The Australian fires and people’s responses to them are incredibly interesting. The angry response from the political left with calls for international Climate Crime legislation alongside impassioned calls for action alongside facts such as ‘one third of all Koalas being killed in fires’, makes me feel that people are weaponising this crisis to achieve their political ends. On the other hand you see ‘Mars is dealing with a climate crisis’ reports and articles saying that this is a sign of runaway climate change, and we’re losing control.
If you feel confused about how you’re meant to respond that’s because social media confuses our response, and people are trying to use it to misdirect our feelings. This is tragedy beyond belief and the facts are that rising average temperatures in Oz are to blame, and that is a product of climate change. But we should mourn for these people and not make this a political war field. We need to wait to see what happens and then let the wash up and reflection of the disaster make this a time for political discussion. There are millions still under threat and they will react in a way that is suitable, it is not up to us to lead their emotional or educated response, we should trust them to do this by themselves.
My overarching feeling is the same as it has always been about this crisis. When my children look back on this I want to be able to say I was in the right side of this crisis. And that means that I had taken personal action to reduce my footprint, had worked damned hard to educate others about what they could and I had campaigned for a government response. On top of that I had armed my children with the knowledge of self sufficiency; food production, micro-generation of energy, battery storage, and making good use of resource.
I am very sorry for what’s happening, but there should be no blame, there is not time for that. We haven’t got time for accusations, for mis-information, only for how we now take action.
What have your thoughts been on these dramatic images? How are you responding?
I do hope this issue does not become politically polarised into Left and Right outside the US as well as in the US. This issue affects us all equally and we need to do as much as possible as quickly as possible to become carbon neutral
wherever and whoever we are.
This article is showing the push back about protests in Australia. This positioning will make the protesters look like they aren’t helping society on the whole during the crisis (that is if they decide to protest, which I bet they will).
I think that the Minister is (deliberately) missing the point. She is describing protests as something people happen to do, without understanding that the way to stop the protests is to say that from now on the national and regional governments will make and implement policy strictly in accordance with the advice being given by Australian and international (ie IPCC) climate scientists.
I get this but would it seem rational to the public and voters for politicians to immediately respond to a crisis like this by making ground breaking policy which is outside their manifesto? I think it would appear to the public to be an emotive rather than educated response to the fires.
This is my first post on here, in fact my first post on any forum.
As I live in Australia it is easy to separate myself from the rest of the world.
These bushfires have thrust us front and centre on the international stage. I have long since become dispondant to the farcical government who run Australia. I am originally English and I am under no delusion that the UK is run any better but the boldness of the Australian governments (labour or liberal) to continue to do as they please in the face of overwhelming opposition to the people needs to change.
I hope this sparks the kind of change that seems to be needed across the English speaking world and further.
Full disclosure I work in the energy sector, not quite mining but close enough. I even had a chat with a better century member only days ago saying that I don’t believe the bushfires and climate change are actually linked and in a sense they are not. However climate change is going to make bushfire season and risk a lot worse.
That is my rant over and the reason I wrote this post was to share the film below. Along with everyone else my thoughts are with those who not only have to deal with our air pollution but the much more real loss of livelihood, homes or even a loved one.
