In the midst of Greece’s devastating wildfires, it’s government and every screeching alarmist in the world tried to blame the fires on Climate Change, it’s become clear that human agency that’s the root cause of most of these fires.
Greek Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, Vassilis Kikilias, informs us that, “During this time 667 fires erupted, that is more than 60 fires a day, almost all over the country. Unfortunately, the majority were ignited by human hand, either by criminal negligence or intent.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/28/greece-fires-arsonists-extreme-weather
While governments, media, “climate scientists”, activists, (but I repeat myself) leapt to blame climate change, the fact that fires have been breaking out at numerous points in close proximity simultaneously strongly suggested deliberate human intent, not the actions of Mother Nature in the throes of a heatwave.
Yet, the climate change narrative persists. Kikilias continues,
“The difference with other years were the weather conditions. Climate change, which yielded a historic and unprecedented heatwave, is here. There were very few days where the extreme weather was not combined with strong winds.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/28/greece-fires-arsonists-extreme-weather
Sure, we can acknowledge that weather conditions play a role in the spread of fires. But let’s not lose focus: these fires were started by humans. They weren’t sparked into existence by hot temperatures alone.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, seizes the moment to call for swift action to cut planet-heating emissions, stating:
“Humanity has unleashed destruction”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/28/greece-fires-arsonists-extreme-weather
Yet, it seems in this case, the ‘destruction’ is far more localized: it’s not the whole of humanity at fault, but specific individuals.
On the climate crisis bandwagon, Prof Christos Zerefos, Greece’s leading expert on atmospheric physics, warns that the situation will worsen annually due to climate change. He predicts that Greece could end up with a €700bn (£600bn) bill over the next 30 years due to the climate crisis.
Blaming climate change for every calamity removes the onus of personal responsibility. Climate change did not light these fires; people did. Governments, NGO’s, the UN, and activists are now hiding behind the arson and weather to deflect attention from their actions inducing inflation, spiraling energy prices, and poverty around the world.
We need to address immediate human factors causing damage. As we grapple with the complexities of the world, let’s remember to keep our eye on the human element that can both cause and prevent such disasters.
After all, the most effective solutions often start with individual responsibility. As the saying goes, ‘Think globally, act locally’. Perhaps it’s high time we took that advice to heart, and dealt with the flames in our own backyards before attributing them to a global inferno.
HT/Jerry P, Richard R
“Sure, we can acknowledge that weather conditions play a role in the spread of fires.”
Well, an essential role We’ve heard this story over an over. Very hot weather, then destructive fires. Those who want to divert attention from this link discover arsonists. But what were the arsonists doing when the weather wasn’t hot?
To quote a bit more of what Mr Kikilias said
“Kikilias said that, in certain places, blazes had broken out at numerous points in close proximity at the same time, suggesting the involvement of arsonists intent on spreading fires further.
He added: “The difference with other years were the weather conditions. Climate change, which yielded a historic and unprecedented heatwave, is here. There were very few days where the extreme weather was not combined with strong winds.”
Planning their moves for when the weather turns hot again, Nick?
(as it has always inevitably done, and will always do)
Nick show me the data from Greece on wildfires and land burned. In Canada, they promoted climate change as what was behind the wildfires in Quebec and Alberta in May and June, but when you look at the data from their official agency, there is a declining trend for both over the last three decades in the country.
And despite your little victory with the Jerzu station earlier, the fact remains the same that most weather stations that are measuring the world’s ‘heat waves’ are hopelessly corrupted and are unfit for that purpose.
Here is the global data about wildfires and burnt areas: https://gwis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/apps/gwis.statistics/seasonaltrend
And it shows that the burnt area in Europe this year is close to the lowest level compared to the 10yr average. The cumulative number of fires is even on a 10yr-record low. Even if just selected Greece it shows that the burnt area and number of fires is not unusual, it just started app. 2 weeks earlier than usual.
While for Canada it was really an unusual (at least compared to 10yrs average) intense fire season.
He was wrong about Jerzu in what he chose to notice about it. The observations cited show one day with hugely higher max temperature than any of the other days before or after it. This was a max reading. It could have only been for a couple of minutes. Anything could have caused it, including local human action. We will never know what did, but it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Any more than we will ever know what caused the lows in the same series.
It was also not, even if its a valid temperature, anything remarkable, it was only fractionally higher than previous European high readings.
Claims that this max temp reading has some continental or global significance, or are an indicator of anything other than an event of some sort at this site, are either idiotic or dishonest.
“Claims that this max temp reading has some continental or global significance”
What claims are you talking about? Who made them, and what did they say?
I agree that it has no significant meaning. And I’m assuming the dirt field in the back is regularly maintained, so that could also have played a role. But in all fairness, Nick was right that the road couldn’t have played any role given that it met the standards set by the WMO. There also was no overgrown bush, the station was inside the fenced area. Paul didn’t do his homework very well, and that was a poor analysis as a result.
Same thing here in Canada, they made arrests in Alberta, and in Québec they say: “And several social media posts have gone viral with satellite video showing nearly a dozen Quebec wildfires erupting on June 1 at virtually the same time, with the implication that it is evidence of human coordination.”
https://nationalpost.com/news/are-eco-terrorists-causing-all-the-fires
“But what were the arsonists doing when the weather wasn’t hot?”
Waiting for the right hot, windy conditions, of course.
Are you really as naive as you are making out, or is it just an act ?
If Nick thinks it was not the arsonists then he needs to say explicitly what he thinks the cause was. Was it the warm air?
Notice that its the Greek government, people who are actually there on the ground, who are saying its arson. They might have a better idea than an ideologue in an ivory tower thousands of miles away in Australia.
“Notice that its the Greek government, people who are actually there on the ground, who are saying its arson”
What Kikilias said was that there were 667 fire outbreaks, and the majority were caused by humans, either by negligence or arson. But in normal weather those would have caused modest damage. In these hot and windy conditions, just 66 outbreaks would be enough to cause major damage. Fires spread. The outcome is determined by the weather, not the ignition source. We are very familiar with this in Australia.
As to ideologues, politicians are not immune to this failing. The New Democracy Party has governed as a right wing party, of the kind that rather easily turns to blaming “arsonists” and other diversions.
“If Nick thinks it was not the arsonists then he needs to say explicitly what he thinks the cause was. Was it the warm air?”
You didn’t answer michel’s question, Nick.
Was it the warm air that caused the fires?
“The outcome is determined by the weather, not the ignition source. “
If there isn’t an ignition source.. there won’t be a fire.
And it is not just the weather, it is the fuel load.
What is unusual about hot and windy weather, Nick…?
Pretty regular occurrence in summer in many places of the world.
The UK i newspaper in a report on 25th July quoted Prof Stefan Doerr, Director of the Centre for Wildfire Research at Swansea University as saying
“insufficient management of vegetation” had led to “more flammable landscapes” on Greek islands
It’s an act
It’s how they are trained.
High WInds drive Greece fires. Weather. 😉
The hottest fire I’ve seen was a downtown building in mid-winter when the temperature was -15°F. The fire crews used large pipe wrenches to clamp the nozzles to parking meter posts so they could go inside and warm up.
After the fire was out the street had 18 inches of ice that had to be removed with plows and loaders.
[Watched all this through the window of a pub in Iowa City, Iowa.]
Before global warming was a thing.
“A huge fire raged on the
slopes ol Mount Vesuvius while other blazes destroyed hundreds of acres of woods in Sicily. Arsonists are blamed for more than half of the 10,000 fires that have burned during the last two months of hot, dry weather across the Italian peninsula, Sicily and the isle of Capri.
In Greece, large forest fires raged out of control in several parts of the country, including the slopes of Mount Olympus. Low clouds prevented Greek Air Force planes from dumping water on the mountain, the fabled home of ancient Greek gods.
A massive blaze around Spain’s Los Alcomocales nature reserve threatened an oil pipeline and blackened 2,500 acres of one of the world’s largest cork-oak forests.” 1993. From Canberra Times that was finding somewhere on the globe with a climate crisis every week, thirty years ago in a column called Earthweek: A Diary if the Planet, for a few years thirty years ago.
They always come out when the opportunity knocks. If you use a heat wave index, it’s usually designed around the assumption that 0.1°C is the difference between balmy weather and a heatwave.
Lastly, Trove has Australian papers reporting on Greek forest fires back to 1846. One in 1916 almost killed the Royal family. More reports of fires recently are due to more reporting, as well as a much bigger population of fire bugs
Until 70-80 years ago most Mediterranean countries relied heavily on sheep and goat herds, as those animals were most resistant to the harsh Mediterranean weather. Those big herds controlled the forest especially near populated areas. No one in those days would be follies enough to live near or inside a pine forest.
You haven’t provided, and I haven’t seen anyone else provide, any quantified explanation linking either the European heat wave or the Greek fires to global warming.
Its not clear that this heatwave is at all exceptional. Its a rare but not unprecedented event, and its immediate cause is the configuration of weather systems and the Jet Stream. Neither of which are caused by global warming.
The amount of global warming there has been is in any case very small, far too small to have any plausible causal connexion either to the heatwave or the fires.
The fires themselves are mostly due to human activity, either arson or carelessness. They are aggravated by poor or non existent forest management which leads to a buildup of tinder. Poor forest management is usually the result of misguided environmentalist activism. As in California or Australia.
This has been an unusually hot early summer, but Europe and the UK have always had occasional exceptionally hot periods of a few weeks in some summers. They also have occasional cooler summer periods lasting a few weeks. Winters vary a lot in their severity also.
People need to accept what everyone knew before the recent wave of climate and weather hysteria, namely that Europe and the UK have very variable weather, they have some seasons that are very hot, some very wet, some very cold, some very dry. There is a perpetual reservoir of hot summer air in the Sahara, and the right Jet Stream and weather configurations bring it north. There is also a perpetual reservoir of cold air in the Arctic, and the right configurations bring in south. Then you have weather systems blowing in all the time from the Atlantic.
There’s nothing going on here of any significance. Its just been a hot summer. Like last year in the UK, which was also a hot summer. In the Guardian and on the BBC and coming from the Met Office in the UK there was all this hysteria about the supposed dangers of the heat. And on the beaches and in the parks you had the usual crowds of people enjoying themselves.
This year in June the hysterical warnings were about temperatures in the 80s Fahrenheit. Its really ridiculous.
By the way, I cited the other day John Butterworth, chief executive of National Gas in the UK, talking about the decarbonization of the UK grid:
“If we hadn’t had gas in 2022, there were 260 days when we would have had rolling blackouts, and for 26 of those days we would have had a full blackout.”
And they are heading towards this, with Labour saying they will get to full Net Zero in generation by 2030. Urged on by Guardian and BBC on the grounds that it will ‘tackle the climate crisis’. When there is no crisis, and even if there were, this would have no effect on it.
Exactly.
Labour, as you know Michel, are living in cloud cuckoo land in relation to full electricity generation in the UK from unreliables by 2030. As Prof Helm at Oxford says
“Supply chains do not exist yet to do all this fast track investment” and “Even £28bn is nowhere near enough to get to the desired end point”
Plus National Grid is already saying that unreliables already in the pipeline will have to wait 10-15 years to get connected.
Labour, and especially Miliband, are delusional.
https://dieterhelm.co.uk/energy-climate/labours-28-billion/
Nick Stokes
I can assure you that you can start a fire on Scottish Heather moorland all year round on days when it isn’t raining heavily.
It’s done every spring in strips to encourage regrowth for Grouse to feed on the new shoots a few years later.
It takes place in spring before birds start nesting. The biggest problem is the wind, a strong wind will often lead to a fire getting out of control if not carefully monitored.
Summer fires are much more damaging because they are well established before action is taken. They are usually started by careless tourists.
I can’t see why wildfires anywhere in the world would be any different, possible to start all year round and at their worst in strong winds, more likely to start when there are a lot of people about, that is summer.
Claiming Climate Armageddon is the answer of someone with a closed mind.
In Australia, despite claims here to the contrary, we have a prescribed burning program. But it’s timing is limited. Late Autumn or early Spring, in Victoria. In Winter, the fires won’t spread, and anywhere near Summer they spread too well.
“we have a prescribed burning program.”
I’m sure you are well aware that the green/leftist councils have made it basically impossible to do prescribed burns in many parts of the country…
Certificates deliberately take ages to process, meaning that fire brigades can’t take advantage of the conditions when they are suitable.
Yes, A Tasmanian farmer applied to do a prescribed burn on his property but was refused because of an endangered swift parrot habitat.
in the following summer his farm and the habitat was wiped out in the Dunalley wild fire.
It depends on where you are, and the year. In most of NSW in most years, April – June are best. August is usually too windy, September is probably alright, and October is often starting to get warm and dry.
We haven’t had any hazard reduction burns around here yet this year.
It’s also important to maintain fire breaks.
Once again Nick I ask the same question: where is the data to back up the claim that climate change is playing a role in more destructive fires?
Sydney has had severe bush fires in Winter, and before you could blame global warming. If the bush dries, it will burn at 0°C. A fire is less likely to start, but there was on case, 70 years ago, were the fire of homeless people caused a large fire in the blue mountains, in July, I think.
Wind, a fuel load not completely dry, and forecast rain are more important than the temperature.
“Very hot weather, then destructive fires.”
It’s been a lot hotter in my neck of the woods this summer than it has been in Greece.
No outbreak of fires here. That means the extreme heat didn’t cause anything to spontaneously combust around here, and it didn’t happen in Greece, either, despite your implication.
“There were very few days where the extreme weather was not combined with strong winds.”
I have looked at pressure charts over this area since 17th July and these would not have caused strong winds. The isobars all of the time were not close together and would indicate light winds.(It would have been breezy on about 3 days maybe gusting 15-25mph)
Large fires themselves cause convection backdrafts and strong winds.
“Those who want to divert attention from this link discover arsonists. But what were the arsonists doing when the weather wasn’t hot?”
Hot weather never causes fires on its own as it requires dry lightning. There were no reports of lightning over Greece during the fires. If humans were not living in Greece at all they would had been NO fires.
Wood must be raised to a temperature of about 250 °C (about 480 °F) for a spark or flame to ignite it, but at a temperature of about 500 °C (about 930 °F) ignition is spontaneous.
Many areas around the world have hot, dry conditions at some times during Summer and fires don’t occur in most areas because there are not humans deliberately lighting them or being careless.
“But what were the arsonists doing when the weather wasn’t hot?” It’s a damn sight harder to light a fire when it’s chucking it down with rain, the brush is soaked or there’s a couple of inches of snow on the ground. Warm weather does seem to bring out the muppets with matches – perhaps they get an ego boost from seeing their handiwork on the news – the bigger, the better.
What temperature is required for wood, brush or grass to ignite? It’s isn’t 40C or 50C or 60C. The temperature will need to be 350C or higher. Matches burn at 600C to 800C, Magnifying glasses at 450C and lightning 50,000C. When the land is dry with a wind trees, shrubs etc. will burn easily and it will do this at any temperature. It seems that environmental activists actually believe that wild fires will start if the weather gets really hot. Look at the numbers above and the massive difference between air temperatures and that of ignition sources.
Nick, “But what were the arsonists doing when the weather wasn’t hot?”
They’re waiting for it to get hot. They aren’t stupid. What’s the point of starting a wild fire on a rainy day?
“Humanity has unleashed destruction”.
NOT humanity. It’s the SOBs who lit the fires. Are they ‘climate activists’ trying to prove a point? Or are they on someone’s payroll?
It is land control. 100 years ago there would have been large goat and sheep herds all over the country controlling the tree population especially the White Pine (Pinus halepensis) which burns like hell when it is dry windy and warm. It is the strategy of this pine because it is the first tree to return after a blast and a fast grower and so takes over the land .I challenge all of you to find 100 years old pictures where you can see this tree as large forest in populated areas. Sheep and goat herds need open landscape not forest.
Yep. The Grauniad, believe it or not, ran an article on 28th July about ‘Wild Horses. How feral horses could reduce fires in California’
William Simpson moved to a remote region near the Oregon-California border in 2014 which had 120 wild horses roaming the land.
“I started watching the horses.They were managing the fuel……….We’ve lost our herbivory so now we have abundant abnormally high levels of vegetative materials – that is what is driving the fires”
He has co-opted a further 60 wild horses.
I read somewhere that having to get permits to cut trees leads to some people using fire to kill them off.
I once had a few beers with a forensic psychologist whose specialty was serial arsonists cases.
She told me that salivating media weather forecasts of heatwaves & bushfires warnings were like erotic stimulation for latent arsonists, an enticement for them to get out and live out their warped fantasies.
Reality is a b1tch, ain’t it?
I can believe that. The arsonist might even think he is helping “the Cause” by indulging in his obsession.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/radical-environmentalist-pleads-guilty-arson-western-fires-flna8c11374180
The UN is in need of more funds again :
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/06/1137972
This seems to coincide with the increase in climate alarmism now and every other year.
The main facet that is human caused is the “no clearing” idiotolgy, whereby masses of dense undergrowth are allowed to build up.
I read that this was very much the case in the fires in Greece, massively exacerbating the arson caused fires.
Just like in Australia, the greenie agenda is a prime cause for the ferocity of the fires.
Certainly that way in recent California catastrophic fires. No clearance around power lines (allowing the fires to start), no cleared fire lanes along utility easements, deliberate road narrowing to reduce traffic speeds, little enforcement of cleared zones around structures. It’s like they took Smokey the Bear’s fire prevention handbook from 1950 and inverted it.
A Köppen (Cs) dry summer climate is known to have vegetation with waxy leaves adapted to the hot dry periods. See “sclerophyll vegetation.” These burn well.
Starting to get a bit concerned about the bush near my place.
Lots of dry brown grass, eucalypt and wattle saplings and scruffy undergrowth.
Only requires a “normal” Aussie summer, and it could be a problem !
CO2 does help the schist grow. Relentless it is. Get after it.
Nah, schist is a rock! 😉
I don’t think CO2 has any effect on it. 🙂
ps, I do know what you mean, though.
See? It’s all CO2’s fault, it made the trees grow bigger, faster, so more fire fuel. It’s CO2’s fault, for sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinus_halepensis
Burns like hell. !00 years ago sheep and goats and controlled winter burns would have controlled this. Where there are big herds there is no forest.
Dense undergrowth and the kind of tree the White Pine (Pinus halepensis) which burns like hell when it is dry windy and warm.100 years ago there would have been large goat and sheep herds all over the country controlling the tree population. No one in those days would be follies enough to live near or inside a pine forest.
Ok, maybe it was arson. But, the arsonists were driven mad by climate change.
A ‘Stop Oil’ puppet.
This goes to the core of why politicians love blaming ‘climate change’ for as much as possible.
If we attribute problems to humans actively causing them (i.e. setting fires), then the uncomfortable questions inevitably come back “Why didn’t you do anything to stop this from happening? Law/Policing? What are you going to legislate/execute going forward to prevent this in the future?”
Same thing with floods and hurricanes. As a politician, don’t mention what you are doing to help/save people or what you are going to do to mitigate the damage in the future.
Blame “Climate Change”, instead. And we can’t do anything about “Climate Change” because it was caused by the sins of past politicians, Big Oil, and China/India going forward.
All they can offer is Thoughts & Prayers, along with lamentations about how terrible “Climate Change” is.
No no they are making more prohibiting laws now. No more Barbecues No more cars No more waking in the forest Forbid you to leave the city etc etc. They do a lot to make your life safe.
“criminal negligence“
I’m wondering what this means. I don’t see how an arsonist could claim negligence. Maybe incompetence if they try to start a fire and fail.
Anyway, a roaring fire makes its own weather and will send burning embers 1/2 mile (800 m.). An original single ignition might start 97 other fires.
Maybe they should follow Nick’s idea and only light them when it’s cold and raining!
Having a barbecue in warm weather next to dry brush or long grass, then being careless with it might be just enough for criminal negligence, given property damage or worse.
There is more logic to blame those who scream “climate change” than drive an SUV. The motivation of an arsonist might be a little more complex than simple activism, but bad people tend to find ways to justify bad behaviour to themselves, and bringing attention to climate change fits the bill perfectly.
“and bringing attention to climate change fits the bill perfectly”
You might be on to something. The arsonist will tell himself, “setting this fire is a *good* thing”.
The difference these days is that the alarmist media allows arsonists to perfectly prepare and then execute, in what appears to be coordinated action, their deeds; with ample warning of incoming hot weather and reporting of maximum wildfire risk conditions.
The last decade or so has also assembled a vastly increased pool of diversely motivated arsonists. Added to the criminal land development cartels and feuding neighbours you have eco-loons, ISIS and other resentful immigrants, and now potential Russian agents, all people wishing to destroy and sow chaos. The pyro-terrorism link may not be concrete yet, but slowly studies and wildfire investigations are going that route.
Whatever, if you want to reduce wildfires, clearly there are avenues to pursue with far more likelihood of success than trying to control the weather.
I saw a father playing with his baby child. Lifting the infant hogh and lowering it. Had no issue with that.
Saw Michael Jackson doing the same over the balcony of a high-rise tower block. That was reckless.
The difference wasn’t the actions of the father but the conditions the actions took place in.
There’s no point blaming people for dropping a ciggy or not dousing their BBQ well enough for the wildfires. That happens all the time.
It’s the circumstances that are different now.
Let’s be realistic about this an not just try to make partisan excuses for every bad thing that happens.
Sometimes the weather is bad.
In the case of Greece and the islands we are talking close to 100% deliberate arson.
In Italy authorities have varied estimating 60 to 80%.
Yep, some people are sure discarding a lot of cigarettes carelessly.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-66343164
My niece has just returned from 2 weeks in Rhodes (Fri 28th July) and was there when the fires started, although not in the same area. To the best of her knowledge there hadn’t been any storms or lightning strikes anywhere on the island, so your estimation of close to 100% is probably correct. We can only hope the culprits are found, they have manslaughter charges to face at the very least.
There were very few days where the extreme weather was not combined with strong winds.”
Etesian (meltemi) winds. Most frequent in July and August.
Meltemi Winds of Greece: Greece’s Windy Summers – Greece Travel Ideas
Worse because of global boiling? I’ll need to see some data, Minister Kikillias.
It is land control. 100 years ago there would have been large goat and sheep herds all over the country controlling the tree population especially the White Pine (Pinus halepensis) which burns like hell when it is dry windy and warm. It is the strategy of this pine because it is the first tree to return after a blast and a fast grower and so takes over the land .I challenge all of you to find 100 years old pictures where you can see this tree as large forest in populated areas. Sheep and goat herds need open landscape not forest.
The first task of every new settlement in the past would have been the burning down of the surrounding forest to create space for their herds to pasture.
No that would have been the 2nd task.
As with all human endeavours, the first task is to agree about what / who will be blamed for things that go wrong.
From the article: “On the climate crisis bandwagon, Prof Christos Zerefos, Greece’s leading expert on atmospheric physics, warns that the situation will worsen annually due to climate change. He predicts that Greece could end up with a €700bn (£600bn) bill over the next 30 years due to the climate crisis.”
Based on nothing but pure speculation about the effect of CO2 on the Earth’s atmosphere.
These alarmists are so sure of themselves. They shouldn’t be. They have no evidence CO2 is doing anything discernable to Earth’s weather or climate.
I’ll repeat my comment from earlier in this discussion: See? It’s all CO2’s fault, it made the trees grow bigger, faster, so more fire fuel. It’s CO2’s fault, for sure.
Nick does not understand fire that well, hot weather cannot start a fire, the temperature required for autoignition is well above 200C. In most instances a flame is required for ignition, that flame can come from man or from nature, i.e. lightning. So, if there was no lightning on the day the probable cause of a fire is man.as nature provides few sources of flame.
Hot weather may provide dry fuel but without ignition there is no fire.
How lucky the Alarmists are to have some arsonists on their side. Bet they won’t even condemn them let alone admit where the blame truly lies. Pathetic.