Cities in Heat Stress

Yesterday, Red Baron attended a panel discussion in the Aula (auditorium) of Freiburg's University on Städte im Hitzestress. I regarded this as a supplement to the excursion on the city climate on October 7.

 

In fact, two of the experts who guided us on the tour were panel members. They are sitting on the left.

One of the first topics addressed by the panel was the role of trees in cities. Would AI help to optimize their future location? One could make economies by placing, let's say, 100 trees strategically instead of planting 200 trees randomly. Freiburg is in contact with many cities worldwide to learn from their experience with heat stress.

In the panel discussion, it became clear. Mitigating heat stress in cities is a complex balancing act between financial constraints, building regulations, social acceptance, legal considerations, social compatibility, and growing bureaucracy.

Marilyn Monroe once sang
We're having a heat wave,
A tropical heat wave,
The temperature's rising,
It isn't surprising,
Because of climate change, that
Makes the mercury
Jump to ninety-three.

This summer, Freiburg experienced three tropical heatwaves. The last one, on October 15 (!), although short, didn't make it to 93°F but only to 30°C. One expert on the panel told us we could expect 6 to 8 heatwaves in a year, with further temperature rises.

What wasn't addressed during the recent excursion was indoor temperatures. In the future, it will be necessary to install air conditioning in old-age homes to prevent heat-related deaths among the elderly. 

Last year was also a hot summer. Germany counted 4500 deaths due to excessive heat. This year, the total count is not yet available; the number is approximately 3,000. Compromises have to be found because air-conditioning will not conserve energy.

The discussion at the podium dragged on, so the time for the general public debate became short. Eventually, there were only four questions:

©Letzte Generation

The first was an intervention by two young people of the Last Generation, Resistance Team Freiburg. 

Found on X: This Last Generation man from Mainz was so stuck
that the police had to mill out his hand together with the road surface.

They had come in their typical orange safety vests, which they wear when glued to street surfaces, blocking car traffic. They complained about the city administration discussing the mitigation of climate change, but, in fact, doing nothing to combat it. They invited the audience to two of their upcoming meetings in Freiburg.

I tried to redirect the discussion on the placement of city trees, a topic that impressed me during the recent excursion. 

The answer was that the choice of the future siting of trees has become a lengthy procedure, considering all the multiple parameters without yet incorporating AI.

The following person who spoke was the guy I had an unpleasant memory of from the discussion following the scientific presentations after the excursion on October 7. Again, missing the topic of the evening, he harped on the uselessness of the highway tunnel below the city but drew some applause from the audience. Let's be clear. The train has left the station*, or should I instead write tunnel?

*This German idiom simply means that you are too late.

The last intervention came from a nurse working in a nursing home. She was complaining that, due to the lack of personnel, her team was permanently stressed, and that with the added heat stress, their working conditions had become unbearable.

PS1: Back home late in the evening, Red Baron read the electronic version of tomorrow's Badische Zeitung and found the following photo:

©Ingo Schneider/BZ

Members of the Last Generation had smeared the university library with paint using prepared fire extinguishers to reach high up. This protest was directed against the leadership of the universities, who failed to take their "responsibility seriously in a rapidly worsening climate crisis."

PS2: When this morning I was downtown, I saw whole families helping my friends.

Wearing their caps, "Freiburg packt an" (Freiburg lends a hand), they worked on the unsealed surfaces below the trees planted along the street. They loosened the soil for improved water absorption, planted some flowers, and then watered the entire surface.

This view saved my day.

**