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Athens in Winter
By Panagiotis Grigoriou
Source: Le Monde Diplomatique
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Up in smoke — Late 2012: a group of workers, pensioners and unemployed sit in a café in central Athens discussing the vote to be held in their apartment block in a few days. Should they get the building’s tanks refilled with oil for central heating? Should the heating for the whole building, which, as usual in Greece, is centrally controlled, be switched on? These are the burning questions in Athens, where democratic decision-making is more preoccupied now with the cold weather and the price of oil (which has almost tripled since 2010) than with the national debt.
Outside in the street there is an argument, the second of the day. Christos, a new tenant on the block’s second floor, has a neighbour pinned to the wall. “You know I’m broke. If you all decide to fill the oil tanks this year, you’ll have to have to pay for it yourselves!”
Every Athenian knew it was going to be a chilly winter. Those who can still afford it are stocking up. And people are switching to wood as fuel. When the wood runs out, other things are burned. Athenians have recently discovered that the wood pellets they have bought — supposedly made from sawdust — may contain harmful compacted waste, including bio-waste from hospitals.
Athens lies under a permanent smog. Its inhabitants regret opening their windows, even for a short time: the smoke immediately gets into their apartments, coating the walls and floor. “Have you seen the smog cloud?” people ask. “It’s like our grandparents’ day.” Older people remember when schoolchildren used to carry a log to school — “heating contributions”, which had stopped in the 1970s. Children who used to sing in the streets for pocket money now do so for money to buy oil to heat their schools and keep them open.
Outside in the street there is an argument, the second of the day. Christos, a new tenant on the block’s second floor, has a neighbour pinned to the wall. “You know I’m broke. If you all decide to fill the oil tanks this year, you’ll have to have to pay for it yourselves!”
Every Athenian knew it was going to be a chilly winter. Those who can still afford it are stocking up. And people are switching to wood as fuel. When the wood runs out, other things are burned. Athenians have recently discovered that the wood pellets they have bought — supposedly made from sawdust — may contain harmful compacted waste, including bio-waste from hospitals.
Athens lies under a permanent smog. Its inhabitants regret opening their windows, even for a short time: the smoke immediately gets into their apartments, coating the walls and floor. “Have you seen the smog cloud?” people ask. “It’s like our grandparents’ day.” Older people remember when schoolchildren used to carry a log to school — “heating contributions”, which had stopped in the 1970s. Children who used to sing in the streets for pocket money now do so for money to buy oil to heat their schools and keep them open.
Full Article: http://www.zcommunications.org/athens-in-winter-by-panagiotis-grigoriou-1
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