The AP updates the tragic situation in Greece, where flooding has created apocalyptic scenes across the plain of Thessaly in the Mediterranean nation.
Athens endured flash flooding, which wreaked havoc even at the Acropolis. There are missing and confirmed deaths during the shocking rain storm that Greek leaders directly blamed on climate change.
News and videos are below. But first, some good old-fashioned truth-telling from a Facebook user to Neil Degrasse Tyson on our predicament of extreme climate disruption.
People like to say that oil comes from the dinosaurs. That makes it sound nice, fairly recent, and of this world. Oil is much much older than that. Oil comes from an Earth that had a methane atmosphere and no land. There were no fish, there were no jellyfish, there was not even bacteria. There was, however blue-green algae. Blue-green algae could breathe the methane and with the sunlight create energy and oxygen, just like plants do today. When they died they sank to the bottom of the oceans. Since this was before bacteria they did not decompose. They just built up enormous layers of blue green sludge that eventually got buried. That is oil, the sequestered carbon from millions of years of decomposing earth's early methane atmosphere.This went on for millions of years until all the methane was gone and Earth had a very oxygen rich environment, about half again as much oxygen as it has today. That is why prehistoric animals could grow so large, 32% oxygen atmosphere! So what did we think would happen when we took carbon that had taken millions of years to sequester, and released a large chunk of it over a couple of centuries? Like that wouldn't have an effect?
Between Tuesday and early Friday, the fire department said more than 1,800 people had been rescued and the department had received more than 6,000 calls for help in pumping water from flooded homes and removing fallen trees.In the Pilion area, residents and tourists were ferried to safety by sea late Thursday as all access roads to some villages were severed. On Thursday alone, a fleet of 10 helicopters airlifted 110 people from the hard-hit areas of Karditsa and Trikala to safety, while dozens more were being rescued by air and boats Friday.
Authorities have deployed swift water rescue specialists and divers as floodwaters rose above 2 meters (6 feet) high in some areas, leaving many houses flooded up to their roofs. Residents of some villages have reported buildings collapsing completely.
The flooding followed on the heels of devastating wildfires that destroyed vast tracts of forest and farmland, burned homes and left more than 20 people dead.
