A report by the E.U.
Copernicus Climate-Change Service in 2024 contains the finding that “Europe is
the continent with the fastest-rising temperatures on Earth, having warmed
twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s.”[1]
In spite of “fastest-rising” and “twice as fast” are alarming expressions, no
such corresponding sense of urgency had translated into a political will
capable of pushing through game-changing legislation and regulations in the
European Union. The short-term financial interests of industry, cost-conscious
consumers, workers not wanting to be laid off, and taxpayers would pale in
comparison were a sense of emergency to take hold the domain of politics. “Weak”
states (i.e., governments) that are not willing or even able to resist short-term
political pressures from an electorate exacerbate the problem even in the midst
of climate change, which scientists decades earlier had predicted would really
begin to move the needle on air-temperatures globally in the 2020s (and just
wait until the oceans become saturated with CO2!). You ain’t seen
nothin yet may be the mantra for the 2030s.
It seems to be a case of the
proverbial oblivious frog in gradually yet steadily warming water in a cooking
pan on a stove, as the editors at journalistic media companies have been orienting
their news to reporting on specific climate-related events that are disasters
only in particular locales and thus do not point explicitly to global warming. For
instance, on 4 July, 2025, a wildfire in the E.U. state of Greece “prompted
evacuations in coastal areas south of Athens” and mobilized “75 firefighters, including
five elite ground teams . . . alongside fire engines, volunteers, four
helicopters, and two aircraft” as well as municipal water trucks.[2]
“(O)ngoing heatwaves, drought and strong winds” kept the fire-risk high in the area.[3]
Only at the end of Euronews’ article on the fire is climate change mentioned, and then only as an attenuating factor: “While
fires are common in the area, experts say climate change is exacerbating them.”[4]
That is to say: Oh, by the way, the warming of the planet’s atmosphere and
oceans is in play here. Even as climate change is relegated thusly, that it
is only exacerbating wildfires in the southern states such as Greece is
a way of deflating claims that climate change ought to be handled as an
emergency in terms of public policy. The media has thus been culpable.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
