Australia is burning. What does it mean?
Australia used to be the Lucky Country. Not any more. The hundreds of wildfires that have been raging for weeks, in some cases months, across the states of Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, are causing a level of devastation not previously experienced. Firefighters are out of ideas. They cannot fight the flames without water, and little rain has fallen in Australia for the last three years.
New South Wales is ablaze from top to bottom. One town just outside Sydney – a city of more than five million people – has been wiped out. Valuable farmland is disappearing. At least nine fatalities have been recorded, with more likely to be discovered. Ancient rainforests are being reduced to charnel houses.
In the media, there was a flurry of condemnation over the weekend when it was discovered that the prime minister, Scott Morrison – who largely rejects the impact of climate change – had been on holiday in Hawaii with his family as the crisis spread. But the truth is, Morrison’s presence would have made no difference to anything. All the pieces leading up to the present conflagration were in place long before he took office. He apologised profusely for his absence before meeting with fire chiefs and civic leaders, none of whom had anything good to report.
What is perhaps most astonishing is that more Australians are not following Morrison’s example and getting out while the going is good. In fact, for those not obviously affected life goes on much as usual. Swimming pools in Melbourne, which is ringed by bushfires, continue to be emptied and refilled for tourists and residents alike. Coal mining carries on in the west; cows are still being milked; people get up in the morning and go to work.
But be in no doubt. The long-term viability of Australia, with its growing population of nearly 25 million, is for the first time being called into question. Without rain, the country is literally drying out. Record high temperatures are being noted every week from Darwin in the north to Hobart in the far south. And there has been no relief.
Most worrying of all, it will not be high summer for another four weeks.
Scientists say that two factors are at work. The temperature of the western Indian Ocean has risen by two degrees Celsius. When its warm waters meet cooler currents to the east, a “Dipole” is created that prevents the rain that would normally sweep in at this time of year from making landfall. Simultaneously, the Antarctic’s vortex winds have changed direction, diverting rain from the Southern Ocean, whose ice is melting at a prodigious rate.
As to cause, Australia is one of the world biggest per capita producers of CO2 emissions. It remains heavily reliant on coal, used to fuel the nation’s power stations, and has consistently downplayed the role of climate change in its rapidly evolving weather patterns. In addition, through no fault of its own, it plays host to emissions from India and Indonesia, the latter of which is busily engaged in deforestation.
Alarmed? You should be. Australia may well prove to be the harbinger of things to come. On the other side of the Tasman Sea, New Zealand is heating up, as is most of Africa, Asia and Latin America. California has been plagued by wildfires in recent years. By contrast, but deriving from the same climatic shifts, floods in northern Europe over the autumn and winter period are becoming the new norm. Much of England has been badly affected, along with almost the entirety of France. Last week in Portugal, high winds and torrential rain were experienced of a ferocity hardly ever seen at this time of year.
Those who argue that the term “climate emergency” is emotive and overblown have to face up to the fact that bad things are happening to the world’s weather. The effective collapse earlier this month of the climate change conference in Madrid should have been a wake-up call. The reality is that most world leaders were relieved that they weren’t being asked to do anything drastic for the foreseeable future. For them, the protection of traditional jobs and heavy industry continue to take priority.
Climate change deniers are in fact less the problem than those, like Scott Morrison, who say, let’s not make a drama out of a crisis. The new mantra is, “It’s a problem, but what do you expect me to do about it?” Targets have been set, the leaders tell us. 2040, is it? Or 2050? Whatever! At any rate, not 2020. In the meantime, don’t listen to Greta Bloody Thunberg and the lunatics of Extinction Rebellion. What do they know? And cheer up. It might never happen. Hang about a bit and electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels will have the whole business sorted quicker than you can say Boaty McBoatface.
Well, tell that to Australians as they flee the countryside, pursued by walls of fire. The threat is real and it’s coming soon to a town near you.
Merry Christmas!
Let us know your view. Send a letter to editors@reaction.life