The life of all of us on the planet does not wait for Yahweh to announce to Moses a series of coming plagues, so that in one absent scene we discover what kind of trouble we are in. Bad news slowly floats out, like the "stones of hunger" that this August, due to the too low water level of the rivers, spewed from the Rhine and the Elbe. As the favorite naturalist saying on which Aristotle, Leibniz, Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin agreed - Nature non facit saltus (Nature does not make leaps) and as it usually happens in life, the disaster came slowly, gradually, unnoticed and of course - contested. Whether he burned fossil fuels or not, a careful observer could notice all these many hints - as year after year the heat waves became longer by a day, two, five, the snow there in the mountains that feeds the water level of the large lowland rivers was constantly less by some percentage, the water levels were gradually getting lower, fires were more and more frequent, storms turned into more and more terrible events, spring became elusive, and living species began to disappear.
Photo: Ministry of the Interior of SerbiaFire in Deliblatska peščara
And then this summer we suddenly found ourselves among plagues of biblical proportions. We see not only warning stones on which the people of the Middle Ages carved "Cry if you see me", but also Roman bridges and ships emerging from the Danube, the desert sun that burns for days, summer without a single shower, fires that we cannot control for days, nuclear reactors that shut down because there is no cooling water. There is a solar eclipse in the sky. In the country of Serbia, bizarre social circumstances undoubtedly make it difficult to deal with disasters - a country sunk in deep corruption can hardly be ready to adapt and face extraordinary circumstances such as fires, droughts and extreme drops in water levels - but regardless of incompetent authorities and inevitable political changes, through no real fault of theirs, the natural environment in which we live is no longer the same.
It is not necessary for the prophets Moses and Amos to announce locusts and the bloody Nile to a stubborn pharaoh, it is not even necessary to have tentative regional forecasts and reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), so that we ourselves feel that there is too much wrong with the climate. Biblical makot has started. Climate change is happening.
Since the scientific community saw in the seventies of the 20th century, and with decades proved, that man has changed the processes in the atmosphere through his influence, primarily through the merciless burning of fossil fuels and therefore the emission of carbon dioxide, we know that global warming is coming with all its consequences. Futile political attempts to do something, along with an overall unsuccessful campaign, have so far led to the Paris Agreement, which set the goal of reducing CO2 emissions.2 reduce so that the average global temperature by the end of the 21st century does not rise by more than 1,5 degrees compared to the pre-industrial period because, it is believed, more than that would be impossible for modern civilization to bear. However, current IPCC data indicate that the average global temperature of the Earth's surface has already increased between 1,2 and 1,3 degrees, while land surfaces have warmed significantly more. These abstract numbers are showing up across Europe as a very concrete series of wicked and intractable troubles.
photo: darko vojinović / ap photoDANUBE AT THE BOTTOM: Đerdap,…
NUCLEAR WATER LEVEL
Due to the low water level, ironically this summer, the consequences were significantly felt by the two sectors that are traditionally the most responsible for CO emissions2 - transport and energy. The waterways in Europe are almost closed, so oil and coal do not reach their destinations, while the low water level severely affects hydropower plants. In addition to hydro capacity, the nuclear industry is also affected. One of the nuclear plants in our neighborhood, Paks on the Danube in Hungary, was forced to shut down four VVER reactors last week, which provide about 40 percent of our northern neighbor's electricity production. Danube water, as with most reactors (and here we are talking about the type of reactor with pressurized water), is necessary for the cooling systems, without which the reactors cannot function. It turned out that the level of the Danube fell as much as 1,2 meters lower than the so-called "hundred-year minimum", for which the power plant was designed. The disconnection of Paksh from the network was inevitable. As nuclear plants are built and maintained to withstand a wide variety of risks (when a dam was mined in Ukraine and the artificial lake Kahovka swelled, there was no incident at the reactors of the Zaporozhye power plant), the whole case does not represent a nuclear hazard, but there is no electricity production.
photo: darko vojinović / ap photo…Prahovo,…
The situation is similar with the reactors at the Cernavoda power plant in Romania. The two active reactors with heavy water of this power plant are also located on the Danube, in a part of the flow not far from the mouth of the Black Sea, where the water level was recorded two meters below the level, as well as a flow so low that it had never been seen before. Because of this, reactor 1 of this power plant was immediately shut down, but as it provides 10 percent of Romania's electricity, and the energy crisis in the region due to the water level is not small, the Romanian authorities waged an absent struggle to avoid shutting down reactor 2. That is why the Romanian army mined the Parjoai rock on the Danube in order to direct the Danube and raise the water level at the power plant by a few centimeters - the operation was not simple and the army succeeded in the second attempt. In a continuation of action movie-like interventions, the Romanians sank barges with stone to create an artificial dam in the Bala backwater and further raise the water level.
photo: darko vojinović / ap photo…Novi Sad
The observer of this unusual fight could learn something about the causes in the previous days, but perhaps it has not been emphasized enough that the basic one - climate change - is hidden behind all the causes. From the point of view of the physics of the climate system, both the increased evaporation due to the heat wave and the reduction of snow in the Alps, which decisively affect the water level and are in a way the water tower of Europe, have a common root in the rise of the average global temperature. If we look at the input side of the water balance - snow - works in the journal "Nature" from 2021 and 2022 showed that due to climate change, the surface of the snow cover decreases by about one percent per decade, but also shortens the snow period during the year by as much as 22 days. Due to higher temperatures, water from the atmosphere falls more as rain than as snow, so the natural reserve of water that feeds the rivers in the summer months is reduced. On the other hand, on the outlet side, longer and more frequent heat waves encourage evaporation and loss of water in rivers, as we saw on the Danube and its entire basin this August.
HELL WAVE
It is no news that both the frequency and intensity of heat waves have increased drastically compared to the middle of the 20th century. The mechanism of the occurrence of such long-term heat waves, such as the one that descended on Serbia this August, is most often explained by the appearance of the so-called "heat dome". In the upper layers of the atmosphere, the so-called jet stream weakens and the high-pressure system begins to act like a "lid": the air under it is compressed and warms up further, pushes clouds and heats up undisturbed under the Sun. These phenomena are not unnatural, but their frequency and duration have increased dramatically due to climate change.
According to IPCC data, as well as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), extremely warm events that occurred once every 50 years before the industrial revolution, today occur almost five times more often. Data from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that during the 20s, cities experienced an average of two heat waves per year, while today the average is more than six heat waves per year. Additionally, the high temperature season itself was extended by more than 40 days compared to previous decades. We often hear about local heat records, and with the current heat waves, they regularly exceed 40 degrees in our part of Europe with an absolute European record of 48,8 degrees Celsius measured in Sicily in 2021. In parts of North America, North Africa and the Middle East, summer temperatures during heat waves exceed 50 degrees.
In such weather extremes, unfortunately, people suffer. It is ungrateful to talk about the number of dead, but according to extensive analyzes published in the journal "Nature Medicine" (ISGlobal) for previous years, heat waves in Europe caused more than 67.800 deaths in the summer of 2022, about 50.800 in the summer of 2023, and more than 62.700 deaths in the summer of 2024.
In addition to the direct loss of human life, economic losses are measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. In Europe, in just one year (2022), the direct material damage associated with heat waves and drought is estimated at over 40 billion euros. The heat economy suffers due to declining productivity, agricultural yields, overloading and breakdowns in power grids and, ultimately, forest fire damage.
photo: Tanjug / Ministry of DefenseBARELY STOPPED FIRE: Deliblata sandstone
SANDSTONE IN FIRE
Research from the journal "Science", which combined a climate model and the behavior of vegetation, and which was carried out by French scientists Joel Guyot, a paleoclimatologist from the European Center for Geosciences, and Wolfgang Karamer, scientific director of the Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology, shows that by the end of the century, forests will move to the north, and that the Mediterranean will slowly become a desert. The reason for this is the constant, increased evaporation with rising temperatures, drying of the soil and more frequent and intense droughts. This will inevitably be followed by more frequent fires.
And this summer, fires are raging across Europe. In Serbia, the situation is rarely dramatic. In just one day, last week, 178 fires were recorded across the country. This month, parts of the Ibarska gorge, east and west of Serbia were burning, but the most attention was caused by a rarely powerful fire that engulfed the Deliblata Sandstone.
The state media played down the seriousness of the situation for days. There was even a report about a fire in a part of the municipality of Kovin, not to mention Peščara. The MUP announced the situation with constant helicopter footage (always better), while the local crisis headquarters did not even announce themselves until the extent of the destruction of the special nature reserve became obvious to the general public. Footage of the fire, news that the Šumarak settlement had been evacuated, and then a series of conflicting news about the fight in this settlement and Dubovac to save the houses of the residents arrived day after day during August. The public was alarmed when scenes of burning pavilions in the cult children's resort Čardak appeared on the networks, where for years amateur astronomers, painters, librarians, sports and cultural societies and, of course, walkers and nature lovers gathered together with students.
photo: Amir Hamzagić / TanjugDeliblato Sandstone
Local media reported that firefighters, Vojvodina forest workers and local residents are fighting a daily battle with the fire, which has been going on for days, but also that they are without equipment, food and water. Upon this news, students across the country organized a collection of donations and a wave of solidarity swept the country. For the regime, the circumstances turned into a political problem and the question of responsibility for the extinguishing operation, but also for the maintenance of this natural asset, inevitably arose.
This is not the biggest fire in Peščara - judging by the data from the work of M. Milenković, S. Munćan and V. Babić, there were about 270 of them, the most terrible of which was the fire in 1996 when 3600 hectares were burned, and large fires occurred in 1973, 1990 and 2007. Peščara is a unique natural monument in Europe, an island of sand in the middle of loess agricultural areas with plenty of living species, from wild boar, roe deer, deer (sometimes wolf), over a huge number of bird species, to various rare, protected species. The vegetation is incredible - about two-thirds of Peščara is under forest, through which there are truly fantastic walking paths. About 900 species of plants have been listed in the reserve, many of which are relics. Peščara is artificially reforested - by the decision of the Hungarian authorities, reforestation began in 1818 and continues to this day, but fires are a constant threat. In one phase of reforestation, white and black pine were dominantly planted, and less hardwoods, which is considered inconvenient today because it favors the spread of fires.
In Peščara, all the dilemmas of life in a world with climate change meet - this case, to which the people of Pancevo and the surrounding area are emotionally attached, best shows how, knowing that danger is lurking, to defend against the elements, how to prepare and how to act. Like a notebook on squares, Peščara is criss-crossed with fire roads, medians, in order to keep fires under control, but you will constantly hear how, apart from the highway medians, the others are insufficiently maintained. For local residents in southern Banat, the popular Pesak is not just a picnic spot, but one of the key toponyms of life. You can't love Pančevo without loving Peščara, that unusual place, a desert that was reforested by man to be wild and natural, and which often catches fire and burns fiercely due to the destruction of nature and the carelessness of some people, only to be defended by other people and tirelessly reforested again. Like a human planet in miniature.
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