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A couple of articles caught my eye this week…
As my home city of Athens burns, I can only watch in amazement as sunseekers fly in
Jetting off to the sun? The adverts are selling you a ticket to climate disaster
We are on fire here in many ways. First of all, yes, wildfires are ripping through the Mediterranean and *checks notes* causing holiday goers all kinds of distress. Or that’s how it’s being played on most media.
My question is, why the fuck are they here anyhow? Do they not read the news? Or even the weather reports? Do they not give a shit about anyone other than themselves? I’ve come to realise that these “sun seekers” are ignorant at best, borderline sociopaths at worst. Of course they are being played by travel companies, airlines, hotel chains who NEED them to keep travelling so badly that they offer crazy deals while bombarding everywhere with their relentless “get away” advertising campaigns.
I mean, airlines were still flying people into Rhodes in the middle of an evacuation crisis due to wildfires. And we’re not just talking about tourists – at least they got to flee to the nearest airport to get home while locals lost homes and businesses and lives. But it’s been clear for months that we are in serious drought conditions here, our forests are kindling, and residents face water shortages, with food shortages coming up soon. So WHY are people still coming here to holiday??
What are we? Nothing to you? Nobodies? Or are our towns and cities just places for you to pretend you are at least temporarily living a better life than the one you actually have?
Sevilla is not on fire, yet. But we have not had enough rain for TWO YEARS. So clearly our resources are very low and already water restrictions have been put into place in various places in Andalucía. Also, with record high temperatures the past month there is a real threat to our power grid, that it can withstand the needs of our residents. OF OUR RESIDENTS. Think about that.
When tourists come here en masse during difficult times they are mostly benefitting airline companies, hotel chains, tour companies… very little trickles down to us. Because think about it… you are here using our precious water (we don’t have enough) and still expect your pool to be filled while enjoying your all-day hotel air-con (while we worry about how our power grid can support us) … and you’re not giving a thought to that? Well, maybe you should. I hope you will.
