According to Swiss Meteo temperatures are set to drop significantly over the weekend, with daily highs dropping by around 10 degrees to around 7 degrees across most of Switzerland north of the Alps. On Tuesday the snow line could fall as low a 1,000 metres in western Switzerland, according to the forecaster. It could be […]
Swiss clocks go back one hour this Sunday
Early on Sunday 28 October 2018 Swiss clocks turn back one hour. Officially they are adjusted at 3am. This means you can stay in bed longer and it will be lighter when you get up. On the down side, it will be darker in the evenings. The rest of Europe will adjust its clocks at […]
Greenpeace calls on Swiss supermarkets to cut plastic
In campaign entitled: Stop overdressing, the organisation Greenpeace is criticizing Swiss supermarkets for their widespread use of plastic packaging. Protesters, who assembled outside the headquarters of the supermarket Migros in Zurich on Tuesday, proclaimed that fruit and vegetables come in natural packaging and that wrapping them in plastic is a form of over dressing. The […]
Family planning and climate change – the arithmetic causing a stir
Following the recent release of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on its dramatic climate change predictions, the news agency APF published a chart from 2017 showing the effects of various actions to reduce human emissions. Quelques moyens pour réduire son empreinte carbone #AFP pic.twitter.com/QcFw0waCUG — Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) October 8, […]
Geneva plans to ban polluting vehicles
The canton’s government is working on a plan to ban the most polluting vehicles from the city centre, according to the newspaper Tribune de Genève. The project, accepted by the parliamentary transport commission, could result in a ban on certain vehicles entering the city centre on days of high air pollution. The restrictions would apply […]
What the successful bicycle vote could mean for Swiss cyclists
In 2017, accidents involving cyclists resulted in 4,200 injuries and 40 deaths. A map put together by RTS shows where each of these accidents occurred – red dots are deaths. Per kilometre cyclists are 10 times more likely to die than those in cars. In addition, while the number of vehicle and pedestrian casualties has […]
Switzerland’s two very different votes on food and agriculture
On Sunday, Swiss voters will get to decide on two initiative related to food. The first is the Fair Food Initiative, a proposal aimed at making food healthier and its production more environmentally friendly. It calls on the government to promote environmentally sound, animal-friendly and fairly produced food by introducing new requirements for Swiss produce […]
Switzerland fast losing its snow to global warming
Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the United Nations recently unveiled the results of an analysis of 22 years of satellite imagery showing the evolution of snow cover in Switzerland. Swiss snow is disappearing fast, something probably linked to global warming reckon the researchers. Over the period from 1995 to 2005, the area […]
Swiss consumption of bottled water rises significantly
Consumption of bottled water has risen dramatically in Switzerland, according to figures published in the newspaper Blick. Before the 1970s, few in Switzerland drank water from anywhere other than kitchen taps or fountains. By 1998, 680 million litres of bottled water a year were consumed. Now the figure is an eye watering 977 million litres, […]
Number of cases of tick-borne encephalitis rises sharply in Switzerland
In around 1% of cases tick-borne encephalitis can be deadly. It is a virus carried by ticks, which can cause brain swelling and neurological damage. The period between March and November is when most people get infected, according to the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). Ticks become active when the temperature reaches 7 […]
