This story is a perfect illustration of how today’s journalists will print anything they told by swindling climate scientists.
==========================================
Bremen’s Weser Kurier daily is very sure: “Climate change is damaging organs”
By Sebastian Lüning and Fritz Vahrenholt
(Translated, edited by P Gosselin)
The newspaper of the German port city of Bremen, the Weser Kurier surprised its readers on September 8 with almost unbelievable news:
Climate change is damaging organs
It sounds like a paradox, but the consequences of climate change were visible to see with the St. Andreas Church organ a few weeks ago. ‘The instrument was beset by mold and mildew“, says organ builder Martin Hillebrand from Isernhagen. For about six weeks he and his team have been working in the church to meticulously clean the organ and to fine-tune the pipes.”
We already suspected climate change for many things, but its role as a vandal of church organs is something new. So how does it cause mold and mildew to infest the organ? How does that work? The Weser Kurier tells us:
The mold infestation in the instrument is not a single occurrence – quite to the contrary. According to Hillebrand about 70 percent of the organs in so-called village churches are under attack. ‘This involves mainly churches where the people congregate for mass only every other week or less often. These churches are thus heated less and so in the wintertime they quickly become very prone to moisture,’ said the expert. Fungus attacks are also helped by warm, moist climate in the summertime. ‘Research instituites have shown that this and the relative humidity will increase in the future,’ says Hillebrand.”
So it’s not really due to climate change, but moreso people are going to church less and less? Those who do not heat have to expect mold – that’s been a well-known rule for a very long time. Warm, humid summers in Germany are also known. In summer it’s warm, and in winter it’s cold. What’s new? Only the relative humidity remains. Has it really risen over the last decades because of climate change? Here we take a look at the data from Braunschweig at the norddeutschen Klimamonitor website (Figure 1).
Oh dear, the relative humidity has actually trended downwards over the last 50 years. Climate change is not guilty! The problem actually appears to be caused by the lack of heating in churches, which promotes mold infestation. The climate-activist Weser Kurier once again regrettably has told its readers nonsense. The editors would surely welcome some letters from readers. Here is their contact page.
Figure 1: Trend of relative humidity in Braunschweig. Source: norddeutscher Klimamonitor.
There’s another reason why churches aren’t being heated: The price of heating has skyrocketed due to a misguided energy policy, and so parishes are no longer able to afford it. The result: precious property is in the process of decay.
This is just an HVAC engineering problem.
Humid air from the Sunday congregation has to be ventilated out before the temperature is lowered to the weekday setting. This will eliminate the condensation.
In northern Germany the air is laden with humidity and in the wintertime it is absolutely necessary not only to ventilate, but also to heat.
Moist air takes a lot of heat to get significantly warmer.
One is, after all, heating the water vapour which is also the part of the air that substantially makes it feel either too cold or too hot. The oxygen and nitrogen components are thermal insulation if they’re kept from moving across surfaces.
Speaking of insulation; many old half-timbered houses throughout Germany have been insulated to death in the energy-conservation mania. The building have, in part survived for more than 500 years, but a few decades of lack of ventilation in conjunction with a big, warm fire (especially in winter) and the fabric of the buildings is disintegrating..
“Bremen’s Weser Kurier daily is very sure: “Climate change is damaging organs” -”
I thought it was about human organs…
Climate change affects organs, which is completely correct. All change affects these instruments. Among serious threats for church organs are also pigeons, rats, and bats, but the most serious threat are organ makers. These use to reconstruct the instruments till only a few original pipes remain. One organ maker is more destructive than one century of climate change (to which the human contribution can be ignored).
Only today I picked up a couple of “Damp Traps” (domestic size, of course) at one of the local Pound Shops, ahead of winter. A little plastic tub with a perforated shelf halfway up, on whuch are lumps of stuff apparently based on quicklime (CaO) – but in my experience also including gel and who-knows-what. There’s a bit of “breathable” cloth over the tub to stop you handling the stuff, protected by foil before use, and a perforated top overall. They work – not surprising, with quicklime around.
Any school chemistry teacher could advise or assist a pastor plagued with an unfortunately verdant instrument – it’s very easy once you are aware of the precautions needed for (not) handling the lime, which just has to be there. (As an added bonus, if you make your quicklime from the carbonate, you can annoy the local greens by giving off CO2 as well … 🙂
Some years ago a lack of (or decrease of) incense burning in wood beamed churches was thought to allow insect damage. This was news before the internet and I did not find an article with just a quick search. I did find a short description of the practice:
http://aevasdailybling.blogspot.com/2009/06/history-of-incense-and-methods-of-use.html