Climate change, migrants, science: The scapegoats

Dear reader,

This is our weekly round-up from Greece. 

Greece officially holds a negative record as the wildfire in the Evros region was the largest ever recorded in the EU. In the Attica region, 33% of its forests vanished in the last few years.

Government officials attacked science to shake off responsibility for the wildfires. They directly doubted the EU Copernicus system, blamed the Athens National Observatory for propaganda, and accused it of “being political.”

After having vanished for weeks, the Greek PM reappeared to claim the economy would counterbalance environmental catastrophe and to blame the wildfires on migrants. At the same time, in Evros, local self-proclaimed ‘sheriffs’ are still ‘head-hunting.’   

“It’s total black everywhere.”

It was declared (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Tuesday as the largest wildfire ever recorded in the EU, that is, since 2000 when the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis) began recording data. The Alexandroupolis-Dadia Forest wildfire was still burning when these lines were written for the 14th consecutive day (since 19 August).

The EU’s civil protection service said (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) the fire had burned more than 810 sq km – an area bigger than New York City. Until Tuesday, that is.