It's time we started living in a way that works for the earth

We pause for breath. We’ve been grinding steadily upwards now for maybe an hour. Even at our “early morning pace” – slow, short steps – this is pretty hard going on loose grit and stones. The mountain refuge hut lies far below us. The sun, not yet above the wall of rock looming over us, just catches the peaks behind us.

We’re here in the Italian Dolomites for a hiking and “via ferrata” – wires and ladders bolted into high, exposed rocky ledges – adventure. We’re at something like 2,700 metres above sea level (I can’t be sure exactly, but we started from the “Rifugio Silvio Agostini” hut at 2,400 metres, and it feels like we’ve probably done a few hundred metres of ascent by now). We’re about ready to start the via ferrata for the day.

While we’re tweaking our safety gear, our guide, Lorenzo, points to the rock face above us. “See that red sign up there…?” After a few seconds searching, eventually we see it, maybe 30 metres up. “That’s how high the glacier used to be,” he says, “20 years ago, we’d have been walking across it to get to the start.” Today, there’s just the barest remains, a bit of ice in the shadiest gullies, and we climb the 30 metres up to the start.