16 July 2021 15:28
The Germany Westphalian, in particular the Land of North Rhine Westphalia and Rhineland Palatinate, has been hit by the storm Bernd, which has so far caused more than 100 deaths, and according to the authorities the toll is set to worsen. Bad weather caused floods that engulfed entire population centers. More than 165,000 people are currently without electricity.
“After three consecutive years of summer drought”, writes the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “in 2021 a humid summer finally returned, but this natural catastrophe has extinguished all enthusiasm”. There is no need to blame those who make weather forecasts, continues the Bavarian newspaper, because the experts had predicted bad weather and even in advance. “If you want to look for culprits, you can indicate two factors that cannot be brought to court. On the one hand there is chance, because such extreme events have always existed; on the other hand there is climate change: the data show what has long been only a forecast, namely that heavy rainfall is increasingly frequent and harmful, and global warming has made it much more probable ”.
The damage in recent days, concludes the Süddeutsche Zeitung, is also due to the lack of works that protect homes above all from similar events. “But if so far it has been a serious mistake to do nothing against climate change, continuing to ignore it would be even worse.”
We need to work so that people and territories are better prepared to face events of this type, writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitug. “It is necessary to start immediately, involving all citizens. Taking precautions does not mean giving up in the face of the inevitable. This catastrophe demonstrates how much global warming is now affecting our lives ”.
Even the Belgium and the north of France were affected by the floods.
“’One day there will be dead. We have to do something before it happens. ‘ This chilling premonition made in Le Soir by a member of the advisory and support unit specializing in the fight against floods in the Wallonia region, sadly took only ten days to come true, ”writes La Libre Belgique. In the southern region of Belgium, with a French-speaking majority, the victims of the floods are at least twelve. “Even if we must be careful not to establish too hasty links between climate change and the dramatic events experienced by Wallonia, but also by some parts of Flanders, it is clear that we are not ready to face such extreme weather episodes. Episodes that scientists predict more and more frequent and more extreme. But once the storm passes, the lessons will have to be – finally! – Learn and must be implemented without hesitation fundamental structural changes, even if at times unpleasant. We are not masters of the forces of nature. We can only do our best to avoid further destabilizing it. It’s not about religion or ideology, it’s about science. Face reality, however distant it may seem. We need to change our lifestyles: land use is one of them. Too much energy has been spent finding the wrong reasons for not doing what needs to be done. Too often the voices that have been raised for years to appeal to reason and the precautionary principle have been ignored or derided. ‘Tomorrow I will still be dead’, we have heard repeatedly from some political and economic leaders that they are in no hurry to act. Here it is. We are until tomorrow. And it has only just begun ”.
De Standaard calls for floods to be a point of no return. Inge Ghijs writes: “Torrid heat on one side of the ocean, the deluge on the other. Two extremes, but two expressions of the same problem. For a long time, forecasters have been reluctant to link a heat wave, heavy rain or hail to climate change, because extreme weather conditions have always occurred. Just think of the 1953 flood in the Netherlands or the great flood of Ruisbroek in 1976. But that hesitation has disappeared. There is no denying that there is a link between climate change and extreme weather events. We can’t say we haven’t been warned. The United Nations climate conference indicated many years ago that extreme weather phenomena will become increasingly common. It always seemed to happen elsewhere, away from our home. Forests in flames for weeks, temperatures of 50 degrees, huge mudslides, people drowning in whirlpools of water: this could not happen here. The extreme drought of the last few summers has been annoying – farmers mostly suffered – but still bearable. What we have experienced in the last two days is different. The material damage, but above all the suffering of human beings, is great. We will have to adapt: leave more room for water, make it flow more gently, build and live elsewhere, create shock absorbers. But if we want to avoid making the situation worse, we shouldn’t just treat the symptoms. We must also address the root causes of global warming ”.
French hydrologist Emma Haziza, interviewed by Europe1, examined the different causes that led to the latest floods. Among these, he says, urbanization bears much of the responsibility for the damage caused. “We have to think deeply” and integrate new automatisms in urban planning, given that practically nowhere in France the houses are built with principles suitable to face a flood. Modalities that to date “are absolutely not taken into consideration, neither by urban planners nor by architects”, except in the areas affected by the flood risk prevention plans, where urban planning is rather well controlled, he specifies. In all cases, “the risks of flooding are not taken into account, they are not mapped”, the hydrologist deplores. As for the manholes and the sewage system “they are absolutely not adequate for the rainfall levels of this magnitude,” he continues. “So there is really a deep reflection to do very quickly.”
Climate scientists had long predicted that greenhouse gas emissions would cause more floods, heat waves, droughts, storms, and other extreme weather, but recent events have surpassed many predictions. “With climate change, we expect all hydro-meteorological extremes to worsen. What we have seen in Germany is substantially consistent with this trend, ”Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus climate change service at the European Center for Medium-Term Weather Forecasts, said in the Guardian. The past seven years have been the hottest since temperatures have been recorded, the British newspaper continues, largely due to global warming, caused by car exhaust fumes, forest fires and other human activities. Computer models predict that this will cause more extreme weather conditions, which means records will be broken more frequently and in more places. Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, said that so many records were set in the United States this summer that they didn’t even make the news.
Lapland and parts of Siberia have also suffered from record heat in June, and many cities in India, Pakistan and Libya have endured unusually high temperatures in recent weeks. The suburbs of Tokyo have been hit by the heaviest rainfall since the measurements began, and on a July day a month-long rain fell on London. Events that once occurred every hundred years are becoming the order of the day. “Some experts fear that recent jolts indicate that the climate system may have passed a dangerous threshold. Instead of witnessing gradually rising temperatures or ever-increasing extreme events, they are now wondering whether the trend may be increasingly ‘non-linear’, erratic, due to the knock-on effects of drought or ice melt in the Arctic ”.
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