Photo: NYTimes.com
Australia, or as we know “The Land down under”, has been on fire since September 2019. The bushfires have killed over a billion animals, about 26 people, and damaged nearly 3,000 homes, the worst part may be that experts are estimating the fires to go on for a couple of more months before the fires die down. People all over the world are donating in whatever way they can, there have even been people on social media who have gone as far as trading nudes for receipts of donations. The fires are being fought by firefighters, local police, and even locals who have volunteered. All in all, I still can’t help but to think about what the government of Australia is doing and of course, how did they allow this to get so bad in the first place?
As of recently about 30,000 Australians in Sydney have gathered forces to protest against the government for the way they have been handling these fires and climate change all together. Many believe that in ignoring the climate crisis governments have signed death warrants, they also believe that had the government been more proactive the nation could’ve been better prepared. A lot of us aren’t aware of the direct links between the worsening natural disasters that have been going on in different countries all over the world and climate change.
Australia is already known as one of the hottest countries out there, temperature wise, but their drought season which usually starts in January started months before. Thanks to global warming, the fires were pretty much fed and fueled to go on for months, even in some of the country’s wettest ecosystems. For countries like Indonesia, that already receive enormous amounts of rain, climate change has also fed and fueled their flood season making it nearly impossible to walk through the streets versus swimming or canoeing through them as many are doing. As climate changes, we can see the correlation in the worsening weather conditions for many different countries all over the world, droughts are getting dryer and floods are receiving even more rain because climate change directly affects the water cycle. Imagine that this is due to the change of 1 degree in temperature and yet experts are expecting a warming of up to 2 degrees to come, the world truly is in a state of emergency.
Here are some of many links to donating:
Sources:
1.“Australia's Wildfires and Climate Change Are Making One Another Worse in a Vicious, Devastating Circle” by Tara Law for TIME Magazine
2.“Enormous 'Megafire' In Australia Engulfs 1.5 Million Acres” by Scott Neuman for NPR