Eastern Austrian lakes without water, an increasing number of hot days without nocturnal cooling and declining biodiversity: all of this is not only a result of the global climate crisis, but also a misery caused by “soil sealing”.
That’s why Kurt Weinberger, head of the Austrian hail insurance company, called for a “stop on the concrete covering of Austria” at a media event yesterday in Vienna. A demand that Weinberger made not for the first time, but repeated in its urgency in view of the current record heat, together with the meteorologist Simon Tschannett. Climate Council member Tschannett pointed out that the 25th hot day was counted in downtown Vienna this year, which means that the 45 days of the record year 2018 could be exceeded this year.
The cold air that arises in meadows and forests and brings cooling at night is missing, “therefore there should be no more sealing around towns and communities,” demanded city climatologist Tschannett. However, these areas continue to disappear, because although a target value of 2.5 hectares per day was set in the sustainability strategy 20 years ago, 11.5 hectares are still being concreted over four times as much as fields and meadows every day, Weinberger criticized. This has led to Austria becoming a negative European champion in several areas: At 1.67 square meters, there is the largest supermarket area per capita (1.2 square meters is the EU average), which is 15 meters per capita longest road network in the EU. This is where “the stop button needs to be pressed” because this “mobility is not sustainable,” said Weinberger.
Source: Nachrichten
