The perfect storm over Emilia-Romagna? Blame environmentalists and animal rights activists. The theses (gulp) of Confcooperative
In-depth and sometimes daring theses on the tragedy that Emilia-Romagna is experiencing.
“It was a perfect storm, made up of a combination of elements ranging from exaggerated environmentalism and animalism which for years have left the coypu free to dig under the banks, undermining them and preventing the cleaning of the riverbeds; then 200 millimeters of rain when much less were expected, strong winds and very high waves on the sea which did not allow the overflowing water of the rivers to be absorbed”.
Word of Maurizio Gardini, president of Confcooperative, one of the main associations of Italian cooperatives.
Here are some of the analyzes and comments by climate experts and personalities of the areas at the center of the tragedy that struck Emilia-Romagna.
MASSIMILIANO FAZZINI, HEAD OF THE CLIMATE RISK TEAM OF THE ITALIAN SOCIETY OF ENVIRONMENTAL GEOLOGY, TO THE SHEET
“You can't always say no to everything,” geologist Massimiliano Fazzini, head of the Climate Risk team of the Italian Society of Environmental Geology, explained to Il Foglio . “With this new climate, it is necessary to regulate watercourses, where necessary also with works that have an impact on the environment, but always with respect for the latter”, declares Fazzini: “For example, with the Ridracoli reservoir, in the Cesena area, the problem of water supply for the five million inhabitants who populate the Romagna coast for tourism in the summer has been resolved. In other words, when works are needed, they must be done. It's not like we're going to cut fifty kilometers of forest or we're going to endanger people's lives”.
According to the expert, therefore, “we must adapt and try to reduce the effective risk to the maximum of our potential, taking into account the environment, ensuring that the residual risk is as low as possible. Zero risk does not exist, unfortunately. And therefore: where a large infrastructure is needed, it must be built, where a small infrastructure is sufficient, one intervenes with a small infrastructure. But we have to move. You can't always say no to everything, otherwise we'll be ruined within ten years." "94 percent of the Italian territory is placed as the Emilia-Romagna plain – continues Fazzini – therefore the funds of the Pnrr should be destined more to works aimed at countering the hydrogeological risk".
GIULIO BETTI, METEOROLOGIST OF CNR-LAMMA, IN REPUBLIC
Historically, the areas most affected by these phenomena in Italy have always been those on the western side, with frequent episodes in Liguria, Piedmont, Sicily and Sardinia. But now something is changing. "This is because the perturbations usually arrive from the west, instead here it is a reiterated action of low pressure lows on the Mediterranean which then impact to the east", Giulio Betti, meteorologist of the Cnr-Lamma, explains to Repubblica . «Everything comes from the anticyclonic blocks on the Atlantic. Instead of a train of Atlantic perturbations that with westerly winds then transit quickly towards the east, there is now a trend towards the isolation of pressure lows over the Mediterranean which are literally trapped by the high pressures to the north, west and east. Going back to Italy, these minima do nothing but unload large quantities of rain from Emilia Romagna downwards. Furthermore, when there is a minimum of pressure of this kind, the configuration of the territory has an impact: an area like Romagna, which overlooks the sea and is enclosed by the Apennines, acts as a collector of humidity. As a result, the quantities of water become enormous. «Such exceptional situations are the perfect identikit of climate change. That is, large quantities of water that fall rapidly and intensely on the same areas after a drought. These are the scenarios that the IPCC scientists have been indicating for years» concludes Betti.
ANTONELLO PASINI, CLIMATE PHYSICIST AT THE NATIONAL RESEARCH CENTER, IN REPUBLIC
As Antonello Pasini, climate physicist at the National Research Center adds , it is because we are in the presence of the “Stau” effect: «The air on the Adriatic side rises over the Apennines and creates violent rainfall, the kind that swells the rivers. When the air rises it condenses, the water vapor becomes water and clouds form. If it goes up from the side of the mountain it is called Stau, when it goes down it is the reverse, the Föhn effect».
PIERLUIGI RANDI, PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL METEOROLOGISTS, IN REPUBLIC
In both May floods, another characteristic was the "slow" persistence of the phenomenon. “In the first case – Pierluigi Randi, president of the Association of Professional Meteorologists explains to Repubblica – the rains were not even violent, but constant and for over 36 hours. In the second, the depression moved slowly, with the vortex dissipating its energy by moving little but pouring a lot of water in less than 24 hours. This last perturbation was fueled by an influx of extremely humid air taken from the Ionian Sea and North Africa, drawing hot air even from the equator". A detail that should make us think about the global aspect of the climate crisis. "In fact, we must stop thinking that, perhaps on cold days, overheating is not taking place: the climate crisis means perturbations that come from distant roots, even from hot Africa, and then impact us, as now". In order to be able to affirm that the intensity of the Romagna flood is characteristic of the climate crisis, there are moreover three clues that prove it. «In the last two years we have had three extreme events of opposite sign in this area: first severe drought and then in 15 days two deadly rain events. This is a clear signal of the climate crisis: extreme events in sequence, which usually have secular return times, but which instead occurred in a very short time.
SILVIO GUALDI, SENIOR SCIENTIST AT THE EURO-MEDITERRANEAN CENTER ON CLIMATE CHANGE (CMCC), TO THE COURIER
It is a cyclone born in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea and today trapped in central Italy squeezed between two high pressure areas, with its load of humid air colliding with the Apennines. "The depression is unable to flow from west to east, following the normal flow of atmospheric circulation, and this has generated this enormous amount of rain over Romagna," Silvio Gualdi, senior scientist at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) explains to Corriere ), which participates in the Copernicus seasonal forecasting programme. "The other factor that contributes to making this exceptional event is global warming: a hotter atmosphere contains more water vapor which, when these weather conditions occur, is therefore able to produce much more rain." The prolonged drought of recent months has aggravated the impact, "because particularly dry soil does not absorb water, rain tends to flow on the ground". Better to get used to what risks becoming a “new normal”. «It rains less frequently, and therefore increases the probability of dry periods, but when it rains, the rainfall is more intense. It's a trend that climate model projections will accelerate further in the future."
PAOLA MERCOGLIANO, CMCC CLIMATOLOGIST, TO THE COURIER
CMCC climatologist Paola Mercogliano confirms to Corriere : «The current extreme conditions are similar to those that led to the flooding of the Po in 1994 and 2000. So we cannot say that they are events never seen before but climate change amplifies their frequency and intensity". And let's get ready for a hotter and more humid summer than usual. Gualdi heralds higher temperatures than the climatic average of the last thirty years. And more rain: "Between May and July humidity is likely to be higher than normal".
MAURIZIO GARDINI, PRESIDENT OF CONFCOOPERATIVE, TO THE COURIER
«It was a perfect storm, made up of a set of elements ranging from exaggerated environmentalism and animalism which for years have left the otters free to dig under the banks, undermining them and preventing the cleaning of the river beds; then 200 millimeters of rain when much less were expected, strong winds and very high waves on the sea which did not allow the overflowing water of the rivers to be absorbed. The most serious problem now concerns the landslides that undermine the hydrogeological stability of the territory, the whole road area and that of crops must be rethought », Maurizio Gardini, from Forlì, agricultural entrepreneur and president of Confcooperative told Corriere . Can you quantify the damage? «Here now no one thinks about the damage, unimaginable, impossible to count now. Now the maximum effort must be to save people, there are 100,000 displaced people and dozens more missing. We'll take care of the rest later." And what will happen next? “Everything will have to be rebuilt. The most evident damage is on the hydrogeological structure and the broken balance in all the hills: the risk is that the land will be abandoned by man. Here the whole agricultural and agri-food aspect has been deeply undermined. In agriculture, the worst water is that of the month of May, which damages crops and jeopardizes the year's harvest».
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/la-tempesta-perfetta-sullemilia-romagna-colpa-di-ambientalisti-e-animalisti-le-tesi-gulp-di-confcooperative/ on Thu, 18 May 2023 07:52:29 +0000.