A kangaroo rushes past a burning house in Lake Conjola, New South Wales, Australia. Matthew Abbott for The New York Times
It looks apocalyptic because it is exactly that - the complete destruction of the natural world. 15 million acres burned and 500 million animals dead.
We hate to post anything negative but the reality of the situation is that events, like those we have seen recently in the Amazon and Australia, were predicted long in advance, and although the current fires will be contained and eventually extinguished, things are only going to get worse each year, unless drastic uniting measures are taken by global governments.
Why is Australia on fire?
The Australian fires are being driven by record-breaking hot, dry conditions, which make vegetation more likely to catch fire when exposed to ignition sources like lightning strikes or discarded cigarettes. On 8 January, the Bureau of Meteorology announced that 2019 was both Australia’s driest and warmest year on record. On 18 December, the country had its hottest ever single day, when the average maximum temperature reached 41.9C.
When there are so many obvious warning signs (mass fires, shrinking glaciers, rising seas etc) how is it possible that world’s powers aren’t making it an absolute priority to reduce and eventually reverse climate change. To deny it at this stage as ‘fake news’ should be a crime against humanity. The deputy prime minister of Australia himself dismissed the role of climate change in the current fires as the “ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital-city greenies”!
This is despite a 2008 report commissioned by the Australian government predicting that climate change would cause the fire season to start earlier and be more intense by 2020 which has proved to be exactly the case.
The book by David Wallace Wells called The Uninhabitable Earth (published July 2017), depicts worse case and best case scenarios of what our future looks like on our current course of climate change consequences. It is a very grim read, especially when his description of impending disaster begins with huge, global-news-worthy wildfires in the Amazon and Australia (written 2 years in advance of this reality).
The truth is that too many powerful people are making too much money from fossil fuels to worry about the future. It’s a total disgrace. The 2015 Paris agreement rallied the support of all nations to combat climate change. Since then, 33 major global banks have collectively poured $1.9tn (£1.5tn) into fossil fuels, according to Rainforest Action’s report.
Imagine the improvements that could be made if that amount of money was instead diverted to sustainable technologies, carbon reduction and climate restoration.
We will be doing what we can to help change things but in the meantime, Australia needs our help.