Open Daily 4:00 pm –8:00 pm
On the occasion of the recent catastrophic flood in Sitia, on October 15 2022, all local people who believed the consequences foretold by climate specialist to be exaggerated, changed their minds in a matter of a few hours, experiencing the mega-flood that hit Sitia a few weeks ago. The picturesque harbour all of a sudden looked quite alien, full of debris and destroyed vehicles, while the town itself ended up terribly wounded, with a great number of buildings and shops suffering total destruction.
The first days after disaster stuck, a moving wave of solidarity rushed in, with the people of Sitia doing their best to help one another tidy up their houses, shops and the town itself. Today, almost two months after and while Sitia is still in a healing process -which for some is proving to be too difficult indeed- Stegi Vitsentzos Kornaros is attempting to look more carefully into this catastrophic event. Was it a random event or is it related to the much-talked about climate change? The frequency of the most recent floods that have been documented in Sitia speaks volumes: 1932, 1986, 2019, 2022.
Are we facing the consequences of human mistakes, poor city-planning decisions and various other arbitrary choices? Or is it that climate change has altered the norms, imposing new mechanisms and different protocols when it comes to construction works, such as repairing old infrastructures and designing new ones, taking precaution measures, making plans of action and helping the afflicted.
And, given the fact that such phenomena seem to become increasingly frequent across the world, how can the setback suffered by the global effort to cut down on the use of fossil fuel, which is to blame for climate change, as a result of the war in Ukraine, be evaluated?
And what is the point of the perilous energy antagonism between small countries, when the big, common country of us all, our planet, is endangered?
These and other aspects of the matter will be thoroughly discussed by the following notable speakers:
Stavros Arnaoutakis, Governor of the Region of Crete for the last 12 years, former Deputy Minister for Economy, former member of the European Parliament, will shed some light on the matter from a national and regional politics point of view.
Professor Efthymis Lekkas, Director of the postgraduate degree: “Environmental, Disaster and Crisis Management Strategies” (National Kapodistian University of Athens) and President of OASP (Earthquake Planning & Protection Organization), will contribute his valuable knowledge and expertise, having studied relative catastrophic events worldwide.
Yannis Polizos, Professor Emeritus of City Planning and Urban Design (National Technical University of Athens, Department of Architecture), will comment on city-planning choices already made and possible future decisions and choices.
Nikos Charalambides, Executive Director of Greenpeace in Greece, will relate disasters that strike locally with climate change and propose solutions.
The discussion will be coordinated by Polydefkis Papadopoulos, a journalist, sociologist and a friend of “Stegi”.
The discussion will be held on-line, on Wednesday December 7, 7-9 pm.
One can watch and participate through Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84052673425
