Floods and climate change – what will happen to us in the heatwave summer of 2025?
Heat does not only make us more susceptible to mental health issues. It also makes us more aggressive.
For example, people honk their horns more in traffic when it gets hot. Dogs bite more. Aggressive comments on social media platforms increase in hot weather. All of this has been proven by scientific studies.
People who are already mentally ill are also physically at risk in hot weather. Their mortality rate triples during heat waves.
Drought and heat will be the summer topic in 2025
Meteorologists fear a particularly hot and dry summer in 2025.
In Darmstadt, Hanover, Wolfenbüttel, the Rheinisch-Bergisch district, Cochem on the Moselle and northern Bavaria, local authorities have already called on their citizens to save water. Some municipalities have announced fines of ten thousand euros for violations. From June to September, it is prohibited to water the ground and wash cars during the day when temperatures exceed 27 degrees. It is very likely that many more municipalities will follow suit in the coming weeks.
For a long time, water and water conservation were taboo topics in this country. Germany seemed to have an abundance of water. However, the BUND has just presented a study showing that the groundwater supply in half of the 401 German districts is critical, and in 94 districts it is even dramatic. More than 60 percent of our drinking water is obtained from groundwater. The water levels of many lakes and rivers have been shrinking for years, and some are likely to dry up in the coming weeks. In the last 20 years, Germany has lost about 20 percent of its water reserves. But there have been no consequences.
According to a study by the Alfred Wegener Institute, the water in the North Sea is warmer than ever before. Back in 2014, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that between 2020 and 2030, around 250,000 additional people worldwide would die each year as a result of climate change, mainly from hunger and diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.
These statements can also be found in the position paper on ‘Klimawandel und psychische Gesundheit’ published by the DGPPN, the German Society for Psychology and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology, back in 2023. Post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders and depression are the main mental health effects of climate change mentioned in the paper.
According to the paper, skills such as attention, memory and computing power can also be impaired by air pollution and the associated climate change. Dry soils are often unable to absorb the rainwater. Most of it runs off the surface and does not reach the groundwater.
The National Water Strategy adopted by the German government two years ago contains 78 proposals: more decentralised and regional water supply, an end to land consumption, investment in new water technologies, and the organisation of sponge cities, i.e. cities built in such a way that they can absorb water when it is available and release it again when it is needed. But apparently the pressure has not been strong enough so far. That could soon change.
Climate change is affecting us all, both physically and mentally. Amid all the current crises and wars, we should not continue to neglect and ignore the long-term and greatest crisis of our century: the climate crisis.
Source
Franz Alt 2025 | Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
