26
votes
Greece gripped by wildfires, national park threatened along with people and towns
Link information
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- Title
- A losing battle to save the lungs of Athens as wildfires grip Greece | CNN
- Authors
- Eleni Giokos
- Published
- Aug 27 2023
The surprising bit for me was that apparently there’s a bit of an arson problem going on simultaneously? It’s unclear whether or how many of the major fires they caused, but it’s kinda depressing none the less.
sigh
Without writing a whole wall of text about it, arson in Greece does happen but not as often as the government wants to pretend it does. Specifically during the latest fires there have been a lot of rumors, encouraged and amplified by the state, regarding arsons as a way to deflect responsibility.
While climate change is absolutely exacerbating the problem, Greece has had wildfires for ages, and their catastrophic spread is in a very large part due to the incredibly ineffective state mechanism. Greece should be the best in Europe in firefighting and prevention and instead it's just terrible.
Yikes :/ I was a little worried that that might be the case, but I wasn’t sure how to research it. It seemed like “a bunch of uncoordinated arsonists deciding that this year was a good year for Evil” was a bit too scapegoat-y and conveniently tied the issue up with some arrests.
Thanks for the context :)
It's hard to research because you won't find an English source with tables on Actual Arson vs Deliberate Obfuscation or anything, even living here and speaking the language you have to shift through crap and read between the lines. Keep in mind that the propaganda, deflections and obfuscations are for the Greek audience in the first place.
This year has been particularly ugly, with people (racists) near the border rounding up immigrants claiming "citizen's arrest of arsonists" while presenting some mind-bogglingly stupid scenarios, the government using every opportunity to blame "asymmetric warfare", "agents", "evil criminals" etc. and the firefighting being disorganized and overall shit, like it has been for decades.
It sucks, I'm old enough to have seen areas burned to ashes twice, one in the 90s and then again 30years later. Every summer it's the same situation, and it's exhausting. Friends or relatives on holiday next to a wooded area? Worry about them. Friend or relative has a house next to a wooded area? Wonder if this is the year they'll lose their home. Greece is a small country and cannot afford (environmentally speaking) these yearly losses. Athens is a concrete jungle that needs all the woods it can get in its surrounding areas.
For objectivity's sake, I hate the current government but they major difference to all the previous idiots is how cynical and careless they are when playing the PR game and deflecting all responsibility.
We're unfortunately just at the start of this considering climate change is catching up. Between the Corona pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, events as these happening more frequently, the end of Moore's law, western dominance seemingly decaying and China's demographics crisis starting up, this is proving to become a very dynamic decade.
All in all an interesting time to live in. For better or worse.