The prime minister’s quest to blame exclusively the… fire cloud turns into ashes
The Prime Minister’s prescription of transferring the “staff” responsibility for the fiery destruction exclusively to the climate crisis, which had as its peak the discrediting of the scientific data that reflects the scale of the disaster, turned into ashes. Members of the scientific community gave documented answers leaving Kyriakos Mitsotakis exposed.
The prime minister, after his prolonged absence from the cadre with the falls, appeared in the Parliament to… denounce the fire cloud in the Evros and also the “big statistics and lies” of the scientific organizations. The relevant baton was indeed taken up by the former Deputy Minister of the Interior Stelios Petsas, denouncing, in a television interview, the National Observatory of Athens for “politicization”, which he “does not like at all”.
The identifications with the period of the pandemic
The most observant, even within the ND, saw a “faithful repetition” of the tactics followed by the government during the first period of the pandemic. That is, when Kyriakos Mitsotakis transformed himself into an expert and argued that there are no indications that we have a higher mortality rate in patients outside the ICU. Or when government actors attempted to circumvent the scientific community’s guidelines for dealing with Covid. The day before yesterday, in fact, the prime minister invoked the fires in Portugal, Spain and Croatia – in the context of an attempt to blur the domestic reality -, reminding that even during the pandemic period the government (mainly the then government representative Mr. Petsas) presented data that showed the highest mortality in other countries in relation to Greece.
Scientists deconstruct government
The anti-scientific approaches of Mr. Mitsotakis as well as the attempt to question the elements of the scientific community – initiated by Sofia Voultepsi and Theodoros Skylakakis – were deconstructed by the experts. The director of research of the National Observatory of Athens, Kostas Lagouvardos, said (TVXS) that “these fires do not present anything that is “out of the ordinary” in relation to other examples, they do not have anything that is strange or strange, in terms of conditions ». According to Mr. Lagouvardos, “the average of burned areas of the last 15 years, announced by the European agency for forest fires, in other countries was much smaller compared to the average in Greece, which is huge. When the relevant agency made the announcement, the percentage was at 195%.” He also underlined that “even without the fire in Evros, we would have twice as many burnt areas”.
The scientific opinion that “no fire cloud was created in Evros” was formulated by the meteorologist Theodoris Giannaros. As he explained, the fire cloud is created by the fire itself, which produces enormous heat. It heats the air and forces it to start moving very quickly upwards. “And when the atmosphere is unstable, meaning it favors these vertical movements, the rising air creates these clouds,” he added.
The first issue in the international media is the fires
The success story, presented by the Prime Minister in the Parliament and at yesterday’s cabinet meeting, has been shot down by the international media. “Greece is once again at the mercy of forest fires and this year they are worse than ever” reported a Guardian article, while the incalculable destruction in the forest of Dadia is at the forefront of the international media.
The unanswered questions after megalostomies
At the same time, Mr. Mitsotakis, against the big mouths about the readiness of the state apparatus during his visit to the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, on July 7, did not answer the following key questions:
– Why has the Law on Civil Protection been suspended for three years?
– Why does the competent Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection, established in 2021, remain without an organizational chart?
– Why are there 3,600 vacancies in organic positions in the Fire Service and 2,500 seasonal firefighters being laid off in September? Mr. Mitsotakis, at yesterday’s meeting of the Council of Ministers, limited himself to referring, after a holiday, to the additional recruitment of only 1,200 new firefighters and forest officials.
– Why do the funds of the Recovery and Resilience Fund for Civil Protection remain unused with only 0.5% absorption?
