Heat waves worldwide and Transport Minister Wissing’s love of cars

2023-07-20 11:40:15

First came the hottest day ever measured, then the hottest week, and even before this presumably hottest July on earth draws to a close, we can be sure: the Federal Minister of Transport is on the run again. The only question is where to go? In any case, Volker Wissing has successfully left the global climate emergency, which is currently holding half the world in a stranglehold, behind him. Heat is not his issue, he refuses climate sector targets, instead he takes care of the unbridled driving pleasure as usual. He now equates the speed limit with “abolition of cars” and “mobility ban”. In his words: The climate protectionists who called for something like this ignored the reality of life for most people in the country.

However, the alleged demand for the abolition of the car belongs in the series of liberal phantasmagorias that come as a symptom of a political heat stroke right after the heat pump requirement and the e-car obligation. Nobody asked for it, but you want to fight it. That’s what happens when the heat gets to your head. We don’t know where Wissing is spending his summer break, but on the day he once again took up the fight against climate activists on Twitter, it was a whopping 42.9 degrees in Rome, not far from the Vatican – an incredible two degrees above the old record. Sicily sweated at 46.3 degrees, in the Balearic Islands it was almost 44 degrees, in Catalonia more than 45 and in Badwater in California’s Death Valley the mercury column climbed to an inhuman 53.3 degrees.

Heat record tourism in Death Valley in California: Image: dpa

At the bottom of the world, the climate shock is no less

This is currently the reality of life for millions and millions of German holidaymakers. Wissing ignores her. But how was he supposed to notice her? He is on the run with his own reality, which continues to travel the world on fossil-fuelled wheels and easily protects itself from the heat with air conditioning. Everyone else is encountering a meteorological reality these days that has washed up. According to experts, these are harbingers of an overheated planet, which one hardly thinks possible if one only considers the usual global average temperature increases of tenths of a degree. In concrete terms: children who are of crèche age today will probably have to experience seven times more heat waves, three times as many floods and droughts and twice as many forest fires as we boomers – if something groundbreaking does not finally happen in climate protection.

There are many reasons why the number of natural disasters has been increasing simultaneously from continent to continent and from China to Africa over the past few weeks. “El Nino” is one, the heat anomaly in the Pacific, which is likely to disrupt the weather structure in many parts of the world for a good year. But that’s far from the only factor. An unstable air flow system in the atmosphere, the jet stream, is another candidate, as is the overheating of the oceans since the spring, which even experts cannot explain.

Nina Rehfeld, Phoenix Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 28 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 2 Matthias Rüb, Rom Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 14

In mid-July, almost half of the world’s ocean surface was affected by marine heat waves – strong temperature anomalies such as those in the Gulf and the Caribbean, where the water is still more than five degrees hotter than normal and the forecast for bleaching, i.e. the possible death of huge coral reefs, is officially estimated at almost 100 percent. Historic and ongoing devastation in Canada too: well before the end of the summer, tens of millions of hectares of forest, an area the size of Portugal, have already burned, and plumes of smoke have spread tens of thousands of kilometers across North America and beyond, covering an area the size of the entire Amazon region.

At the bottom of the world, the climate shock is no less. In Antarctica, for example, it is winter, but there is so little ice forming on the surrounding sea that scientists speak of a 4 or 5 sigma event. This means that such an outlier would naturally occur at best every 10,000 or 100,000 years. In short: Humans are facing the brutal reality of the non-linearity of our planetary foundations of existence these days. The extent of the rash could have a significant impact on climate policy, perhaps even with the Minister of Transport. Provided he gets a clear view of the reality of life for young people after the summer break on the autobahn.