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Venice Mayor Justifies High Prices for Tourists!

Masked revellers pose in front of gondolas in Venice Stefano Rellandini/Reuters
Masked revellers pose in front of gondolas in Venice Stefano Rellandini/Reuters
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Venice Mayor Justifies High Prices for Tourists!

Masked revellers pose in front of gondolas in Venice Stefano Rellandini/Reuters
Masked revellers pose in front of gondolas in Venice Stefano Rellandini/Reuters

"Welcome tourists, but of course they have to spend," said the Mayor of Venice, in response to visitor complaints about the city's restaurants, which are exploiting their ignorance of Italian language and forcing them to pay huge sums.

The complaint started with a British tourist who paid 526 euros for a lunch he had with his parents in a restaurant near St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco). He sent a letter of complaint to the mayor, however, it returned to him.

For their part, a Japanese couple complained from being forced to pay 120 euros for two crab pasta plates, and when they objected, the waiter told them that the price in the restaurant is determined by the weight of the dish. When the waiter got help from an Italian customer who speaks English, the bill was reduced by 40 percent.

Commenting on objections, the Mayor praised the waiters’ release of invoices, claiming that this highlights the commitment to the law in Venice. He saw that it is normal for tourists to pay for what they eat and to leave tips for the waiters who serve them. The Mayor added: "I am surprised by those who order and eat, and then complain because they don’t speak Italian when the check comes. Why don’t they learn some Italian words? It will not harm them."

On Twitter, the Mayor said: “Who will complain? At the airport in Vienna, I paid a full 11 euros for 4 espresso cups, with two sips each."

In another context, the mayor blamed tourists for not preserving the city’s beauty, referring to a video that was recently published featuring a group of tourists, all of them carrying their mobile phones, looking at screens, and ignoring the beautiful scenery, and the information provided by the guide who accompanied them while they were traveling in Venice. There were also videos of drunk tourists urinating in the water canals, and throwing dirt while shouting.

For its part, a group of the city’s residents and fans rush to express their discontent of the mayor’s response that does not represent them, accusing him of "selling Venice for a rifle", referring to a previous statement in which he threatened to shoot anyone running in the square of San Marco shouting "Allah Akbar".

He said: "I have already said that we will do so in 4 steps, Now 3 steps away."

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Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
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Climate Change Causing More Change in Rainfall, Fiercer Typhoons, Scientists Say 

People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)
People and vehicles wade through the water along a street that was flooded by Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

Climate change is driving changes in rainfall patterns across the world, scientists said in a paper published on Friday, which could also be intensifying typhoons and other tropical storms.

Taiwan, the Philippines and then China were lashed by the year's most powerful typhoon this week, with schools, businesses and financial markets shut as wind speeds surged up to 227 kph (141 mph). On China's eastern coast, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated ahead of landfall on Thursday.

Stronger tropical storms are part of a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures, scientists say.

Researchers led by Zhang Wenxia at the China Academy of Sciences studied historical meteorological data and found about 75% of the world's land area had seen a rise in "precipitation variability" or wider swings between wet and dry weather.

Warming temperatures have enhanced the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture, which is causing wider fluctuations in rainfall, the researchers said in a paper published by the Science journal.

"(Variability) has increased in most places, including Australia, which means rainier rain periods and drier dry periods," said Steven Sherwood, a scientist at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales, who was not involved in the study.

"This is going to increase as global warming continues, enhancing the chances of droughts and/or floods."

FEWER, BUT MORE INTENSE, STORMS

Scientists believe that climate change is also reshaping the behavior of tropical storms, including typhoons, making them less frequent but more powerful.

"I believe higher water vapor in the atmosphere is the ultimate cause of all of these tendencies toward more extreme hydrologic phenomena," Sherwood told Reuters.

Typhoon Gaemi, which first made landfall in Taiwan on Wednesday, was the strongest to hit the island in eight years.

While it is difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, models predict that global warming makes typhoons stronger, said Sachie Kanada, a researcher at Japan's Nagoya University.

"In general, warmer sea surface temperature is a favorable condition for tropical cyclone development," she said.

In its "blue paper" on climate change published this month, China said the number of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea had declined significantly since the 1990s, but they were getting stronger.

Taiwan also said in its climate change report published in May that climate change was likely to reduce the overall number of typhoons in the region while making each one more intense.

The decrease in the number of typhoons is due to the uneven pattern of ocean warming, with temperatures rising faster in the western Pacific than the east, said Feng Xiangbo, a tropical cyclone research scientist at the University of Reading.

Water vapor capacity in the lower atmosphere is expected to rise by 7% for each 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures, with tropical cyclone rainfall in the United States surging by as much as 40% for each single degree rise, he said.