Bushfire ‒ "Don't Burn our Future"

An opportune day to prepare this posting as young people and others strike across the world demanding that governments take action against climate change or global warming if you prefer.

The following placard was carried by one of the Gippsland protestors ‒ I wonder if she realises how widely that message applies.

A galvaniser of young people to involve themselves is Greta Thunberg, a Swedish student. You may be aware that Greta declined flying to the US, instead choosing to sail across the Atlantic to New York, asserting that air travel contributes to climate change.

On Saturday, 7 September 2019, I posted Wildfire in Australia — dealing with the new normal. The key message in that posting:

I continue to see governments and others claiming that climate change i.e. global warming is responsible for these fires, but not helping the broader community better prepare to withstand wildfire and its loss potential. By this I mean the forcing or encouraging people to leave their homes to agency firefighters and run the risk that they won't be defended due to lack of firefighters available for this task. I wonder how many of the homes lost will have succumbed to ember attack.

I've been reading of politicians and emergency services leaders describing the recent fire activity in Queensland and New South Wales as "unprecedented". As to the accuracy of this description, to me that's no excuse.

Queensland in particular, why did the emergency management agencies not see this coming? Didn't they have people monitoring the drought factor; seek advice from the Bureau of Meteorology to learn of the potential for "unprecedented" extreme fire weather conditions based climate change?

Again, the question at the end of my 7 September posting, "How then to deal with the "new normal"? Clearly thinking outside the box is required to reduce environmental, social and economic loss from bushfire across Australia, but with their reliance on going it alone and water/fire retardant bombing is that a "bridge to far"?

We have nothing to be smug about in Victoria, the public land manager DELWP has little to be proud of in meeting its responsibility for fire management ‒ prevention and suppression ‒ in Gippsland last summer. What was the otherwise avoidable damage done to the environment as a result of those fires, including harmful products of combustion released into the atmosphere?

And, Minister Lily D'Ambrosio, who has multiple portfolios involved, has since received what some may consider is a hefty pay increase. So much for ministerial responsibility and accountability.

Finally, the Emergency Management Commissioner has some significant challenges if social, economic and environmental loss is to be substantially reduced in a climate increasingly conducive to the outbreak and spread of bushfire in Victoria.

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