The Summer the Planet Started Burning

This Is the Age of Extinction. Welcome to Its First Era, the Pyrocene

Image Credit: Michael Pappas

Suddenly, this summer, the planet seems to be on fire. We’ve had plenty of dramatic examples. Marine heatwaves, off the charts, where meteorologists say the ocean’s boiling. Coast-to-coast wildfires in Canada. Four great heat domes, stretching across our…whole planet. Yet none of these examples, perhaps, is as dramatic as what just began to happen in Greece.

On island after island — first Rhodes, then Corfu, then Evia — fires broke out. Megafires. It was the beginning of the peak of tourist season. And suddenly, tens of thousands of people were rushed to beaches. Evacuations began. Just look at the images — they’re apocalyptic. Read the descriptions.

One German tourist told the Bild daily that they were “saved from the fire at the last moment” after returning from the beach on Saturday to a deserted hotel.

“We had embers flying around our heads and no help was in sight,” said 23-year-old Paul from Bielefeld.

“I had the feeling of being on my own. It was so hot and the smoke was already so thick we couldn’t have survived another 10 minutes.”

“Footage broadcast by the Greek TV channel ERT showed a lone woman carrying her luggage through the smoke, looking disoriented. Firefighters were heard shouting at her: “Madam, your life! Come here. Leave everything behind!”

Cedric Guisset, a Belgian tourist who took shelter on Saturday, said he had to leave his hotel by foot and had nowhere to go.

“Fortunately, no one here was hurt. The situation is very saddening, not just because of the tourism aspect, but because the island has burned. The area was very beautiful, very green, with many animals. I hate to think what has happened — it is black, reduced to ash. That is so sad. It’s not about losing one or two weeks’ tourism; it’s about the impact on people’s lives.”

How big were the evacuations? “This is the biggest fire evacuation ever in Greece,” Konstantia Dimoglidou, Greek police spokeswoman, told the AFP news agency. “We had to evacuate an area of 30,000 people.”

Stop for a moment, shake off that infantile Barbenheimer frenzy, and reflect on all this for a moment. Imagine being trapped on a small island…that’s suddenly blazing with fire. Where do you go? What do you do? Imagine the embers flying through the air. The air becoming unbreathable. Picture masses of people, just as confused and panicked as you, desperate for safety. Babies in strollers, parents pleading for help. People ringing island beaches…because there’s nowhere else left to go.

This is a portrait of climate emergency.