Latest news with #climat
NHK
05-07-2025
- Climate
- NHK
France opens River Seine for public swimming for first time in 100 years
French authorities have opened the River Seine in Paris to public swimming for the first time in about 100 years. Swimming in the Seine had been banned since 1923 due to poor water quality. The reopening of the Seine follows efforts to clean up the river so it could be used as a venue for the triathlon and other events during last year's Paris Olympics and Paralympics. Three swimming areas along the banks were opened to the public on Saturday. More than 100 people entered the water one after another at one of the sites, which is about 70 meters long, when it opened at 8 a.m. The water temperature was above 20 degrees Celsius due to the recent spell of scorching heat in the French capital. People enjoyed swimming in the Seine amid views of the city. A Parisian in his 20s said that he was surprised by the water temperature. He said that it was great as he felt like an Olympic athlete. A woman in her 40s said it was very moving to be able to swim in the river that she sees every day. She said visibility in the water was quite good. She also said there were algae that looked lively. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo was present at the opening. She said people can swim in the river for free. She also said the initiative is a way of adapting the city to climate change.
The Guardian
02-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Europe's heatwave moves east as row erupts in France over air conditioning
The European heatwave moved east threatening record temperatures in Germany, as a political row broke out in France over air conditioning. The French far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, seized a canvassing opportunity before the 2027 presidential election, announcing she would launch a 'grand plan for air conditioning' for the nation if she won power. In parliament, Le Pen, an MP for the Pas-de-Calais in northern France, said 'air conditioning saves lives'. She said there was a problem in France if public services 'are unable to function because of a lack of air conditioning, unlike dozens of countries across the world'. Éric Ciotti, a Le Pen ally, put down a bill in parliament this week calling for 'obligatory air conditioning' for key public spaces. France has a comparatively low number of public spaces and private homes with air conditioning, compared with neighbouring countries such as Italy. In 2020, 25% of French homes had air conditioning, compared with 14% in 2016, according to the national environment agency, Ademe. The government attacked the far-right as ignorant and 'incompetent' for suggesting air conditioning was a solution to the climate crisis. The environment minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, said air-conditioned spaces in care homes for elderly people had been obligatory in France for 20 years. She said that, although vulnerable people should be protected from the heat, air conditioning 'must not be installed everywhere' because it generated a rise in temperatures outside and was 'the wrong answer'. The Green leader, Marine Tondelier, attacked Le Pen for an environmental policy limited to 'buying air-conditioning units'. Tondelier said there had to be progress made on green spaces in cities and proper insulation of buildings. Meanwhile, Europe continued to grapple with a deadly heatwave that has resulted in record temperatures and several deaths. In Spain, officers from Catalonia's regional police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra, were investigating the deaths of two farm workers whose bodies were found on Tuesday by firefighters tackling a wildfire blaze near the town of Coscó in Lleida province. The wildfire burned through 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres) of land in the north-eastern Spanish region and authorities ordered 18,000 people in the area to remain at home. The regional president, Salvador Illa, urged people to take extra care, warning them not to underestimate the speed and ferocity of wildfires. 'These fires aren't like the ones we used to have,' he said on Wednesday. 'When you find out how they evolve, you get goose bumps. There are really dangerous fires.' The two men died on the same day that a young boy died, apparently from heatstroke, after being left in a car in the Catalan province of Tarragona on Tuesday. France's energy minister reported two deaths with a direct link to the heatwave, with 300 people taken to hospital this week. A 70-year-old lorry driver was found dead inside his vehicle in northern Italy, in what may be the country's first fatality linked to the heatwave. The man was discovered shortly after 6.30am on Wednesday, parked at a motorway rest area between Sirmione and Peschiera del Garda, in the province of Brescia. Sign up to Headlines Europe A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day after newsletter promotion Elsewhere in Italy, traffic lights stopped working, people got stuck in lifts and shops closed early after power cuts in parts of the country on Tuesday afternoon, partly due to a surge in the non-stop use of air conditioning and fans putting a strain on electricity grids. The blackouts in Italy were also caused by underground electrical cables overheating, according to the energy provider Enel. In Florence, the power cut affected the city's historic centre, with the La Rinascente department store evacuated as a precautionary measure. A sign reading 'Black out, see you tomorrow morning at 10am' appeared on a shop window opposite Florence Cathedral. Homes were without electricity for hours in several neighbourhoods in Rome, Milan, Genoa and Bergamo. Italy's health ministry issued a maximum red alert for heat in 18 cities on Wednesday, meaning the heat is so intense that it poses a risk for young and healthy people too. The extreme temperatures are forecast to last at least until the weekend. The heat is also beginning to take a serious toll on the country's agriculture, scorching fruit and vegetables, straining livestock, and deepening a growing drought crisis in the south. According to Coldiretti, Italy's largest farmers' association, early signs of damage are already being reported from north to south: from blistered melons in Tuscany to milk shortages in Lombardy and water rationing in Sicily. As the heatwave rolled eastwards on Wednesday, Germany was expected to record some of its hottest temperatures of the year so far. Temperatures were expected to surge close to 40C across much of the country on Wednesday, and could break the all-time record for Germany of 41.2C, set in July 2019. Drought-like conditions led more than 40 German districts to restrict water use, including for farmers and gardeners, in addition to dozens of municipalities calling on citizens to conserve water. In Brandenburg state surrounding Berlin, two forest fires broke out on Tuesday, with high temperatures and munitions in the soil complicating the work of firefighters, who by the evening had the situation under control.
CBC
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Building a new type of cinema to fight climate collapse in Waiting for the Storms
Le Bel Écran is a monthly column about Quebec's screen culture from a local perspective. "With ecological awareness, a new economy of cinema should be born," writes Marcos Uzal in the April issue of Cahiers du cinema. Part critical examination and part manifesto, the most influential film magazine in the French-speaking world dives into the question of making environmentally conscious art amidst impending climate catastrophe. They discuss films like Todd Haynes apocalyptic Dark Waters about the poisonous forever chemicals of the Dupont company and also, the Quebec documentary, Geographies of Solitude, Jacquelyn Mills's ode to the "living archive" of Sable island and the life and activism of Zoe Lucas, a naturalist and environmentalist who lived on the remote strip of land off the coast of Nova Scotia for over 40 years. Yet, the bulk of their coverage isn't about subjects but action: amidst an ongoing climate crisis, how can filmmakers responsibly make films with minimal environmental impact? This question has been on the mind of Quebec filmmaker, François Delisle for over a decade. One of Quebec's most respected filmmakers, known for critically acclaimed films like Chorus, The Meteor and Ca$h Nexu$, Delisle's latest film Waiting for the Storms (Le temps in French) was a turning point for the director. Set in various futuristic eras, the film follows various characters across different landscapes as each grapples in their own way with the impact of climate catastrophe. With echoes of Chris Marker's pivotal post-apocalyptic film from 1962, La jetée, the film uses still rather than moving images. An anxious and desperate film, Delisle explains that the process changed how he viewed filmmaking, "from an ecological point of view, I'm unsure I'll ever be able to look back." Relying on relatable archetypes, the film vibrates with urgency, offering a pathway towards hope and change amidst disaster. In an era of irony poisoned apathy, it's a film that feels deeply sincere in its message and approach, reflecting the cautious optimism of its maker. "Every film I make, leads into the next one," Delisle says. His previous film, Ca$h Nexu$, explored social injustice and inequality. Doing research on that film led him to climate injustice, which set him on a new path. "At first," he explains, "I was in shock, an almost zombie-like state, then I started to write." Ca$h Nexu$ also motivated Delisle to make some drastic decisions: he'd no longer fly, reducing his carbon footprint. "I went to Korea for a 15 minute Q &A," he says. "It used to be that I'd take advantage of those opportunities to travel and explore new countries, but now ethically, flying that far to speak to people for 15 minutes seems wrong." The decision was borne out of his research but also the future, "I have children. I don't want to live off the backs of my children and the future generation. At first, I had a mourning period, but now it's second nature." That doesn't mean that Delisle doesn't engage with his audience. With Waiting for the Storms, he's presented various Q&As across Montreal. He describes the experience as taxing but rewarding, the discussion moving from the cinema into the streets. People, young people in particular, want to share their experiences. "After five minutes, they seem to forget the movie is mostly still images," he says. "People have questions about the future, which are difficult for me to answer, I'm just a simple citizen filmmaker with a strong point of view." Delisle isn't the only Quebec filmmaker looking towards ecology as a subject. Sylvain L'Espérance's Archeology of Light, Anne-Marie Rocher's Urban Forests and Robert Morin's Festin boréal are among a growing number of films tackling our increasingly strained relationship with the natural world. While drastically different in tone and approach, the films question through form and action, the way we live our lives. What does it mean to lose touch with the environment and how can we forge a pathway to the future? For Delisle, that question explicitly means sacrifice. He emphasizes that he isn't cynical and actually sees a hopeful path for the future, but it necessitates major changes. "We're going to have to mourn our current lifestyles and until we move past that, we can't make any changes. And we have to change. I don't think that means sacrificing our happiness. I don't think that happiness can be calculated in money or possessions, but rather, is measured in exchanges with one another and also our health." Compared to many other art forms, cinema requires a lot of resources and contributes to pollution. Delisle points to Hollywood as a huge polluter, but suggests that most filmmaking practices aren't exactly ecologically minded. Building on what he learned from Waiting on the Storm, Delisle plans to make further changes, such as abandoning the use of artificial lights. "It almost looks like a student film set, but it's up to us as filmmakers to find cinema through this process," he says. "I wonder, will cinema survive this change? How can we imagine the cinema of the future? These are questions I ask myself."
