Sardegna in ginocchio, è una vecchia storia

Fabio Spina

google translate:

" The failure to complete the works, which perhaps could have been largely avoided these consequences so dire , it is a fact that has been perpetuated for years , if not centuries in reference to the behavior of the central powers in respect of Sardinia ." Those shows are the statements of the President of the Region of Sardinia Mario Mellis after the tragic storm on Sardinia in October 1986 , at the time the prosecution of Cagliari was working on the assumption preliminary flood culpable offense and multiple manslaughter .

Everyone knows that the Egyptians were celebrating when esondava the Nile , a few decades instead of a swelling stream creates anxiety , if not terror. Could it be that we have built too close to the banks ? That maintenance is the only part of the financial statements where , if you cut , no lobby makes the barricades ? That having made ​​habitable basements , sooner or later , you will have to deal with the water that goes up ? That's when you need to predict the rivers cemented area of ​​expansion to remain so for decades to come ? Why an extreme weather event has never resulted in the flooding of the villas in Porto Cervo or Parioli in Rome ? In the last half century, the problems seem to remain the same , the difference is that the culprit was in 1986 the central government , now seems to be identified in global warming .

Let's go back to the exceptional storm that hit these days Sardinia causing 16 deaths : is it really a weather event ever seen for thousands of years , as some have claimed ? To answer simply return , for example, in the autumn of 1951, when we believe that the sea temperature and the concentration of carbon dioxide was much less than the current .

For a description of the event better than I could do in a few lines , just read the reconstruction written a few years ago ( click here). The very same day that the government was deciding aid against a long period of drought began in 1950 , began a phase in which there were rainy daily peaks monstrous as to 1431mm Sicca d'Erba ( Arzana ) , quantity 2-3 times higher values ​​truly exceptional these days. Disappeared bridges, roads, and the two countries as Gairloch Osini . A narrative of the event can be read in the books of the Sardinian writer Giovanna Mulas . Fortunately, the dead were only 5, but at the time few people were traveling by car and lived in the basement .

But because few people remember the dramatic and disastrous flood of 1951 Sardinian ? Why in the same hours in Sicily and Calabria , under a rain impressive, fell in four days about 1770 mm , there were more than 70 victims , 4,500 homeless , nearly 1,700 homes collapsed or were rendered uninhabitable , 67comuni affected. Among the infrastructure damaged , 26 bridges collapsed and 77 aqueducts injured (read here) . On 14 November of the same year came the now legendary flood of Polesine , which caused many as 84 deaths. After only 2 years old, October 21, 1953 , Calabria was again hit by an extreme event that caused about 100 deaths . Yet today, many decades ago tell us that the weather was " heavenly " than the present day.

It should also be remembered that 20 years ago, as you can see on slide 8, Corsica, exactly Bavello , between October 31 and November 1 , fell to 920 mm (read here) . One can not be surprised to see that a bridge was built only two years ago to a few tens of kilometers south of Bavello , collapses to a precipitation which is roughly half of what only 18 years earlier had been measured. A curiosity remains : what data is built?

I could bore recalling floods in the countries of Quartu and Quarryville in 1881 and 5 October 1899, 25 deaths , in which the water reached the height of 2.30 m above the ground , there should still be some tombstones on the walls of the churches to remember. With much less extensive effects of the flood of 1951, it is estimated that interested 8 thousand square kilometers of territory , as many as 1 /3 of the island of Sardinia, a more extreme event occurred in 1930 and devastated Uta , in November 1939 it was destroyed a part the neighborhood Sant'Avendrace in Cagliari , Elmas had a lot of damage in 1946 and Sestu with a bridge collapse and interruption of roads.

In recent years , unfortunately, people interested in the affairs of climate change, were divided between those "certain " that in recent years the climate has deteriorated greatly as a result of fossil fuel emissions and the most " skeptics" who believe that disasters like the current ones we have always been . The latter believe that such efficiency is a choice that should certainly be pursued but with paths realistic and not forced by fear.

Starting from these two points of view, we explore the natural disasters caused by the atmosphere in two different ways: by suitably adjusting the composition of the air to return to live in " paradise " of a few decades / centuries ago, or operating in infrastructure and ways of living so that you gradually reduce the effects of climate.

The first mode is known as " mitigation" : his concept was born during the Cold War , a time when even the atmosphere had to be " controlled " in order to be useful in battle. After the fall of the Berlin Wall on the other hand , "normalize" the atmosphere is an ecological problem can face only through the market , such as the emission trading system ( the system of trading carbon emissions adopted by the European Union ) .

The second mode is known as "adaptation" , is applied to the man when he appeared on Earth : if there is a drought, they dig wells and aqueducts were built to prevent flooding regulates the flow of river water , if cold is the way to warm up , etc. . It also seeks progressively to do the same thing using less energy and matter.

The politics and ideology green , until a few years ago, he used this division scaring people and " forcing" in this way the entrance to the road alone " mitigation" : the signing of the Kyoto Protocol has been one of the effects . Prodi , who boasted during the campaign to be a Pasdaran Kyoto , many politicians of the center, all participated in the chariot of mitigation taxing and legislating so that huge amounts of public money would serve only to mitigate climate . For example, we spent about ten billion euro per year in technology is not mature at the time such as solar panels , we have so enriched the Chinese and the Germans turning the staff of our companies in " precarious" installers. The same equipment would buy them today at about 40% of the price and with a much better return . Furthermore, to make the cost competitive green energy over the next decade will pay the bills much more expensive in Europe , what with an ecological benefit to the insignificant amount of greenhouse gas emissions globally, while our competitors continue to economic increase it. In fairness it should also write that, in fact , the reduction in emissions is due more to the crisis mitigation action , it was more "green" the crisis that the Kyoto Protocol.

Unfortunately, the deck is short , it was decided to stake everything on the mitigation and adaptation to expose the part . All the people were persuaded that the "green economy" was renewable energy, hydrogen technology , we repeat every day all the media that to save the world is essential to extend the Kyoto Protocol.

Had we realized that " green jobs " true were those of farmers, engineers to improve infrastructure and train workers to keep clean channels , carpenters who produced the best fixtures , industries that produce artifacts that last for a long time , etc. . investing the same huge amount of money used to mitigate the climate, cry less now definitely dead, Italians have done work instead of the Chinese, the quality of people's lives would be improved and we will not be forced to invent terms like " water bombs " , to bring up the old and new unsolved problems.

Instead of many newspapers , these days you still have to read that to avoid events such as Sardinian , you would have to find a binding agreement on mitigation in Warsaw at COP 19 . But in a time of deep economic crisis like this, how can you still accept that for twenty years, every year thousands of experts will gather two weeks to reach an agreement ? Do you know where you met this year? In one stage.