The PM of australia is bought by the coal and gas industries of Australia. Will that change?
7
I feel for the wildlife and all the animals of Australia. As for the people, this is their just dessert for having voted in the rotten people who make policy down under. Good luck.
6
I know that journalists are there to document and not interfere but I hope they did something for that poor wild horse.
9
This is coming for California and Canada as well.
10
This happened bc the gov't environmental agency barred planned fires, which help avoid bushfires. Stop the lying.
2
@kev This is simply not true and has been debunked numerous times, including by the firefighting chiefs themselves. Stop spreading falsehoods.
11
@kev I've heard of prescribed burns getting out of hand in numerous places. Sometimes our best intentions get out of hand.
Where I live, fire suppression has resulted in tremendous build-up of flammable material. When this goes up it can result in fires that cannot be contained. Only monitored. Now that people have built houses in some of these areas, burns of any sort are dangerous. So suppression continues. There isn't any pro-active behavior much past removing brush near your houses, pruning trees nearby, keeping the ground cover thin. Building underground might be a viable consideration. Some folks have built partially earth sheltered homes.
3
Indigenous populations were incredibly intelligent about how to manage an environment to thrive. This has been true in North and South America as well as Australia. If only we had learned from and respected them our planet would be in good shape.
14
Please report on how the national and state governments fight these fires. Early reports indicated that fewer than 3,000 firefighters had been deployed, a comparatively low number given the size of the fires. By contrast, California deployed a far larger number of firefighters relative to total wildfire acreage in 2018. Other reports indicate that Australia relies on a large number of volunteer firefighters. Does Australia have adequate resources to fight fires of this size?
7
@Jim Brown - We only have a population of about 25.5 million people, mostly living around the coast in the biggest cities. NSW and Victoria have the largest populations and are more extended from Sydney and Melbourne. the Volunteer firefighters ("Vollies) are mainly the local residents of the towns that are located outside of the big cities in what would be considered the rural areas. As a country, we really do not have adequate resources to fight these very large fires, with respect to people and equipment. These "Vollies" have central coordinating agencies staffed with paid public servants and are under the jurisdiction of each state. The localso f course know their ground and many have been Vollies for years so they know how to fight bush fires. The issue this time has been the size. A number of current and former rural fire chiefs tried to arrange a meeting to discuss the upcoming 2019 /2020 fire season with the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison and were ignored. Their proposals included attempting to lease more fire fighting aircraft for the season. For those that don't know, Mr Morrison is an evangelical climate change denier who loudly supports the coal mining industry in particular. He went on a family holiday to Hawaii even as the fire season started here in Australia, claiming that the fires were state issues.
29
Australia which is slightly larger in area than continental USA has less than the population of California.
6
@Jim Brown Yes the federal & state govts rely on volunteer fire fighters, of all ages, many over 70. This is because most fires occur in outlying areas with small populations and so people band together to form their Rural Fire Service. They meet weekly for practice and to hear of any updates even though there is usually (thankfully) a long time between fires. Towns & cities have paid fire brigades.
7
You do not have to search much to find data that long term exposure to smoke from forest fires or any fires for that matter can cause a host of serious health effects including death. I can imagine that months and years from now, we will see studies showing unprecedented diseases in people directly affected by the fires in Australia, the Amazon rain forest and ultimately all of us.
The Earth's quality of life is deteriorating while most leaders of nations and others in a position to help mitigate do nothing significant.
63
@AGoldstein ... Oh, they're doing something, alright. They're busy doing all they can to keep everything the same, so that their investment accounts are not affected.
7
@P H It would appear so. Same as it ever was. What a solution may be I haven't a clue.
1
Extreme weather events appear to be increasing in both intensity and frequency. And man-made CO2 releases are complicit in this. Yet, like the proverbial frog slowly boiling, our citizens are complacent to this growing existential threat.
18
Each one of us living in a developed country is causing 8 tonnes, that is 8000kg, of carbon dioxide to be emitted into the atmosphere every year, and every single molecule of it absorbs heat and makes the atmosphere hotter permanently. Two tonnes from your car, two tonnes from your processed food and another two from all the products you buy with the rest from electricity generation. We need to drive less and buy less in order to live and have the planet habitable.
5
For those doubters who believe all this is natural climate change, fair enough. Believe that if you like. You might even be right. But you can't deny that something is happening, natural or not. So why can't both sides agree to at least lessen the impact of this change (whatever causes it) by lessening our reliance upon fossil fuel and other sources like that? It can't hurt and maybe fossil fuel IS a culprit. I think all of this is as much a sign of humanity's inability to talk and compromise as it is about climate change, natural or otherwise. And that will doom us as much as climate change will.
4
Prayers from California!
4
I’d like to believe Greta Thunberg that there’s hope earth’s climate will stabilize but I don’t believe we’ll give up our one-use plastic shopping bags and gluttonous desire for meat and dairy until the apocalyptic moment arrives, until humans start looking like that poor starving wild horse in the photo accompanying this article. Homo sapiens are hellbent on annihilation & it seems the won’t be satisfied until the goal is accomplished.
15
@David Thomas When the time comes when hoards of ragged people, resembling the ragged horse, are out roaming the landscape searching for anything to stay alive, the zombie apocalypse will have arrived.
I liken homo sapiens to a herd of ignorant cows serenely consuming a wall of hay that's holding back a million cubic miles of water. At some point they'll break through to the annihilation of all.
4
For some years I was Director of the Wombat Forest Society in Victoria.Your photo of the Bargo State Forest indicates a major reason why the fires are so intense. 'Clearfelling' of huge acres mature trees in state forests, much for woodchips alas, has led to eucalyptus regrowth of skinny highly flammable trees 'as thick as hairs on your head' in many cases. Firestorms are unavoidable unless our forests are properly managed, as they used to be by 'selective logging'. This disaster is largely due to lack of respect for Australia's forests by successive governments.
15
Arsonists started these fires! Tell us what happens to the hundreds of arsonists arrested for starting these fires. Death, life in prison, what sentences will they receive? Follow the court cases. Environmentalists want to know.
2
@USVictor there were very few arsonists and those that were were caught before a fire continued.
Most of the fires were caused by dry lightening strikes.
So called arsonists reported in the media were those who were caught throwing cigarette stubs out of cars, using machinery that caused sparks and so on.
There were only a couple of actual bushfire arsonists and the police have charged them.
8
@USVictor There are a certain number of "arson" started fires every year... It's not how the fires *start*, it's how they *burn*. They are burning hotter, and are more difficult to put out, because of climate change.
3
@USVictor This is a conspiracy theory being spread by climate change deniers. Arsonists did not start the fires.
8
Reap-sow. I am sorry for the animals and humans whose habitat is being destroyed.... BUT Australia is just as bad (possibly worse) that other nation sin supporting climate change.
The infamous Galilee Basin Carmichael Coal Mine owned by Adani has been permitted to open to provide COAL(low quality, high ash??) (how clean are we?) to fire up an electric plant in India providing electricity for Bangladesh. The current govmet gave its approval despite various protests. (See or Improve the reportage in WikiP).
Back to rob the poor, poison the air and water capitalism - ain't it grand. But we all know climate change is a Democratic myth designed to deceive the American people --- Mr. Trump said so.
5
What I am never sure of when reading climate change denial in the these comments is the motivation. Do folks who refute climate change, in some cases with obvious lies, do so because climate change denial is a cornerstone in the overall structure of their conservative ideology and accepting it would bring down the rest of their belief system like a house of cards? The only alternative I can come up with is that there are selfish (practically sociopathic at this point) folks who know that climate change is real, but profit so much from it that they keep on lying about it anyway to keep the money flowing. Can’t we somehow please divorce climate change from conservatism for the former? Also, how are the latter any different than drug companies that flooded the rural US with opioids while saying “nothing to see here.” Do we have to wait for large swaths of rural white neighborhoods to burn up before we climate change seriously too?
20
The real question is whether Australia will become uninhabitable.
7
@Stephen V. Dossman No it won't become uninhabitable. Where I live we had a bushfire in late Nov surround out little town and a nearby settlement was almost lost but now in Jan growth has restarted in the native trees especially banksias and with rain in the past week towns that were brown are green again.
3
I live northwest of Sydney. Semi rural. Horse country.
Recently I drove west about 75km.
It was burned landscape just about all the way. 75km!!!
It was quite an experience.
Admittedly a lot of it is national park.
Emergency services did amazing work saving property. Truly amazing.
The world must cut greenhouse gas emissions down to zero asap. Otherwise this generation is imposing enormous environmental costs on future generations. Greta Thunberg is correct.
If we don't cut greenhouse emissions then we are betting the science is wrong. That is a bad bet. Scientists are just about unanimous. The likelihood that the science is wrong is tiny. Less that 1%?
19
My heart bleeds for all that was lost in these horrendous fires.
But it seems that Australia will continue to minimize the issue of climate change because it is in its short term economic interest to sell tons of coal to Asia. Unfortunately for Australians, their continent may be the first one to become largely uninhabitable due to climate change. It is happening half a century earlier scientists predicted and it is horrific.
Given all that it has to lose, Australia should be one of the advanced democracies leading the world on climate policy. Instead it seems to be stuck in the early 20th century of thinking due to the poison of the Murdoch media. Conservative politics will be the death of it, and perhaps all of us.
10
It's not really clear if the burn area is actually burnt. In a widespread fire that came within 9 feet of us there were large areas burnt and adjoining large areas totally untouched as fire embers jumped ahead.
That is not to understate the particular devastation of these fires.
Our native flora and fauna are particularly adapt to recovering from fires although continued drought, despite recent rains, may slow this.
There is much debate here about controlled burns and clearing, particularly in national parks. Some say it's necessary, some that it makes things worse.
CC may be the largest factor by extending drought conditions but also cyclical events starting in the Pacific, added to in the Indian ocean and Antarctica also contributed.
Our PM has endured much mud slinging but no action by any government here in the last 3 decades would have averted these fires.
The likely immediate impact on GDP is around 0.3%, although that will be recovered in the rebuilding process. The impact of stopping coal exports would be 5% cut in GDP.
Can't imagine Australians would accept that hit.
3
@Paul Your statement that "no action by any government here in the last 3 decades would have averted these fires" is an untested obfuscation that covers up the fact this PM's ideological stand on climate change meant he did not act on warnings put to him by fire chiefs, refusing to meet with them. Can you say Emissions Trading Scheme Act? Carbon Tax? Introduced by the Labor party in 2012, abolished by the Liberal (conservative) Party in 2014. Clean Energy Act (Labor 2011 abolished 2013 by the Liberals). Department of Climate Change and Water ( Labor 2007), now long gone. The Renewable Emissions (Electricity) Amendment Act, Climate Commission Carbon Credits (carbon farming initiative) Act (Labor 2011) Climate Change Authority and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Labor 2011) all abolished 2012-13-14 by the Abbott Liberal Government. Of all Labor initiatives, only the renewable energy target of 20% established in 2009 is likely to be reached this year and with no help from the Liberals to get there any sooner. Given Labor's pro active response to climate change compared to the Liberal's ongoing reluctance to acknowledge the issue and actively turn the clock back, no one can know what pre emptive measures a Labor government would have had in place to combat these fires.
11
Speaking of Australia, there is no more toxic influence on America than Australian Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.
I am not renewing my WSJ subscription, and unless you belong to the poisonous Trumpian cult I suggest you do the same.
Pass the word. Let's hit him where it hurts.
103
@Time for a reboot
Good for you. Murdoch's papers in Australia were instrumental in falsely claiming that a large portion of the blame for the fires was arson. The evidence shows otherwise.
17
@Time for a reboot
Murdoch is an immigrant. As Donald Trump says, immigrants can be dangerous to America. Murdoch certainly fits that.
12
@Time for a reboot I agree 100% about Murdoch but for the record, he has American citizenship.
4
Just have to say, that is an incredible photo.
11
Look up the Peshtigo Fires around the Great Lakes, Oct 8, 1871. The entire area was consumed by conflagrations similar to what Australia is suffering. Same night at the great Chicago fire BTW. It makes for fascinating reading. Something happened in that area that day. A fire storm of outrageous proportions. Yet rarely taught, even less, remembered.
2
@Donna V Yeah, major disaster there. About 8% of the size of the Australian fires just to date.
3
@Djt Simply sharing little known similar disasters for interested readers. It's ok if you're not interested. From a scientific standpoint this occurrence would offer evidence of how firestorms breed disastrous burns across countrysides.
1
And the Australian Prime Minister, prior to his Hawaii vacation, with private sector energy industry reps, works behind the scenes at the last international meeting on Climate Change to ensure that nothing will change, that nothing can improve. And the president of the United States stands before his swooning crowds and calls it all a hoax. Governments and Businesses are no longer worthy of our confidence or our trust: vote them all out.
85
CALIFORNIA'S RECENT HORRIFIC FIRES WERE NOT AS TERRIBLE AS AUSTRALIA'S MASSIVE AND STILL BURNING deadly fires. Will Trump rush in Australia-power fires to the American West, simply by rushing to accelerate global warming, as he does with every action?
6
I have not heard a single word of appreciation for Australia's PM who, by dint of wisdom and foresight, utterly dismissed the idea of spending on the environment and now, thank goodness, has plenty of money to spend on fire.
Aussies are mean, mean people I'd say.
9
@oogada He has no choice. This is the biggest peacetime disaster we have had here in terms of the impact not only on the environment but on people's livelihoods...now and for the future.
He was dragged to action by events he was warned about (firefighting chiefs submitted a report to him 6 months ago that he completely ignored)
I could go on and on about his ineptitude and lack of leadership. Will spare you.
36
@oogada
Australia's PM has been dragged kicking and screaming to not only take action on the fires but also to admit that climate change had a role in their ferocity.
He even went on vacation in Hawaii as Australia faced the crisis.
Australians are not mean, as was demonstrated by the way we have rallied behind those affected by the fires. But we do have a very mean PM who puts saving money to balance the budget before our security, our economy and the welfare of our people.
7
@oogada The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is a complete and utter failure as the nations' leader in this time of crisis. He is throwing money around NOW to try and save himself and his climate denying political party. He and his party deserve all of the criticism they get.
9
The entire Western world could go carbon neutral tomorrow and thanks to India and China CO2 emissions would continue to rise. The problem is not with the West, Western countries have been reducing CO2 emissions for decades. The problem lies in the east and those autocratic countries aren't going to allow little Greta Thunberg in to try and shame them into cutting emissions. Remember, for every coal plant the US closes, China starts building 2-3.
1
You’re right. Climate change is a global problem that ultimately needs to be dealt with by global consensus. However, I would say two things about China. First, they also investing heavily in renewables and second, who buys much of what China uses coal to manufacture - the West. Some western businesses actually relocate to China and India to avoid western environmental controls. So indirectly the west still has some responsibility for what happens in autocratic countries. I believe if enough countries start moving away from a carbon based economy, they’ll be able to put pressure on the hold-outs. All we need is a critical mass of countries. The US is, of course, a big and vital player in this, although smaller countries like Australia need to play their part too.
20
@Shane - ah, the lumbering dance of the GOP elephants as they twist and dodge to try and avoid taking responsibility for anything - again.
Let's be specific. The US has emitted 25% of the cumulative CO2 globally since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The US has 22% of the population of China, yet we still emit about half as much CO2 as China does.
The US has 24% of the population of India, yet we still emit twice what India emits.
And "the West" is a mixed bag. Sure, Germany and the UK have CO2 emissions levels below their levels in 1965, and well done to them.
Our emissions peaked a decade ago. But since the fossil fuel lobby bought the White House, emissions increased last year.
Remember, China installed more renewables than any other nation each year in the last few years, and that a large fraction of their coal plants are only running half the time, and THEY are rolling a carbon pricing scheme nationwide.
India is now the fourth largest wind-power generating country, and they are cancelling a lot of planned coal plants because solar is now cheaper there.
But blame them - that's how one party keeps dodging responsibility.
37
@Shane
I confused by the logic of your argument. The reality is that Australia exports huge amounts of coal to both India and China which, they, in turn use for domestic energy production. Both China and India are economically addicted to coal as an energy source, and this will likely remain so for many years.
So, in a real sense, Australia is the dealer feeding the addictions of these Asian users.
In this case, the dealer has now experienced the negative outcomes of his trade.
Who and where the coal is burned is really immaterial. It is the very act of burning it that leads to the problem.
Environmental degradation via climate change and the resulting global warming doesn't stop at man-made national boundaries. This is the bitter lesson now being taught to Aussies.
The reality is that even if the Aussies were to become completely carbon neutral in how they source and produce energy for their own domestic consumption -- by selling coal to other users they are increasing their risk of environmental degradation including these massive fires.
14
I wonder if the catastrophes were closer to Davos if those in power would act accordingly. The masters of commerce and war are now snug in the currently snowy Alps. How much longer before Davos is devoid of snowpack or glaciers for the .1percent?
11
The subheadline -- 16 million acres -- is misleading. The area burned is now 17 million hectares, about 42 million acres. Follow your own link:
https://www.9news.com.au/national/australian-bushfires-17-million-hectares-burnt-more-than-previously-thought/b8249781-5c86-4167-b191-b9f628bdd164
22
@jim AND A BILLION Animals dead. No plants in the bfn areas. A scraping of life from the planet.
7
@M Noone knows yet just how many animals plus insects and plants and native plants have been lost. It will take a while to get to know what the real loss is.
2
If you were honest, you'd have told us the majority of these fires were arson and set by Australians!
3
@vietvet68-69
I am afraid this is not accurate. While some fires have been lit by arsonists, the cause of others are yet to be determined. There is a political convenience in claiming arson by members of our federal government, who have - to put it kindly - adopted a stubbornly cautious approach to climate change.
Regardless of political leaning, there is a growing awareness in Australia that we have to work together to constructively reduce risk, ameliorate the impact of climate change, and assist businesses to adapt to ensure our economy remains viable.
Finger pointing and scapegoating might momentarily satisfy the herd mentality: the challenge will be to find strategies to unite activists and business towards a common goal. At present, both extremes tend to think only of their own desires, goals and benefits, wanting others to do the heavy lifting. I fear the situation will only get worse until the long forgotten notion of "social goods" are rediscovered.
For my part, I would like to thank readers of the NY Times for their kind words and thoughts as we cope with the continuing situation here in Oz.
52
@vietvet68-69 The percentage land area of fires started in Victoria is 0.03%. Other states are similar. This number is reported from the State Police.
5
@vietvet68-69
This misinformation was started bu the Murdoch press. There have been resignations from disgust at this attempt to diminish the climate change policy criticisms of the present gvt. It prompted criticism from James Murdoch against his father for the first time publicly.
32
Australia recently has provided a vivid preview of what our planet is going to be like for all of us: Hot, dangerous, uncomfortable, and sterilized of everything green and wild and worth living for.
I’m grateful to have lived out much of my life already. Sorry about the unfairness of it all, young people.
37
@Ed Suominen Me too. Our species is doomed... particularly when supposed climate conscious people get into their cars and insert their keys into the ignition - oblivious that they doing. Our whole economy is carbon based... and will continue until it can no longer do so. It is terribly unfortunate that our ancestors established this order. Had we went in a different direction... or if we exercised more foresight, or both, maybe things would be better. But here we are, our species is in a terrible predicament, and we are unwilling and unable to alter our perilous course.
10
Arguing about climate change is an unconscious way of avoiding what can be agreed on and acted upon in an apolitical fashion. But, if we're always busy arguing, it becomes about that, and then we don't have to actually do anything.
As guilty as the "Climate Deniers" are, the Greek Chorus Twitter-Mob approach is equally to blame. By engaging in this hero/villian grapple, they help produce a situation in which nothing is being done to protect us in the (not-necessarily-distant) future. We are not even doing that.
Herd-like thinking is useless and ineffective. Because we will never change anyone's consciousness by throwing darts at them. Much like the Creationism/Evolution argument, "Climate Change: Man Made Or Not?" Is a false argument; a media concoction to fluff interest.
We need to think clearly and get to work, at least, on sensible measures that can be agreed on. Only let's not call it "Climate Change" since the term has been subsumed politically.
Cop out, you say? Well, consider this: even if our collective effect has been/is the total cause of the changes we now see, anything we humans can ever do is also happening under influence of the prevailing natural forces of our solar system, always. (OMG! It's both!). And where these two spheres overlap and interact is where we all live.
There is so much about this that we cannot see. We don't have the technology to parse out source-impacts. And we don't have unlimited time.
1
@Allen Your intricate verbiage does not hide the fact that you are indeed in denial about the effects of human activity on our climate.
As it relates to our climate, human activity is like throwing gasoline on a burning house..
15
@Allen - yes, we do need to get to work, but your last paragraph had an error.
We do have the technology to parse out source-impacts. The American Meteorological Society has been carrying out attribution studies and publishing them annually since 2011. Worth a read. Some events they conclude were not caused by or exacerbated by global warming. Many others were in some way, a bit or a lot, made more serious because of our added heat. In a few cases they are seeing events which would not have been possible before. It's that last category that will be increasing. We're entering a new world.
So yes, we have to get to work, but we also know why.
https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/
6
Matthew Abbott deserves an award for this photo lead. Great storytelling.
6
This story is wrong on the facts I think. Athough the images are spectacular, as usual, the facts of this fire season in Australia are not.
There is some evidence that the rate of ignition of the fires in some areas was higher this year than in the past ten years according to satellite records. But the total area burnt in this fire season is LESS than in earlier years of this century and is certainly smaller than many 'record' fire years in the 20th century. Bjorn Lomborg has graphed the data for this century here: https://www.facebook.com/bjornlomborg/photos/a.221758208967/10158666710443968/
Mr Chongo is right that the reasons for the exceptional conditions in this fire season have been linked to oceanic patterns including ENSO and to an Indian ocean pattern (IOD) that delivered an unusually dry year in parts of Eastern Australia. Overall, however, there is no pattern of increasing drought in Australia in the past century (in fact, the trend is slightly in the other direction).
Finally, although 2019 was a hot year, the satellite data (that I consider more reliable than the sparse terrestrial grid whose data are subject to constant revision) show that both 2017 and 1998 were hotter years.
3
@Peter Gallagher You would be well advised to do your research. The larger fires you referred to in Australia were inland grass fires, not comparable in terms of destruction to the current fires. The fires early in the twentieth century, i.e. 1939, were man made; graziers conducting land clearing that got out of control. These were banned in the 1950s, with a consequent decrease in these types of fires. These fires were caused predominantly through lightning strikes and included areas previously considered at low of burning, i.e. rainforest. The fire chiefs describe these fires as unprecedented and a direct result of climate change. I hold those views to be better informed than yours.
60
@Peter Gallagher You would be well advised to do your research. The larger fires you referred to in Australia were inland grass fires, not comparable in terms of destruction to the current fires. The fires early in the twentieth century, i.e. 1939, were man made; graziers conducting land clearing that got out of control. These were banned in the 1950s, with a consequent decrease in these types of fires. These current fires were caused predominantly through lightning strikes and included areas previously considered at low of burning, i.e. rainforest. The fire chiefs describe these fires as unprecedented and a direct result of climate change. I hold those views to be better informed than yours.
5
@ChrisLS I agree with Peter Gallagher. Most of the fires in the early 20th century were man made as are a large number of these fires; our worst RECORDED drought was 120 years ago, and while the Fire Chiefs acknowledge that climate change may have contributed, the lack of back burning (thus leaving the fuel for these fires) is definitely a major contributor. There is no reason why rainforests wouldn't burn. The area covered by these fires is less than some previous fires as well.
No wondering everyone I talked to seems to be changing their minds from their prior favorite 2020 presidential candidate to Andrew Yang, the only candidate who says we are decades behind in the fight against climate change.
10
@Andy Though at the same time, Yang is the only candidate who says, "The right time to deal with this crisis was decades ago. We’ve waited too long, so we need to act fast and recognize that all options need to be on the table in order to adapt to the changed world we live in while mitigating behaviors that make it worse and reversing the damage we’ve already done." He's already given up on trying to stop it.
5
"At least 29 people have been killed. Hundreds of millions of animals, by some estimates, have perished or are facing starvation or dehydration in devastated habitats. And more than 2,500 homes have been destroyed."
Such staggering and heartbreaking numbers, and yet "Australia’s drought shows few signs of ending and temperatures expected to continue to climb after the warmest decade on record."
This is was not a one-time fluke or occurrence. What took nature decades and centuries to create and build was wiped out in a matter of a few weeks.
The photos alone in this article are enough to make a person weep uncontrollably.
10
@Marge Keller
I am so sorry Marge. It is an awful time.
@Marge Keller Yes we wept for a long time but now there has been rain and the country is greening and re-growing. I am so sad about the loss of animals esp as I live in an area that had a lot of kangaroos. Now we have about half the previous number or less. Yesterday we were thrilled to see a lone juvenile emu!
3
Mother Nature does not take kindly to being lied to. She is warning us to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions or suffer the brutal truth of the laws of physics.
9
"Hundreds of millions of animals, by some estimates, have perished or are facing starvation or dehydration in devastated habitats."
“We would be extremely foolish, given all the evidence and the magnitude of this event, to just laugh it off as a one-off phenomenon,”
Seeing that photo of a malnourished wild horse in Bago State Forest along with all of the other photos simply brought me to tears because I feel completely helpless.
What, if anything, can a single person like me do to help?
5
@Marge Keller Vote out every single Republican on the ballot in November
26
@Marge Keller Vote.
10
@rms
@intellectual capital
Of course you are both spot on about voting and not voting for folks who believe global warming is a hoax.
Thanks very much for sharing your important comments!
3
Not only does Australia PM Scott Morrison dismiss climate change and its role in his country's fires, but he continues to make an effort to expand Australia's coal industry.
Morrison is a mindless leader steering his country into literal oblivion. He's a buffoon unfit for office, and his climate-denying counterparts around the world need to be removed from office for the good of the planet (Bolsonaro, Trump, et al). This should not be an electoral endeavor championed only by liberals--a hospitable planet is not a political issue, and climate issues must be depoliticized.
23
Seawater puts out fires just as well as fresh water and Australia is surrounded by the ocean. I’m also surprised that there aren’t thousands of water tanks, pipelines, and reservoirs to use to battle the blazes. Maybe Australia is like California and is waiting for someone else to pay for the useful infrastructure.
1
@William McCain
Australia is surrounded by water, yet it has been in a drought for a long time. Dumping tons of salt water onto soil that has already been deprived of fresh water can lead to more vegetative death (potentially more burnable trees). It can also alter the chemistry of the environment and prevent any new growth in the future when the land has time to heal.
Salt water can be also corrosive to equipment because of the high salinity content.
In a pinch, this could work but it's probably best avoided since such a large area of Australia is being torched.
31
@William McCain
I am afraid that using sea water would be a disaster for our fragile ecology. "Salting" the soil is the surest method to render it barren.
12
@William McCain You obviously know very little about Australia or the dangers of using seawater to extinguish fires. Please google it. You are right about waiting for Government to pay for useful infrastructure to fight the fires. They were told years ago to purchase a fleet of air bombers that could have reduced the damage done. Maybe now we will get them.
12
Lest one think that an area the size of West Virginia doesn't amount to much in a huge continent like Australia, one must consider that the vast majority of the continent is desert. The forests that they have are precious, and make up a very diverse and unique ecology. Taking out big chunks of it has very long term implications for its climate and economy.
40
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that decades of fire suppression and global warming are going to result in fires of unprecedented scale. Going forward, we should acknowledge that what was once rare natural disasters will be commonplace and rebuild our infrastructure accordingly. For fires, cities and towns should have a mile and not only feet of clarence between wilderness and structures. For storm surges, new structures should be built above once a thousand-year storm rather than a hundred-year. Every disaster should result in government officials redrawing the map so that rebuilding happens elsewhere. As we see in the fires of Australia and California and the floods of the Midwest and the South, climate change is already here, and we have no choice but to redefine habitable areas accordingly.
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@UC Graduate There is no Global Warming. The majority of these fires were set by arsonists!
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@vietvet68-69 That's simply untrue, despite you so clearly *wanting* it to be so in order to avoid having to deal with the much larger issues that are at play here.
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@vietvet68-69 Does the fossil fuel industry pay you by the post for each time you spread misinformation on their behalf or is your malicious lie about these fires needed to defend one of the cornerstones of your overall corrupt and self-serving Republican ideology? Do you fight so hard and care so much because accepting the obvious reality of man-made climate change would cause your house-of-cards conservative beliefs to fold or are you just literally getting paid? I can understand the selfishness of the latter at least.
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As significant and disturbing as these fires are, it’s not quite right to say they have burned populated areas. The eastern Victorian fires for example have been almost entirely in native forests, largely national parks. Almost all the east of Victoria is one large forest so once a fire starts that’s it until winter. You can drive for hours through those forests and not see anyone.
The debate here is about climate change but also about management. The fact is there just isn’t enough and the balance has been lost. Before European settlement the indigenous practice was regular burning. No sentimentality there. Just practical common sense.
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@Martin Scott There should be no debate that climate change/global warming is real and having an effect on Australia.
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@Martin Scott Indigenous Australians did not deal with the more frequent extensive droughts and high temperatures and their populations were a fraction of the current population. No doubt there is a lot to learn from indigenous practices of the past but we are living in a different climate and will have to adapt.
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The is one facet that has been overlooked in the reporting of the devastation of the fires in Australia. I have not seen any mention of the effects of the EL Nino-Southern Oscillation had on creating the drought condition across eastern Australia. In the south west US we have seen a couple of session of higher rain fall due to ENSO build up and decline. When that happens the eastern pacific usually has dry conditions.
Another passed cause for the intensity of the wild fires in Australia is land use that has eliminated the native vegetation which has been replaced by non native vegetation that is less fire resilient.
It is not just global Climate change, in 1997 16 million acres burned in Indonesia at the end of a ENSO hot, dry cycle in the eastern pacific. So far about 16 million acres have burned in Australia which is 7 times bigger than Indonesia and has 1/10 the population.you will get the conflagration we see in Australia.
You can't just blame this exclusively on climate change. There are large planetary weather patterns that create the conditions and human land use practices that destroy the native vegetation that is replaced by less fire resilient non native vegetation.
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@jim chongo Nice straw man.
No one is saying that there wouldn't be bushfires in Australia if it weren't for climate change. Oviously, Australia has always been a fire-prone area.
But what is clearly true is that climate change is exacerbating the conditions that make Australia fire-prone and has made these fires far more intense, wide-spread and destructive than they would have been otherwise.
And the climate is going to keep changing, so Australia better be prepared for even worse fire seasons in the future.
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@jim chongo
"In Australia’s history, most bad fire seasons have coincided with the warming of an El Niño pattern. But that is not the case this time, showing how much this season stands out..."
Well, there's one. It acknowledges the effects of ENSO but points out that even ENSO is no longer a predictor of fires. There has also been coverage of the shift in weather patterns over the Indian Ocean that is bringing drier air for Oz.
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@jim chongo There has been no mention of ENSO because it has not been a contributing factor to this drought. That is another reason why this has been exceptional. You may be confusing it with the Indian Ocean dipole, which has been a contributing factor. You should also be aware that a Government report in 2008 predicted that by 2020 the impacts of climate change would manifest as much worse bushfires. Viola! Here we are.
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