Tragically more than 30 people died in the fires by early February and more than 3,000 homes were lost, along with farmland, property and at least 80,000 head of stock. With over 12 million hectares of farmland and forests burnt, the toll on wildlife was unprecedented, with estimates of up to a billion native animals killed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tens of thousands who were told to evacuate vulnerable farms, towns and holiday destinations along the coast, yet the impact of the fires was felt far more widely. The smoke, sometimes at dangerous levels, covered the entire coast and extended far inland, even to Canberra and well beyond. Alarmed about the astonishing fire threat, even in the major cities people cancelled holidays, hurting businesses relying on them and the tourist industries, including with international travelers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Growing anger at failure of Morrison government<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Many Australians are very angry about the government\u2019s failure to prepare for the fires or respond adequately. Astonishingly Mr Morrison in January took holidays in Hawaii, without publicly announcing it. Did he not know or was he not advised that the whole country was facing a critical fire threat? Walking in the bush was like walking on crackling potato chips. Farmers in many places said they had never seen such parched lands, even in areas that were usually moist and green at that time of year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even more astonishing was the failure of Mr Morrison to listen to the advice of the leading former emergency services chiefs <\/a>in the country. Led by Greg Mullins, former commissioner of NSW Fire and Rescue, they wrote in April 2019 asking for a meeting to warn of \u2018catastrophic extreme weather events\u2019, and again in September, but received no response. How good is that, Mr Morrison? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Prime Minister Morrison declared at his election he would \u2018burn\u2019 for Australians, but Australians did not want their county to burn for him, especially as his government has failed to develop policies to address global warming. In the view of former Liberal Party leader, John Hewson<\/a>, Morrison \u2018is almost totally beholden to the fossil fuel lobby\u2019 and has no climate action plan or energy policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Morrison\u2019s\nhandling of the bushfire crisis has been seen as bumbling and inept, but even\nmore disturbing is his evasion and dissembling about the underlying cause of\nthe prolonged three-year drought and the exceptional heat. He was reluctant to\ntalk about climate change, urging us instead to focus on immediate relief\nefforts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As the Bureau of Meteorology<\/a> reported, 2019 was the nation\u2019s hottest and driest year on record, fully 1.52\u2103 above the 1961 \u2013 1990 average. and globally is likely to be the second hottest on record. Many places in Australia broke temperature records for December, including at Nullarbor which reached 49.9\u2103. Penrith in Sydney reached its new record of 48.9 degrees shortly after on 4 January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Climate experts<\/a> have rebutted the view that this is just a regular fire season, pointing out that this year\u2019s fires were more extreme and far more widespread, stretching from Queensland down the coast to Tasmania and South Australia, and even Western Australia. Most significantly, there was no El Nino event that is typically associated with previous severe fires. Further the fires were preceded by the hottest and driest conditions on record in Australia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nfires were followed by intense weather events and exceptional dust and hail\nstorms that caused extensive damage to buildings and cars including in Sydney,\nMelbourne and Canberra. Insurance costs are estimated at $2.1 billion, while\nthe losses in agricultural output could reach a further $4 billion, 0.2% of\nAustralia\u2019s GDP. The carbon emissions from the fires amounted to 350 million\ntonnes of CO2, about two-thirds of our annual emissions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Charting a way forward: Ross\nGarnaut\u2019s vision<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the urgency of the climate change threat, one could be tempted to despair at the failure of recent Australian governments <\/a>to devise sensible climate policies. But the state governments <\/a>have been working on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in effect to net zero by 2050 and put Australia on a more positive path, with the advice of many in the business community and scientists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/photo-backburning.jpg\")
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