Friday 17 May 2024: Italy is trapped in the grip of a climate dipole, extreme rain, hail, tornadoes, more deaths and flooding in the Northern regions, at the same time terrible drought in Sicily, where it hasn’t rained seriously for months, and the harvests they go to waste already in spring.
All this exactly one year after the devastating flood in Romagna (cf. ARPAE website) followed six months later by that of Campi Bisenzio in Tuscany (cf. Regione Toscana website) and included in a now very long and repetitive series of other extreme events.
But it’s not just Italy: for eleven months, i.e. since June immediately following the disaster in Romagna, the entire planet has been heading towards heat never seen before, inexorably documented by the arid data provided by Copernicusthe “European climate service”, a necessary innovation in this new situation (see Euronews website).
In fact, the new Earth climate is increasingly disgusting, and visibly getting worse, for years, not today. We climate scientists are tired of repeating it, we must take action before it is too late, the industrialized world must give up consumption of fossil energy, not go looking for more around the world, as ENI and various Italian governments are doing with the «Mattei plan » (see FOCSIV website).
With all due respect for Mattei − another era, other priorities − today we have completely different things to do, that is, fully use the wind, rain and sun potential of our country to switch to 100% clean electricity, zero emissions, zero dependence from abroad, zero air and water pollution.
It can be done, as demonstrated by the undeniable successes of other states that are taking change seriously, such as Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Germany, or California. And if others do it, why do we in Italy instead ask for moratoriums on renewables and leave coal power plants on as happens in Sardinia?!
If the climate has changed, cities and countryside must also change, the country must quickly adapt its territory, cities can no longer be expanses of asphalt and concrete, they must become capable of protecting us from extreme heat, and absorb extreme rainfall (see Adriadapt website). In particular, the trees that already exist in cities should be left standing, and if anything, many more should be added.
Even in the countryside there is a whole old and unsuitable culture to change, agronomy cannot be that of the seventies: plow, fertilize, sow, harvest. To take care of the earth and the cities there must be new scholars who have already understood how to face the challenges of the new climate (see Reteclima website).
The predatory mentality of the economic boom must give way to that of care, as Battiato put it: “I know the laws of the world, and I will give them to you, and I will take care of you.” The change must concern everyone, administrators, citizens, politicians, industrialists, artisans, teachers and even musicians, as the friends who have accompanied me for years by playing while I give conferences on our increasingly warm atmosphere have well understood. Let’s hope it helps.
