The drought emergency continues to worry, especially in Northern Italy, while the whole peninsula is enveloped by a great heat wave with the arrival of the African anticyclone Charon.
And to make the picture more gloomy is the plague of fires, which is reopening in the Center, in the South and in the islands.
Environmentalists attack the government, accused of not having a strategy or, worse, of defending the very interests that are at the root of the climate crisis.
And in the absence of wide-ranging solutions, the Church is mobilizing.
The Archbishop of Milan Mario Delpini recited the rosary for rain in three locations in the "Bassa", the most agricultural area of the diocese, expressing solidarity with the farmers of the land, the cattle breeders and their families.
And also a parish priest of Chianti, Don Cristian Comini, invited the faithful to pray for rainfall.
Against drought we need a change of pace, that is to take the road of prevention, starting with the recovery of rainwater: the request comes from Massimo Gargano, general manager of Anbi (National Association of Irrigation Remediation).
"Minister Cingolani knew already from March 2022 of the water disaster that Italy would have suffered in these days. The EU had sent a scientific report to the Italian government. Why has the government not adopted those necessary measures in recent months?"
polemically asks Angelo Bonelli, co-spokesperson for Europa Verde, drawing attention to the "sieve aqueducts": 104,000 liters of water per second lost for about 9 billion liters per day.
"Cingolani and Giorgetti block the transition in the EU and ask to postpone the stop to internal combustion engines for 5 years. Will they also ask to postpone the drought and heat waves to 2040?"
instead, it is the provocative question that comes from the activists of Fridays for Future, accusing the two ministers of defending "the worst fossil interests".
If it is above all the North that is fighting against drought, fires are also alarming in the rest of the country.
A pine forest was completely destroyed
by flames in the territory of Minervino Murge, in the north of Bari, where a fire broke out yesterday afternoon that affected a total area of 150 hectares: two Canadairs were also involved in extinguishing operations.
Dozens of fires in the Palermo
area have sent hectares of Mediterranean scrub and brushwood up in smoke.
Emilia Romagna also suffers: several fires in the province of Ravenna, the two largest in wheat stubble, while the Bivignano woods burn near Arezzo.
In Lazio the flames attack a large expanse of scrub in Rome, in Ponte di Nona, near some agricultural settlements: the intervention of the firefighters has preserved 5 sheds from the flames, one of which is used as a kennel,
allowing to save 20 puppies
.
Meanwhile, the mercury column jumps up over all of Italy: 40 degrees in Taranto, 39 in Agrigento and Padua, 38 in Catanzaro and Ravenna, 37 in Bergamo, Cremona, Frosinone, Catania and Turin.
And tomorrow it will be scorching heat also in Bologna, Rome, Florence, Naples with temperatures between 37 and 39 degrees.
