;)
Air pollution via fire places? Frankly, my dear, Greeks don’t give a damn
Greeks got a new top issue to spend the winter with: heating oil tax and heavy air pollution. The conflict between government and citizens will remain unsolved until temperatures start to rise again by end of March. While the citizens demand the reduction of heating oil tax, the government insists on keeping it high claiming some cheap and unconvincing reasons. At the same time, those with no money keep feeding their fire places and stoves with wood through the cold winter nights.
warm Christmas you want, eh?
During the Christmas days, the stinky yellow-grey smog turned Thessaloniki, for example, into a suffocating chamber. On Christmas Day, air pollution broke a record reaching 316mgr/m3, that is double from the alarm level which is 150mgr/m3. And despite the recommendations issued by the ministries of Environment and Health.
On the same day, several ministers of the zealous Greek government left their warm homes, their family table and goodies and held an emergency meeting on the problem. The rest is… history and bad governance.
Ministers of Finance, Health and Environment excluded any option to reduce the tax in heating oil.
The government on Wednesday insisted that it will not consider reducing the tax on heating oil amid warnings that the high cost of the fuel was leading Greek households to rely on fireplaces and wood-burning stoves to stay warm, driving smog to dangerously high levels in several parts of the country.They also issued a series of emergency measures to apply during the days of high air pollution like closing schools and nurseries, turn off the heat in public buildings and other genius ideas that will leave the majority of Greek …freezing.
In a joint press conference held after an emergency meeting on Christmas Day, Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras, Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis and Environment Minister Yiannis Maniatis said that responding to demands to reduce the tax on heating oil back to 2012 levels would be playing into the hands of fuel smugglers.
They also said that they are taking steps to ensure that households receiving reduced electricity rates because of their impoverished status will receive electricity free of charge on particularly cold days when smog levels are forecast to rise.
“We recognize the problem, but reducing the price of heating oil is not the cure,” Stournaras said in the wake of multiple warnings with regard to the high levels of air pollution in Athens, Thessaloniki and other major Greek cities as a result of households burning wood to stay warm.
“Reducing the cost will boost smuggling and ultimately mean that we are subsidizing everyone, even those who use heating oil to warm their swimming pools, to cite one extreme example,” Stournaras said, adding that the government has taken steps to ensure that more impoverished households are eligible for heating oil subsidies this winter compared to last.
Air pollution on Tuesday exceeded 200 mg/m3 level in Thessaloniki and other parts of northern Greece, and in other parts of the country overshot the 150 mg/m3 level the government last week set as a the trigger level at which it would offer free electricity to poor households.
The government on Wednesday said that it will revising this level down to 100 mg/m3.
Georgiadis supported Stournaras’s position and added that 5 million people are currently eligible for heating oil subsidies, while Maniatis urged households that pay reduced electricity rates to take advantage of the measure and use heating devices that have a smaller environmental impact.
Maniatis also said that it will be up to regional governors to decide when to trigger the measure for free electricity to be provided based on smog readings. (ekathimerini)
PS The Greek government cannot convince the public how to get warm with conventional means. And frankly, my dear, this government does not give a damn!
- See more at: http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2013/12/26/air-pollution-via-fire-places-frankly-my-dear-greeks-dont-give-a-damn/#sthash.RZjr4P25.dpuf
The Fog of Austerity: This Smoke Cloud Is the Ultimate Symbol of Greece's Depression
You don't need any statistics to fully grasp the depth of Greece's economic crisis. You only need to know about the smoke.
Utility bills are now so expensive for Greek families that some have taken to burning wood to stay warm. The result is an eerie fog of smoke looming above the city. (Yannis Larios)A specter is haunting Greece. It leers over rooftops, invades lungs, and nearly glows in the night. It's smoke. Smoke from fire used to warm the homes of Greek families too poor to afford heat any other way. Cut from the mountains surrounding Athens, charred in the stoves and fireplaces of middle class homes, and blown through their chimneys, the unnatural cloud hovering over the capital city has become a bleak metaphor for one of the worst economic depressions in modern European history.
It is the smog of austerity. Greece is literally breathing in the fumes of its recession.
When the country discovered soon after the global financial crisis that it would not be able to pay back its debts, Greece threw itself at the mercy of Europe. In exchange for bailouts, the country agreed to cut its deficit from both ends. Government spending went down. And taxes went up -- on income, on property, and on utilities. Combined with the higher cost of oil, these tax hikes pushed up heating costs by more than 40 percent at the start of Greece's coldest month.
Greek unemployment is the highest in the developed world. The country's GDP faces the worst peacetime contraction of any non-communist European country since the 19th century. Even workers with jobs often have to deal with delayed payments, furloughs, and lower take-home pay due to higher taxes. So, many families have made an understandable calculus: From now on, we'll make out our own heat with wood, a match, and a fireplace.
A BREATH OF AUSTERITY
A cloud of smoke looms over Athens with the Olympic stadium (R) as seen from northern suburbs (Reuters)
Summer smog is common in Athens, when vehicle fumes collect in the hot, still air over the city. But this is the first incidence in recent memory of "winter smog" from families lighting fires to keep warm in January, when the temperature at night can drop into the low 40s.
"It is present everywhere in the wider area of Athens," said Alexia Tsaroucha, an English teacher in Athens, in an email exchange. "The problem became particularly evident this year, since the number of people using stoves has increased dramatically."
The phenomenon is reportedly worst in big cities like Athens, with more than four million inhabitants, and Thessaloniki to the North. But the "smog phenomenon," as they're calling it, has been also recorded in smaller Greek cities, as austerity has enacted its revenge on every corner of the country.
"The atmosphere has never been worse," said Marianna Filipopoulou, a social-anthropologist who has lived in Athens for four years. "It's getting more and more difficult to breathe. Even our eyes hurt because of the smog." She said the blame lies, not with families, but with their deplorable circumstances: "There is no other way given the scarcity of money."
A blogger for the site KeepTalkingGreece.com, who asked to remain anonymous, described to me the sensation of breathing in the smoke this way:
"First time, the penetrating smell hit me right in the face was late November 2012. I had just opened the balcony door in the evening when I felt thousands of unknown and invisible particles entering my nostrils and my lungs. An unpleasant smell of gasoline and something else. A pressure on my chest
...
"Since the start of the phenomenon, there have been times that I could not open the balcony door at night even to bring my own firewood inside. Worst was the smog over the city, during the holiday season, when families and friends got together to celebrate Christmas and New Year, when temperatures were low and fireplaces and stoves were working in full power. I personally had felt like I was having a stone sitting on my chest and gauze was blocking my nose."
BURN EVERYTHING
The Greek environmental ministry has warned families to not use their fireplaces as furnaces, but "families have lost workers and can barely make ends meet," said Tsaroucha, who has lived in Athens since she was born. "The increase in the price of heating oil ... and the increased amount of taxes that each household has to pay" have contributed to families' decision to heat their homes with old-fashioned fire from practically anything that will burn -- not only wood, but also lacquered furniture and old doors.
The second symbol of the economic crisis in Greece, after the smog, might be the denuded forests. Greece's environmental ministry estimates more than 13,000 tons of wood was harvested illegally in 2012. The environment ministry has reportedly seized "more than 13,000 tons of illegally cut trees" as families scramble to find something, anything, that will make a fire and heat a room.
"This new plague appears to be democratic," Greek commenter Nikos Konstandaras wrote, "but the veneer of universality is thin -- again it is the poor who suffer most: They live on lower floors, where the toxins congregate, they are forced to burn whatever they find, huddling around open fires and buckets of embers."
A worker chops firewood at a wood storage warehouse in Chalandri suburb north of Athens (Reuters)
Perhaps you've heard of the "Environmental Kuznets Curve." It's the basic theory that, although the initial burst of industrialization often degrades the environment (look at Beijing), the wealthiest societies tend to have the healthiest environments, as they develop sustainable living and cleaner, more expensive technologies (look at San Francisco).
But "Greece is regressing," said Iain Murray, vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "As it becomes poorer, its environment suffers more." Between 1961 and 1998, the concentration of particulates in London fell from an average of 160 micrograms per cubic meter to less than 20. That's what coming down the curve looks like. "The current levels in Greece are reaching 300 micrograms per cubic meter," Murray wrote. That's what going back up the curve looks like.
One Greek blogger compared the scene in Athens to a passage from Charles Dickens' Bleak House, dramatizing the fact that Greece faces a truly pre-industrial crisis in post-industrial country: "Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes -- gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun ... Fog everywhere ..."
Tsaroucha says families feel they have no choice but to harvest trees, tear wood from their walls, and throw furniture into their fires to burn it into the sky. They face the dilemma of "either saving the environment or keeping their households warm," she said.
In January, the Wall Street Journal reported a familiar scene in the woods surrounding the Greek capital. An environmentalist named Grigoris Gourdomichalis had caught an unemployed father of four illegally hacking away at a tree in the mountains. They had a confrontation. The property was government-owned, as Gourdomichalis told reporters Nektaria Stamouli and Stelios Bouras. But finally, the environmentalist relented. After the father began to cry, he let him walk back to his house to burn the wood from the tree.
You don't need any statistics to fully grasp the depth of Greece's economic crisis. You only need to know about the smoke.
Utility bills are now so expensive for Greek families that some have taken to burning wood to stay warm. The result is an eerie fog of smoke looming above the city. (Yannis Larios)A specter is haunting Greece. It leers over rooftops, invades lungs, and nearly glows in the night. It's smoke. Smoke from fire used to warm the homes of Greek families too poor to afford heat any other way. Cut from the mountains surrounding Athens, charred in the stoves and fireplaces of middle class homes, and blown through their chimneys, the unnatural cloud hovering over the capital city has become a bleak metaphor for one of the worst economic depressions in modern European history.
It is the smog of austerity. Greece is literally breathing in the fumes of its recession.
When the country discovered soon after the global financial crisis that it would not be able to pay back its debts, Greece threw itself at the mercy of Europe. In exchange for bailouts, the country agreed to cut its deficit from both ends. Government spending went down. And taxes went up -- on income, on property, and on utilities. Combined with the higher cost of oil, these tax hikes pushed up heating costs by more than 40 percent at the start of Greece's coldest month.
Greek unemployment is the highest in the developed world. The country's GDP faces the worst peacetime contraction of any non-communist European country since the 19th century. Even workers with jobs often have to deal with delayed payments, furloughs, and lower take-home pay due to higher taxes. So, many families have made an understandable calculus: From now on, we'll make out our own heat with wood, a match, and a fireplace.
A BREATH OF AUSTERITY
A cloud of smoke looms over Athens with the Olympic stadium (R) as seen from northern suburbs (Reuters)Summer smog is common in Athens, when vehicle fumes collect in the hot, still air over the city. But this is the first incidence in recent memory of "winter smog" from families lighting fires to keep warm in January, when the temperature at night can drop into the low 40s.
"It is present everywhere in the wider area of Athens," said Alexia Tsaroucha, an English teacher in Athens, in an email exchange. "The problem became particularly evident this year, since the number of people using stoves has increased dramatically."
The phenomenon is reportedly worst in big cities like Athens, with more than four million inhabitants, and Thessaloniki to the North. But the "smog phenomenon," as they're calling it, has been also recorded in smaller Greek cities, as austerity has enacted its revenge on every corner of the country.
"The atmosphere has never been worse," said Marianna Filipopoulou, a social-anthropologist who has lived in Athens for four years. "It's getting more and more difficult to breathe. Even our eyes hurt because of the smog." She said the blame lies, not with families, but with their deplorable circumstances: "There is no other way given the scarcity of money."
A blogger for the site KeepTalkingGreece.com, who asked to remain anonymous, described to me the sensation of breathing in the smoke this way:
BURN EVERYTHING"First time, the penetrating smell hit me right in the face was late November 2012. I had just opened the balcony door in the evening when I felt thousands of unknown and invisible particles entering my nostrils and my lungs. An unpleasant smell of gasoline and something else. A pressure on my chest...
"Since the start of the phenomenon, there have been times that I could not open the balcony door at night even to bring my own firewood inside. Worst was the smog over the city, during the holiday season, when families and friends got together to celebrate Christmas and New Year, when temperatures were low and fireplaces and stoves were working in full power. I personally had felt like I was having a stone sitting on my chest and gauze was blocking my nose."
The Greek environmental ministry has warned families to not use their fireplaces as furnaces, but "families have lost workers and can barely make ends meet," said Tsaroucha, who has lived in Athens since she was born. "The increase in the price of heating oil ... and the increased amount of taxes that each household has to pay" have contributed to families' decision to heat their homes with old-fashioned fire from practically anything that will burn -- not only wood, but also lacquered furniture and old doors.
The second symbol of the economic crisis in Greece, after the smog, might be the denuded forests. Greece's environmental ministry estimates more than 13,000 tons of wood was harvested illegally in 2012. The environment ministry has reportedly seized "more than 13,000 tons of illegally cut trees" as families scramble to find something, anything, that will make a fire and heat a room.
"This new plague appears to be democratic," Greek commenter Nikos Konstandaras wrote, "but the veneer of universality is thin -- again it is the poor who suffer most: They live on lower floors, where the toxins congregate, they are forced to burn whatever they find, huddling around open fires and buckets of embers."
A worker chops firewood at a wood storage warehouse in Chalandri suburb north of Athens (Reuters)Perhaps you've heard of the "Environmental Kuznets Curve." It's the basic theory that, although the initial burst of industrialization often degrades the environment (look at Beijing), the wealthiest societies tend to have the healthiest environments, as they develop sustainable living and cleaner, more expensive technologies (look at San Francisco).
But "Greece is regressing," said Iain Murray, vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. "As it becomes poorer, its environment suffers more." Between 1961 and 1998, the concentration of particulates in London fell from an average of 160 micrograms per cubic meter to less than 20. That's what coming down the curve looks like. "The current levels in Greece are reaching 300 micrograms per cubic meter," Murray wrote. That's what going back up the curve looks like.
One Greek blogger compared the scene in Athens to a passage from Charles Dickens' Bleak House, dramatizing the fact that Greece faces a truly pre-industrial crisis in post-industrial country: "Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes -- gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun ... Fog everywhere ..."
Tsaroucha says families feel they have no choice but to harvest trees, tear wood from their walls, and throw furniture into their fires to burn it into the sky. They face the dilemma of "either saving the environment or keeping their households warm," she said.
In January, the Wall Street Journal reported a familiar scene in the woods surrounding the Greek capital. An environmentalist named Grigoris Gourdomichalis had caught an unemployed father of four illegally hacking away at a tree in the mountains. They had a confrontation. The property was government-owned, as Gourdomichalis told reporters Nektaria Stamouli and Stelios Bouras. But finally, the environmentalist relented. After the father began to cry, he let him walk back to his house to burn the wood from the tree.
Monday, December 30, 2013 1:35 AM
Toxic Smoke Cloud Engulfs Greece; Six Years of Relentless Recession; Horrific Statistics
Please consider a mass of grim statistics regarding Greece, via translation from the El Pais article: Ruined Greece takes the helm of the EU in the first half of 2014.
On January 1, Greece assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union in a state close to suffocation, not only via austerity adjustments since 2010, but also literally, by a toxic cloud fueled by wood fires that replace conventional heating.
The beret dense smog that grips these days Athens or Thessaloniki is also a metaphor for the political gridlock: the government insists on not lowering the tax on heating oil to intractable limits for broad social layers, but a group of 41 deputies of the conservative New Democracy (ND), rector of the bipartite Executive, has unsuccessfully raised a parliamentary motion to reduce it. An authentic rebellion aboard the party of Prime Minister Andonis Samaras. ND and Pasok socialist now number just 152 seats in a House of 300, and the rebel MPs representing about one-third in the ranks of ND.
The mutiny of the conservatives is just the penultimate chapter of an intestine, economic, but with clear political implications, the result of six years of recession and unfathomable weariness of citizenship to the endless cuts crisis.
Horrific Statistics
- A 27.4% unemployment (nearly 52% among those under 24 years)
- 3.8 million Greeks living in poverty or social exclusion in 2012 (400,000 more than the previous year)
- 350,000 households without electricity for non-payment bills
- 30% of the population have no access to public health care
- Virtual paralysis of the universities, which since September run almost unattended by the dismissal of officials
- Three killed by asphyxiation because of home fires for warmth
- Four out of five blocks of flats facing the winter without heating due to inability to afford it
- 21 continuous quarters recession
- 34.6% of the Greek population at risk of poverty or social exclusion
Political Setup
- SYRIZA, leads most polls of likely voters ahead of ND
- Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn caress between 9% and 11% of the votes and consolidated as the third political force
- Only 33% of citizens believe possible ND victory if the election were held today
- The once mighty Pasok, houses more than a trashy expectations 5% support, compared with 44% of votes in 2009
How much longer the "New Democracy" government of Prime Minister Andonis Samaras can hang together remains to be seen.
Should Samaras lose a vote of confidence for any reason, the Greek house of debt that that cannot and will not be paid back all comes crashing down.
For those counting, Greece received 240 billion euros in aid, in a foolish attempt by the Troika to keep Greece in the eurozone. Most of the loan has been earmarked for the recapitalization of banks and the payment of interest on the debt, which now accounts for 157% of GDP.
Germany and the ECB are adamant there will not be writedowns on that debt. Both are in fantasyland.
Default, accompanied by a messy eurozone breakup awaits.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
and......
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