Gruelling fuels

The horses pawed the ground nervously. They could feel the heat and smell the smoke of the wildfire as it approached their stables and their owners rushed to load them into trailers and drive them to safety. Not far away, around 1,200 children had to be evacuated as flames came close to their summer camp at the town of Loutraki, west of AthensOne of the great city-states of the ancient world and the birthplace of democracy..

Another wildfire was raging on the other side of Athens in the town of Kouvaras. "Some guys tried to rescue a house but it is impossible," said a local resident. "The fire is too heavy, the wind is very, very strong, so there is nothing that they can do."

Europe has red alerts - meaning that the heat poses a high risk to health - in Greece, Italy, Spain and parts of the BalkansA region of southern Europe, south of Austria and Hungary. It was traditionally seen as the meeting point between the Christian and Muslim worlds.. The highest temperature so far has been in SicilyThe largest island in the Mediterranean. It is part of Italy. : 46.3C.

Even night-time temperatures have been high. According to John Nairn of the World MeteorologicalMeteorology is the science of weather. Organisation, this is particularly dangerous: "The body is unable to recover from sustained heat. This leads to increased cases of heart attacks and death."

In Switzerland a wildfire has been described as spreading "explosively". In Spain, around 40,000 hectares have been lost to wildfires this year.¹

Spain is suffering what one expert calls a "mega-drought". In Andalusia and Catalonia, which have seen temperatures of 37.8C and 45.2C respectively, water reservoirs are at less than 25% of their capacity.

In the US, firefighters have been fighting four Californian wildfires in temperatures of over 34C. So far this year the state has had over 3,000 wildfires. In Death ValleyA valley in California in the Mojave Desert. It is the hottest place on Earth in the summer. on Sunday, the temperature reached 52C - a figure matched by the Xinjiang region of China.

Few people doubt that climate change is responsible. According to Bill McKibben, writing in The New Yorker, scientists believe that "this may well be the hottest it's been on Earth since at least the peak of an era known as the Eemian, 125,000 years ago... nothing even remotely resembling a human civilisation has ever known a world this hot".

But, McKibben adds, a rapid end to burning fossil fuel would stop the process - "and that rapid end is possible, because solar and wind power and batteries to store it are now cheap and available".

Can we stop burning fossil fuels?

Yes: We have all the alternative technologies we need. Solar and wind power are developing rapidly, and a recent breakthrough in generating electricity from the air offers the hope of limitless clean energy.  

No: Oil and gas companies have enormous political cloutInfluence or power. and people are unwilling to sacrifice their comfort for the common good. Huge numbers rely on gas boilers and cannot afford to replace them.

Or... Public opinion may have reached a tipping point, now that almost every part of the world has seen alarming changes in the weather - so politicians could finally be pressured into decisive action.