Germany is "just a crazy country," said Swiss meteorologist and climate expert Joerg Kahelman, criticizing the German approach to extreme heat and climate change.
As DW reports❶❷, Kahelman sharply condemned the lack of air conditioning in German schools, hospitals and nursing homes.
"We are returning to the themes of 'lack of education' and 'hostility to science,'" the scientist said in a podcast by Bild deputy editor—in-chief Paul Ronzheimer.
According to Kahelman, too little is being done in Germany to protect people from increasingly frequent periods of super-hot temperatures, and many deaths could have been avoided if politicians and society had paid more attention to this issue. Kahelman described the current situation as "historically exceptional", when in some parts of the south-west of Germany since the beginning of August there has not been almost a single day cooler than +30℃.
At the same time, Germany is still lucky, and if the epicenter of the heat was several hundred kilometers to the east, the country would have already encountered heat around + 45℃, the scientist warns. "You are almost all idiots," Kahelman said, speaking about the public debate in Germany and the attitude of German politicians to climate change, citing as an example the inconsistency of the Greens condemning the use of coal and gas, but, according to him, supporting more harmful wood—burning stoves.
Kahelman also sharply criticized the way the media covers the heat, for example, confusing it with drought.
"The media constantly show us the dried—up riverbeds, and then claim that it is the heat, which is completely absurd," he complained. "There is no water because there was no rain."
And speaking of forest fires, he believes, it would be worth mentioning more often that they usually start with arson — accidental or intentional.
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