Wildfires have been raging across Rhodes, a popular Greek tourist island in the Mediterranean, for nearly a week, causing the evacuation of 19,000 people from their homes and resorts over the weekend. Another wildfire is spreading across the island of Corfu, forcing officials to declare emergencies. This all comes as Europe bakes in scorching temperatures as the Northern Hemisphere summer season nears a peak.
BY TYLER DURDEN
“For the next few weeks, we must be on constant alert. We are at war, we will rebuild what we lost, we will compensate those who were hurt,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told lawmakers in parliament on Monday.
Mitsotakis said, “The climate crisis is already here. It will manifest itself everywhere in the Mediterranean with greater disasters.”
The catastrophic fires in #Rhodes are clearly visible from space here, as #MTGI1 observed their resulting large smoke plumes on Saturday.
Please note: this is preliminary commissioning data. pic.twitter.com/fY9aJAiWUq— EUMETSAT (@eumetsat) July 24, 2023
Perhaps someone should remind Mitsotakis that the “climate crisis” is possibly the combination of an El Nino year and peaking Northern Hemisphere summer that tends to bring above-average temperatures.
Ioannis Artopios, a Greek fire service spokesman, stated that about 19,000 locals and tourists, many of whom are Britons — were evacuated from the islands over the weekend.
British Foreign Office Minister Andrew Mitchell said around 10,000 Britons had been evacuated from the island of Rhodes.
“The fires look terrifying in the darkness,” Paul Kalburgi, a British playwright and screenwriter, told NY Times, who was on vacation on Rhodes during the inferno.
All these people with pics and videos of people cry arsing to jet2 about the fires in Rhodes and then there’s my mate with the scousest reaction pic.twitter.com/kVYvPatDO5
— ً (@LittleBlendOne) July 24, 2023
greece rhodes island living hell in fire
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/MF1LDyutvP— Vega (@Vega12991453) July 24, 2023
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis described the evacuation effort as the largest in the country’s history caused by a wildfire.
Stop blaming the climate change!
The wildfires in Rhodes and Corfu are caused by people intentionally or unintentionally. Ask anyone in Greece.
A single cigarette on dry grass and you have fire. Helped by the wind and you have the scenes below. pic.twitter.com/q4Snw1XSXM— Tony (@TonyL_01) July 24, 2023
Fires in Greece are the worst in two decades.
Greece is one of many countries with high fire risk.
Our #EFFIS🔥 Fire Danger Forecast for 24 July
🟤Very Extreme Danger in:
➡The #Madrid, #CastillaLaMancha & #Andalucía regions, in #Spain🇪🇸
➡️#Sardegna & #Sicilia islands and in other areas of Central & Southern #Italy🇮🇹
➡️Southern #Greece🇬🇷
➡️#Cyprus🇨🇾https://t.co/2PjdHyXOpI pic.twitter.com/aJB0NpnytI— Copernicus EMS (@CopernicusEMS) July 24, 2023
Some have said the fires were possibly started by “arsonists.”
This fire was caused by arsonists. LOL And the temps in Greece are fairly normal for summer. They might be slightly higher due to El Nino which happens every few years. Stop falling for climate hoaxes they are an excuse to tax the Middle Class and transfer wealth. pic.twitter.com/3gMbPVgHEW
— JustAnother Person (@SymbioticEgo) July 24, 2023
I called @KMitsotakis to express our full support for Greece, which is confronted with devastating forest fires and a heavy heat wave due to climate change.
Greece is handling this difficult situation with professionalism, putting emphasis on safely evacuating thousands of… https://t.co/WhQ3udTlX6
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) July 23, 2023
Arson seems to be quite common in Greece
2007 – arsonist suspected in Fire attacks, Greece
2018 – Greek fires: Arson suspected in deadly Mati
2021 – 14 year old arrested for setting 9 wildfires in Greece
2022 – 9 arrested for Greek fires
2023 – Greek Firefighters say Arson
— Gregory Simon (@5thavenueartist) July 23, 2023
LISTEN plank… the Rhodes fire were arson.
I am Italian and this was normal in Italy they set fires so they got planning permission to build, then Italy changed the law.
For this reason Italy has the largest air force to fight fires. How fires have caused by cigarettes and BBQ pic.twitter.com/P4DuzpFcei— Walker Henry Smith (@WalkerHenrySmi1) July 24, 2023
And if we look at Bloomberg weather data, average temperatures in Athens are somewhat in line with a 30-year trend this year despite the surge in July.
The corporate press has conveniently blamed the hot weather on ‘climate change’ while lecturing plebs on how they need to reduce their carbon emissions but omit reporting on billionaires flying around on private jets and sailing on mega yachts. Maybe climate change warriors who continue to sound the alarm about the world’s imminent demise should realize it’s just summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and El Nino shifts jets streams that warm the planet.
Author
