The smog that covered the Northeast Coast of the United States a few days ago, with the surreal photos of the skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty in New York City barely visible because of the smoke caused by the wildfires in… Canada, must have worried the millions of residents who live there.

Initially, and to a certain extent, the smog was reminiscent of the image that Lower Manhattan presented after the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001.

But this cloud was not the product of an act of terrorism, but of a massive wildfire that spread and threatened the lives of millions of people thousands of miles away from the source of the fire.

And while this was happening in North America, another phenomenon is occurring in Athens that I would call the possible ‘tropicalization’ of weather patterns.

In more detail: For days now, while the day starts with wonderful weather, towards the afternoon it rains heavily, almost torrentially.

And it doesn’t rain for five or ten minutes, but sometimes it rains for a whole hour or more.

The result is that now Athenians leaving home take an umbrella with them in case of rain.

This mid-June weather for many of us who emigrated several decades ago is unprecedented.

In the summers back then, it didn’t rain. And not only did it not rain, there was not a cloud in the sky for the entire summer.

You will tell me that life changes, conditions alter, ‘everything changes’. That is certain. But here we are talking about a change so great that if it continues it will change the way people live.

Do we want that?