Scientists warn Greece's climate could match Egypt's in 60 years

[zefs]

If asshole Greeks keep destroying the motherlands' forests it will turn into a god damn desert.

Scientists warn Greece's climate could match Egypt's in 60 years

http://www.phantis.com/news/?newsID=2008032892334

Posted: March 28, 2008 at 08:24 AM EST (13:24 PM GMT)


ATHENS -- Scientists warned on Friday that Greece's summer temperatures could end up matching Egypt's in 60 years, with average temperatures reaching above 41 degrees Celsius. According to a report published by the Greek daily Ta Nea, scientists insist climate change will continue to have a negative impact on the country, with temperatures matching Cairo's by 2070- 2100.

"We have seen an increase of temperatures during the summer by 6-7 degrees Celsius over the past few years, while the average increase in temperatures in other parts of the world have been 3-4 degrees Celsius," said scientist Dimitris Lalas.

"During the period from 1961 to 1990, 33 degrees Celcius was the average temperature in July for Athens. We foresee that for 2070 to 2100 it will be 41 degrees Celsius and landscape of Athens will be very similar to Cairo's."

Last year, Greece experienced one of the hottest summers in the past century-and-a-half, which was responsible for the deaths of 150 people.

Research has indicated that in 100 years rainfall will decrease by more than 20 per cent in the Mediterranean, while for northern Europe rainfall will increase by more than 20 per cent.

[pankration]

Last summer I visited Greece for the first time in 35 years. Splendid, beautiful, moving. But I picked up a wicked cough that lasted for weeks from the fucking soot floating out from the forest fires. Those pricks who would burn their own homeland for a thrill or a quick buck should be hung from their balls. How dare they ruin one of the most sanctified lands in the world.

[Promethean Fire]

what are you worried about zefs...let the "asshole Greeks" as you refer to them kill themselves.

[zefs]

Are you kidding me. You got a problem with my opinion. If we can't be critical of ourselves as a people or nation who can. At least if you quote me get it right: Yeah it does. The Greeks in Greece are one of the laziest group of bastards I have ever met, especially the younger generation. Government corruption and the welfare they give to the farmers while they are sitting drinking cofee all day in the kafenio, and then cry for handouts make me sick. Listen Greeks in Greece are a bunch of lazy, unpatriotic bastards. Greeks in the diaspora keep the Greek heritage and economy alive.
Looks like you kind of agreed with me.
Your response:Yeah somewhat true. I think all Greeks in general are lazy when it comes to upholding the Greek "code".

Unfortunately there is little choice considering the overwhelming push for a world order which leaves little room for significance in history and culture.

[Draco]

It seems that when we came from Africa (like the sub-Saharans we are), we also brought the climate with us.

[Orphic_Hymn]

Originally Posted by zefs

the welfare they give to the farmers while they are sitting drinking cofee all day in the kafenio, and then cry for handouts make me sick. .

Not that this scene (even though exaggerated a bit) can't be encountered.. but would you suggest that the subsidies towards our farmers stop and we start importing all types of products? and why consider an economic assistance provided by the vast majority of "western" governments as some form of handout?

I really don't get it.. while you claim to be interested in your your homeland's economic benefit you think that not being prone to pressure of trade is a flaw in the system.

[zefs]

From The TimesJuly 4, 2007


http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle2022652.ece

From subsidy drunk to subsidy comatoseCarl Mortished: European briefing
The tobacco subsidy was abolished – even the European Commission couldn’t think of an argument to pay people to grow the killer weed. With ashtrays rapidly acquiring the social status of spittoons, there was only one way to go for that annual Brussels bung to the European Union’s tobacco farmers.

Easy-peasy. Today, however, the Commission grapples with a different class of drug and an altogether bigger problem. Last year, Brussels paid €1.3 billion (£900 million) in subsidies to Europe’s wineries. In the same year the Commission made a commitment to do something about the expanding wine lake and the many euros drowned in vats of plonk distilled into industrial alcohol.

So, emboldened by its firm hand on tobacco and mindful of the watchful eye of American and New World trading partners, the Commission today will ignore whining winemakers and cut their subsidies. Producers of rotgut table wine will quit the business, their vineyards acquired by more skilled operators. Foreign investors will buy land, bringing new skills to old vines. Wine will get better, the lake will dry up and prices will improve.

Actually, no. The Commission will announce today that the subsidies will not be cut. Instead, they will be used differently. There will be one good outcome: no more money will be spent boiling wine into fuel for the family Renault. Half a billion euros is spent every year getting rid of undrinkable wine. Those payments, export subsidies and money for additives, such as sugar to fortify weak wine, will be eliminated.

The savings will be ploughed into the land, or rather the farmer’s pocket, on condition that he digs up his unproductive vines and quits winemaking. Instead of being paid to produce bad wine, he will be paid to produce . . . nothing.

This is the new Europe, in which farmers are no longer subsidy drunk but subsidy comatose. There is a tortuous logic to the single payment scheme. It is intended to prevent one evil – market distortion – such that payments are no longer propping up output, but the result is a countryside living on the dole. Farmers become direct employees of the State, as long as they do nothing. Of course, it is intended that they manage the countryside, maintain the stone walls and farm buildings that keep the environment pretty. But we urbanites know a little bit about living off the State. It is destructive, corrupting and stifles economic activity.

The new wine regime acknowledges the root of the wine problem. It wishes to encourage better labelling rules and better branding. There will be money for marketing and promotion and rural development. Someone, somewhere has noticed that Europe’s 2.4 million winemakers represent the world’s biggest cottage industry and it doesn’t work any more. In Australia, America, wine is big business. These are good intentions destined to go awry. Those masters of poisonous plonk in Provence understand: why produce good wine if you cannot sell it? Better to produce rubbish cheaply and blackmail the State into buying it. The world is full of sales genius – France has its own irrepressible wine showman, Georges Duboeuf, but he is an exception. Marketing skills are not easily acquired in a farmyard.

The rural upheaval that the Commission fears should be allowed to happen. It would force bad wineries to sell to those with marketing skills and commercial nous. It would create new brands capable of fighting back against the New World wineries. It would be a market solution – and that is why it will not happen.

[zefs]

I am very interested in the well being of my country, but we must be more self-sufficient. I am annoyed at the mentality of the Greek government and a big part of the population. Why should we pay farmers not to farm? Greece and Europe in general is shooting itself in the foot. Rather than market Greek products to Europe or the world we give the farmer the subsidies and the product , if grown, is rotting away in some apothiki.

[Orphic_Hymn]

I don't doubt it one bit.. but aren't the subsidies used exactly for that reason, self-sufficience and and by being so, not being literally a prisoner of the pressure of trade.

Maybe I didn't get what you're saying.. but how did the "lazy bastards" become unable of believing that they can work less, when just above they didn't work at all ?

On the other hand your above post is a fine example of the real problem.. next time you meet one, (Hellene farmer) ask him when he was advised to change his choice in product, when he got official notice of what was being discussed about the subsidies (even better specifically about tabacco).

While I really have no idea of what the status is, I can't help but notice that your article is dated 2007 and mentions the abolishment of tabacco subsidies yet our EU parliament members in an article dated Mar. 11th 2008 are talking about still trying to achieve the continuation of the already abolished tabacco subsidies..

[zefs]

Dude maybe sometimes I simplify things but the mentality of the Greek is changing. Things like God, family, country and a strong work ethic are becoming a thing of the past. Greeks are becoming full time welfare recipients. I see the Greeks of the diaspora and how they would rather work three jobs than recieve state help. Where is the filotimo?
My problem is maybe i am some sort of conspiracy theorist. I feel that the Europeans are geteting us fat, and lazy, taking away our means of self-sufficiency, and buying out all our land. Greece in our lifetime will be mostly owned by foreigners. Our airport and and other industries, like our oil industry for example, are owned by western european countries. They wanted us in the EU for our culture and our beaches, not our economic power. In our life time Greece will become Europe's Disney? I don't want that. I want us to take a page from the Irish.