Capturing the climate opportunity in insurance
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Source: The Guardian
Even in Greek towns razed by wildfires, people don't blame the climate crisis. That must change
Many see climate breakdown as a problem of the future, but it’s here now. To move forward, we must understand our part in it
By Christy Lefteri | August 14, 2023
'The fire that ripped through Mati, killing dozens of people, took place on 23 July 2018; three years later, most people still looked frightened.' Photograph: Yannis Kolesidis/EPA
During the summer of 2021, I flew to Greece to learn more about the wildfires there. I wanted to hear people’s stories, to understand what it meant to be displaced by environmental disaster. I have family in Greece and Cyprus and the approach of each summer causes a lot of anxiety. That year, fires were raging in Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Croatia and Cyprus, and I was three months pregnant. Feeling Evie growing inside me made me wonder what kind of world she would live in – and made me all the more determined to learn as much as I could about what people had experienced.
I spent a lot of time in Mati, a small town on the east coast of Greece, less than 20 miles from Athens. There, I talked to local people, and their experiences profoundly moved me. In a cafe that had survived the fire, a hub of safety and community for survivors, I met brave children who now have to live with terrible scars, physical and emotional. I met a man who could not even speak to me, his eyes filling with tears, and he told me that he had no words in a way that has stayed with me ever since.
The fire that ripped through their town, killing dozens of people, took place on 23 July 2018; three years later, most people still looked frightened, as if they could never feel safe in their homes again. One woman said to me: “Here you do not need to ask anyone where they got their scars, how they got burned, everyone knows.”
I was expecting to hear a lot about loss; I was not expecting to learn so much about the attribution of blame. I came to understand how desperately people needed to blame a tangible entity – a person, a group of people, the government. Indeed, this was understandable and justifiable. The allegations of arson and of the mishandling of the fire needed to be explored, investigated and dealt with.
What surprised me, however, was that any mention of the bigger issue, of the climate crisis and global heating, was shut down immediately and completely. It was made clear to me that this subject was unacceptable. Survivors felt that these issues had nothing to do with what they had suffered, and that the people actually accountable needed to pay.
Please go to The Guardian to continue reading at your own risk.
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To the editors at the UK The Guardian:
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