Large fires are nothing new, but the scale in which the world is seeing them today is unprecedented. Last year we saw how part of the vast Amazon forest burned. Similar fires ravaged parts of Indonesia and the United States. As 2019 gave way to 2020, news of bushfires in Australia dominated global headlines.
Thus far, the fires down under have razed an area of more than 6 million hectares —twice the size of Belgium—across the country. The devastation is more than twice the 2.5 million hectares that burned in the Amazon in August.
Twenty-three people have died. More than 1,500 homes have burned, so far, and the number is expected to climb. Australian wildlife is also taking a severe beating wth more that 480 million dead in New South Wales alone, according to Agence France Presse.
Over the weekend, some 3,000 military reservists were called in to fight the fires, complementing the efforts of thousands of volunteers.
All the burning takes place as Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, continues to defend his country’s climate change position—emission reduction targets remain lower than other countries’—saying that this would ensure a “vibrant and viable economy, as well as a vibrant and sustainable environment.” The United Nations says that even with these weak reduction targets, the country has not even been on track. Australia is also one of the world’s biggest per capita greenhouse gas emitters.
Even if the rains come and help put out the fires, other fires are sure to burn in another part of the world another time. Communities must be prepared, governments must be prepared, but above all, there needs to be a clear link between the way people live and the spread of the fires to lend urgency to the matter.
This is today’s grim reality, and soon it would become so common it would not even be news anymore. As the world gets warmer, the fires would spread more easily and become more difficult to stop. Only decisive and sustained action from all the world will make a dent.
