its inspection, the media is full of sensationalist and inaccurate reporting about risks to the site.

The subject is at the forefront of my mind, having just released an episode of the Gridlocked podcast entitled, And Now for Nuclear.

Far from being a cautionary tale, Zaporizhzhia shows us – as did Fukushima in 2011 – just how robust nuclear safety measures are. But we can always favour false lessons and choose to draw the wrong conclusions. As is commonplace in this age of narrative trumping fact, the anti-nuclear lobby seizes the opportunity to spread misinformation and fear about sabotage and radiation leaks … the occurrence of which are unlikely and inconsequential.

Farther away, west across the Atlantic, against the backdrop of a stubbornly challenging economic outlook, the firing guns of the presidential primary season start to sound. The politico-media circus will fill the remainder of 2023 and all of 2024.

Climate change will not feature prominently in the election debate, as though the USA is somehow immune from it. To the extent it is discussed, some will weaponize climate science denial as part of a broader culture war politics tearing through America. Others will promote false environmental policy prescriptions and ignorance about what different energy technologies can actually deliver.

In this “post-truth” era, both sides will push falsehoods in equal measure, only seeing the ills of their opponents’ ways and failing to recognise their own. A campaign will happen, but there will be very little by way of genuine exchange of ideas. Too many of us refuse to hear opposing views or engage constructively in debate anymore. We no longer care to listen.

Taking time out to swim on a quiet Catalan evening helps me gain perspective on the times we are living in. Much heat and noise; too little light. Our societies seem to be getting more and more divided, with each passing year – like the temperature records – outdoing the previous one. I’ve been as guilty as the next person, adding my own hot air to fuel the growing angst many of us sense, but cannot shift.

All the while, we’re not on track to ‘solving’ climate change. My thoughts turn to how I can deliver on my purpose: to see a more equitable world operating sustainably to ensure that future generations can inherit viable societies on a liveable planet. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it has become my mantra. In these waters that connect me with the entire world, I feel tiny and insignificant under the now starry night sky … and I know that my vision for a sustainable future could be fading from view.

This is a difficult chapter in history. The narrative arc seems to be bending away from us; away from light into darkness. I feel compelled to investigate the plot – to seek clues as to how we might find a positive twist. I resolve to find a way to be a little shard of light, piercing through the hot dark noise of contemporary discourse.

I dive back down to the cool depths, immersing myself once more in still, silent reflection. Down here in solitude I can empty my thoughts momentarily, hoping to resurface with clarity on how to play my small part in fixing the 21^st century. The broken century.