(Probably Not) My Final Word...

... on the current fire emergency down here. I left a comment on somebody's Journal that was so long, apparently it got marked as spam, so may not get posted. In that case - here it is, in response to a post & many comments about the loss of our wildlife & the dismal state of our politicians - mostly the Federal ones, I must add... the State leaders have been doing a pretty good job with what they have

Greetings from a burning continent... davesmusictank reposted your entry, which brought me here - thanks Dave!

And yes - it's as bad as they say... Across 3 states, we've lost more livestock & wildlife than you can physically count. The worst affected is Kangaroo Island, off South Australia, where, due to its geographic isolation, unique species evolved & were always endangered, due to low numbers, but the fire which has wiped out 1/3 of the island's habitat, may have wiped out a few species as well. Until the fire is out, we can't even guess...

Koalas are the hardest hit, nationally. Again, their numbers have never been huge, so to lose what is conservatively estimated as half the national population, is a blow that will take generations to repair. The poor little guys aren't exactly built for speed at the best of times, so fires that have raced through at more than 60km/h meant they were doomed

I can't/won't defend our inept Federal Government full of coal-enriched climate change deniers, but the problem is certainly political as well as environmental. The Greens voted down a carbon emissions tax almost 10 years ago, that would have changed the way Australia managed its pollution & they did it for no good reason other than spite, because of in-fighting within the party & a beef with the then Labor Government. They also put pressure on State Governments every time a back-burning, or hazard reduction burn was scheduled, saying it was bad for the environment, which is one reason there's been so much material to burn in these fires. The fact there's been a Liberal Government in power since 2013, full of those aforementioned deniers, has only made both the political & natural landscapes even worse - their blinkered focus on the economy has alienated many other parties & has divided the country down a strict left vs right battle line, with the supposed 'left' being in favour of refugee rights, climate change action & better social policy & the 'right' being supporters of an ever-more intolerant & intransigent status quo that excludes migrants & thinks coal is the only power source on the planet. I'd like to say it's a generational thing & it's just the older people spouting that kind of bile, but there's a bunch of younger people listening... & believing them

The other reason nowhere near enough hazard clearance burning has been done, is the nation-wide drought we've had for years now. Plants & soil have become drier & therefore infinitely more combustible, so it's quite dangerous to even do small reduction burns, because of the risk it could become something much worse. This is actually how at least one of the fires recently started, when a back-burning operation was hit with a strong wind change & rapidly got out of control

If you want to blame anything, blame the Indian Ocean Dipole, a weather system that is causing flooding in Eastern Africa & drought in Australia - all the water is going to the wrong places! You can also blame the El Nino/La Nina weather systems in the South Pacific. These have both been causing problems for Australia for decades, but, it must be said, global warming has exacerbated their effects & there's no indication it's going to get any better...

Welcome to the new 'normal'. The world has changed & will keep changing. WE need to keep up!!

Again, I'd like to think I've now ranted enough, but I somehow doubt it. This crisis isn't over...