As summer wildfires push the likes of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to claim the “era of global warming has ended, the era of global boiling has arrived,” reports suggest the vast majority of blazes in Italy, at least, are actually down to arsonists.
The National Confederation of Direct Farmers, Coldiretti, estimates arson is responsible for up to 60 percent of the blazes in the Mediterranean country. Roberto Occhiuto, the regional president for the southerly Calabria region, believes arsonists are behind an even higher 80 percent of the blazes, at least in his jurisdiction.
“Last year in Calabria we caught 22 arsonists and this year, too, we are finding several,” he told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Wildfires on the Greek island of Corfu, a popular destination for British and other Western European tourists, have also been blamed on arsonists by local officials – much to the irritation of climate scientists, who are keen to attribute any issues accompanying the dry summer weather to man-made global warming.
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