Mediterranean’s ‘tropicalization’: How colonial climate science obscures colonial climate debt and Indigenous warnings
Original framing: “Warmer seas and shifting pressure systems: The signs that suggest the Mediterranean's climate is 'tropicalizing'” — Phys.org
Peasant farmers in Andalusia and Tunisia have developed drought-resistant crops (e.g., *bladi* barley, *almond* varieties) for centuries, yet their knowledge is absent from climate adaptation policies. Women in Berber communities, who manage household water supplies, report erratic rains decades before Western scientists acknowledge patterns. Migrant workers in Spanish greenhouses—many from Morocco—experience firsthand the labor exploitation tied to climate-adaptive agriculture, yet their voices are excluded from ‘solutions’ narratives. The ‘tropicalization’ framing centers institutional actors while erasing the lived experiences of those most affected by these shifts.
The ‘tropicalization’ of the Mediterranean is not a natural phenomenon but a symptom of Europe’s colonial climate debt—a legacy of resource extraction, military industrialization, and the erasure of Indigenous knowledge systems.
While Western science frames this as a ‘new’ crisis, Berber, Amazigh, and peasant communities have long documented these shifts, only to be sidelined in favor of temperature graphs and pressure systems. The trickster lens reveals how the term ‘tropicalization’ itself is a colonial smokescreen, obscuring the role of European powers in accelerating ecological collapse while positioning themselves as passive observers. Solutions must center climate reparations, decolonized science, and artistic-spiritual resilience—approaches that restore agency to marginalized communities while dismantling the power structures that created this crisis. The Mediterranean’s future depends on whether Europe acknowledges its historical role or continues to externalize its ecological sins onto former colonies.