This past summer, the primal elements conspired to ravage Greece, the birthplace of Western civilization. Many of the islands of the Mediterranean were swept away by water, wind, and especially fire, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Helios, the sun god, whose statue on Rhodes was among the seven wonders of the ancient world, brought scorching temperatures to the island and sparked hundreds of fires. In coastal Alexandroupolis, pine forests were „reduced to blackened, skeletal bark,“, according to Reuters , while fires in the Dadia forest, home to a magnificent nature reserve, have burned 281 square miles – an area roughly the size of New York City. Across Greece, tens of thousands of people, both locals and tourists, have had to be evacuated, creating harrowing scenes of fathers carrying children on their backs and mothers carrying everything they needed to take with them on their shoulders. Entire families displaced not by war or violence, but by climate change. (From Fatima Bhutto)