Its results climate change and the impact it has on our daily lives is now very evident. Extreme weather events that threaten our very existence are not a picture of a dystopian future but a reflection of a frustrating reality in the here and now.
After all, even here in Greece we have experienced in our skin in recent years the serious effects of the climate crisis with deadly disasters from fires and floods. They are extremely recent and the memories of the summer heat wave are still very fresh. With temperatures reaching 44-45 degrees Celsius, they made Greece look like a kiln.
The number of extremely hot days in the world, with temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius, has doubled in our time since the 1980s, according to a new analysis by the BBC. In addition, hot days are now occurring in more parts of the world than in the past, another indication of the climate change which now takes on the characteristics of a crisis, threatening both the way of life of many people and their health, as well as the natural environment.
Understandably, the conditions that now prevail in big cities are suffocating with a number of factors affecting the rise in daily temperature. With the lack of greenery and the excessive use of air conditioners in combination with the gases from the industries to have the first place
But how can you cool a metropolis?
New data show that over the last decade the maximum temperatures have increased by 0.5 degrees Celsius compared to the average of the period 1980-2009. In some areas (Eastern Europe, South Africa, Brazil and Southeast Asia) the increase in maximum temperatures exceeded one degree, while in the Arctic and the Middle East two degrees compared to previous decades.
The Pakistani city of Karachi, with a population of 15 million, now faces prolonged temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius. As cooler Ali Raza Sass states in a BBC mini-documentary, “there are now millions of air conditioners in the city”. And placed in very difficult parts of the buildings making his daily life extremely difficult.
The last time the city was hit by a heat wave it had counted 1,200 dead! Excessive use of air conditioners that use electricity, which in turn are produced from fossil fuels, causes a vicious cycle that affects the greenhouse effect and consequently the increase in temperature.
But what can a man do to cool a metropolis? By building metropolitan forests, Zahzad Quresi is trying to realize his vision for a cooler Karasi. “If in three years we create forests all over the city, we will be able to lower the temperature significantly,” he comments. In a forest the temperature can be up to 6 degrees lower than the rest of the environment.
The entrepreneur uses crowd funding to be able to carry out his ambitious plan. His plan includes the construction of 25 metropolitan forests. However, what he has to overcome are the obstacles placed by the local authorities.
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