‘What is a heat wave today will seem cool in 50 to 60 years’

Athens conference warns of dire consequences of unchecked climate change

YIANNIS ELAFROS

The environment, health and the connection between them have emerged as crucial political and social issues on which action is imperative or the consequences will be dire.

That was the message of a conference jointly held on Wednesday by associate professor of medicine Polyxeni Nikolopoulou-Stamati and National Agricultural Research Foundation (ETHIAGE) researcher Panos Petrakis.

First to speak was Deputy Parliament Speaker Sotiris Hadziyakis, who stressed the need to find an approach that did not treat nature as an object to be processed. Lung specialist Panos Behrakis focused on the hazards of air pollution for human health. “The human respiratory system was not made to breathe in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide,” he said.

“The maximum permitted levels we set are simply levels we agree on. One basic problem is that we stick with measuring pollutants, when the important thing is the biological aspect, the effects on human health. There has not been any major epidemiological survey on the effects of pollution in Greece for decades.”

Professor Christos Zerefos, director of the Athens Observatory, commented on the effects of climate change in general.

“More than 300 scientists have studied a mass of evidence, including 80,000 pages of ships’ logs and monastery records, and we have documented the temperature in the Mediterranean region for the past 500 years.

“All the evidence shows that the average temperature in the area has risen in the past few years. We have had the hottest years for thousands of years. These are not cyclical fluctuations but the disastrous effect of human activity,” noted Zerefos.

“If we go on like this,” he added, “what is extreme weather today will become a common phenomenon in 40 years, while what is a heat wave today will seem cool in 50 to 60 years.”

Ioannis Karacostas, deputy rector and professor of law at Athens University, pointed out that there are legal weapons in Greek legislation, Council of State precedents and European environmental protection legislation. And he emphasized the significance of Article 24 of the Greek Constitution, which should be improved when the Constitution is revised.

“Laws are not enough; there must be an ethical approach to managing the environment,” argued Constantine Sekeris of the National Research Foundation. “Often when we try to tackle a problem, we end up making things worse,” he said, citing the example of DDT and the more recent problems when efforts to produce more resin resulted in a disease in pine trees “which we are now trying to cure with dangerous chemicals and insecticides in residential areas.”

Nikolopoulou-Stamati referred to hazardous methods of dealing with Marchalina hellenica, and the dangers of using chemicals that interfere with the endocrine system.