(Eastern floods; 02-02; p.4)

This choice is certainly not an arbitrary - weather men don' t play dice - but is necessarily based on available empirical data, i.e. comprehensible documentation. - A period say from the migration of peoples to the present time can therefore hardly be covered.
Even if weather or climate are not affected by the human factor, their effects may be mitigated; (preventive) remedies are possible.

 

Crisis management

Germany's head of state Johannes Rau demanded of the population in a speech on 17 August to stand together as well as to act eagerly and persistently. Politicians of all parties see a national task to be fulfilled, the current government provides financial and material aid as will any future government. Numerous people even from abroad are helping voluntarily in the areas affected by the floods. - As may be seen from outside, local, länder and federal politicians do their jobs in co-ordinating and providing aid. Some complaints that there were no adequate plans for evacuation or that civil aid organisations are under-funded cannot be justified because nobody could predict such a scale of catastrophe.

 

Necessary remedies

Politicians cannot offer an "all-inclusive package" against all the turns of Fortuna's wheel, life within the "risk-society" (translation of: "Risikogesellschaft", a phrase originally coined by the German sociologist Ulrich Beck, cf. Beck, U: Risikogesellschaft, Frankfurt at Main 1986) remains potentially dangerous. (read on here)