Por Evaggelos Vallianatos
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Prologue: threatening civilization
Pope Leo XIV criticized the delusions of omnipotence that US and Israel display in fighting their illegal and immoral war against Iran. Trump even threatened Iran with extinction. On April 7, 2026, he said: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?”
More threats
The US and Iran started negotiations that did not last. “Less than a week into a cease-fire between the two countries, he threatened that the U.S. military would “finish up the little that is left of Iran” and said its water and electric plants would be “easy to hit.”
“Whether the ceasefire will hold, for how long, and in what ways,” says Pervez Hoodbhoy, physicist and member of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist Board of Sponsors, “is for the days ahead to tell. No one—not even Donald Trump—knows the end game. But the constant is the man whose finger can push the nuclear button. A man used to quick, vacuous victories through bullying and unbridled force is rancorous, thwarted, and vengeful. He has been stymied by a recalcitrant theocratic state that has taken blow after blow, withstood the killing of its venerated leader, the bombing of its cities, the destruction of vital infrastructure, and the systematic targeting of its schools and universities.”
This official hubris, now tainted by the potential bombing of Iran by nuclear weapons, spreads like a plague. It disturbs Americans and non-Americans who have even a modicum of culture and know some history. Threatening civilization is a threat of using nuclear bombs. Such an abominable prospect is beyond diplomacy and war. It reminds me of the crusades when Christian and Moslem fanatics killed each other for centuries. But, in general, such “public discourse” turns logic off and sends fear to heavens. American Universities freeze. Public policy takes a vacation.
What climate chaos?
No wonder the discussion about climate chaos and its underlying anthropogenic causes, basically the burning of fossil fuels, are so contentious. Most of the scientific and academic institutions remain silent and the petroleum-funded physicists and think-tanks are outspoken in defending the very fuels that heat the planet and put human and wildlife at risk.
“A vast majority of scientists agree that climate change is real and that it is caused by burning fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. They expect average global temperatures to rise 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels within the next decade, unleashing dire impacts that include more deadly heat waves, coastal floods, water shortages and crop failures.”
However, Trump denounced climate change and “has derided the scientific consensus on global warming as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” And [the US EPA administrator] Mr. Zeldin has said that the E.P.A. is “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion” by rolling back dozens of regulations that burdened the fossil fuel industry.”
Fighting back
This US official, if unacceptable, behavior ignores science and offends common sense. It has infuriated some environmental organizations like Earth Justice. “On March 31, Earth Justice said that “a panel full of Trump appointees voted to give the oil industry permission to harm and kill imperiled species across the Gulf of Mexico…. We [Earth Justice] are suing the Trump administration for abusing the concept of a national security exemption. Greenlighting extinction in the Gulf will not make anyone safer, nor will it result in lower prices at the pump for Americans. What it could do is trigger ecological destruction…. Rice’s whales, the only whales that live year-round in the Gulf, have seen populations dwindle to fewer than 100 individuals in the years since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster [in 2010] decimated the species….
“Because of the committee’s vote, sea turtles, fish, rays, manatees, corals, and birds are also now without protection. Existing regulations already allow the oil industry to harass, harm or kill sea turtles hundreds of thousands of times per year in the course of its operations…. Earlier this month, the administration recklessly approved “Kaskida,” a new, ultra-deepwater drilling project. The developer is BP, the company responsible for Deepwater Horizon [oil spill of 2010]. Greenlighting oil and gas projects that will span years threatens to lock us into a future of fossil fuel dependence.”
I agree with Earth Justice. Fossil fuels have already caused immense damage to the atmosphere, the seas, oceans and to the ecosystems of forests, wetlands, rivers, farmland, deserts, every place from which they are mined and every place where they are sprayed or for the production of electricity, powering factories, cars, other machines, the militaries and heating homes. They are primarily responsible for altering thousands of years of Earth history by increasing global temperature.
Climate chaos is the result of this illiterate human use and misuse of fossil fuels. They are harming life in all its varieties in the entire planet.
The penguins living in the Antarctic are also harmed by the burning of fossil fuels / climate chaos. Penguins rely on sea ice for survival. However, in 2022 there was very low sea ice in the Antarctic, which, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, “led to catastrophic breeding failure of emperor penguins.” Now emperor penguins are endangered.
Greece in trouble
War in the Middle East is intensifying climate chaos. But it is also affecting Europe and especially poor countries like Greece. In an international chaotic environment, all life appears to be at risk. Today, in April 2026, it is. The future is covered with fear and clouds of uncertainty. Debt-ridden Greece, on the one hand, has been facing potential invasion by its archenemy, Moslem Turkey. On the other hand, her European Union allies are still trying to fight Russia through Ukraine. Yet European states remain frightened and confused by the US-Israeli war against Iran.
The Greeks also know that during the Obama administration EU and America’s International Monetary Fund treated them like colonials, extracting all they could from impoverished Greece in order to save Frech, German and American banks. In addition, the Greek government must be concerned that American military bases exist in Greece and the Greek part of Cyprus, thus potential targets of Iran. All these strategic, debt, and political realities in the Mediterranean don’t exactly open opportunities for a better life for the citizens of Greece.
“[T]he unbearable deprivation that torments a large part of Greek society, writes Kostas Kallitsis of the Athenian English-language newspaper ekathimerini: “The income of 40% of households ends long before the month ends. 62.5% of employees have a salary below €956 net. Inequalities are widening: In 2019, profits exceeded labor income by €21.3 billion and in 2024 by €36.1 billion, that is, 69.5% more.
“That feeds into the fundamental problem: The political-economic system is becoming less and less inclusive, social mobility is becoming weaker, and ever more people get marginalized…. A deep rift exists at the heart of “stability,” and it is deepening and widening by a governance that is proving to be very bad and is becoming very weak.”
Epilogue
Greece is certainly suffering. Her European and American allies keep looting its archaeological treasures and leave her vulnerable to hostile Turkey. The only reliable guide for Greece now and the future is her own history and ancient civilization. Become self-reliant and independent.
America chose Moslem Turkey for NATO to fight Russia. But that was a bad choice because Turkey never won a war against Russia.
These relationships become far more unreliable during war. The Europeans better wake up soon, or they will become another battleground. They should speak with one voice. Accept the responsibility of defending Europe and work full time for peace. Tell Trump to abandon war and leave Iran alone. Tell Israel to stay home and forget its biblical myth of a greater Israel. Bring peace to Ukraine, the Middle East and peace to themselves and the world. If Trump’s civilization threat becomes tangible, Moslems the world over will turn their wrath against Europe and America and Israel. The world cannot survive a WWIII.
Evaggelos Vallianatos, Ph.D., is a historian and ecological-political theorist. He studied zoology and history, Greek and European, at the University of Illinois and Wisconsin. He did postdoctoral studies in the history of science at Harvard. He worked on Capitol Hill and the US Environmental Protection Agency; taught at several universities, and authored hundreds of articles and several books, including Poison Spring (2014), The Antikythera Mechanism (2021), Freedom (2025) and Earth on Fire: Brewing Plagues and Climate Chaos in Our Backyards (World Scientific, 2026).
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