The Bush fire crisis is continuing. In the population of the displeasure with the climate policy of the government under Prime Minister Scott Morrison is growing.
A victim of the fire disaster: dead parrot on the beach from Mallacoota photo: Louis Boyle-Bryant
SYDNEY taz | the heat of The firestorm was so intense that the aluminum rims of cars in the scorched earth, melted like mercury from a broken fever thermometer. Cobargo on Wednesday, a small settlement in the forested Hinterland of the South coast of the state of New South Wales, South of Sydney. The ruins of spent houses in the orange light of the smoke darkened the sun. Glowing vehicles in which the wind has liquefied windshield in the flame, and the wheel cover, like icing sugar burned a verb birthday cake.
And then the people. Traumatized, stunned. Like ghosts, they walked among the ruins of their existence, and search for memories. Sometimes it’s just a Cup, which you can find, or a teaspoon. As Barbara and Dave Rugendyke. For ten years they had lived here, telling the journalists, as a Retired. You built your Paradise, your quiet happiness. A house, a few outbuildings. Even a tree house for the kids, and of course a workshop for Dave. On new year’s day was all to ashes.
The Rugendykes are just two of the Thousands of people who have lost on new year’s day everything they had, what they had built up a lifetime. Fires, the pull of New South Wales in the holiday region of Gippsland in Victoria to South Australia and even Tasmania, have caused destruction, the extent of which is not yet apparent once again. The number of dead has risen to 17 and several people are still missing.
The Region of Cobargo is more like the backdrop of a disaster movie as the Dream destination for thousands of residents of Sydney, the search over the Christmas and new year, the rural silence and the sea. The telephone connections were cut off on Wednesday evening continue to, power outages and a shortage of fuel at gas stations were a real test of patience for thousands. In some places the living were wagons and tents of stranded tourists Ad-Hock settlements. In the smoke and soot, polluted light, they reminded us of a refugee camp in the African desert.
In Mallacoota, a small town in the North-East of the Federal state of Victoria had rescued on new year’s eve, about 4,000 people in front of the approaching flames to the beach. The smoke from the fires darkened on Tuesday the sky over the place, ash was raining down. The fire and the smoke were so enormous, that even birds fell dead from the sky.
Of the transport system in New South Wales responsible Minister, Andrew Constance, who lives in the area and his house against the flames and had to defend, exuded a little optimism about the coming days. “We are still in the middle of this Emergency,” he said on Wednesday. After major roads could be traveled, he called on tourists to make their way home. “Get out of here before the weekend”.
the Same warning applies for the Region of Gippsland in Victoria and the area to the Southeast of Melbourne. On Tuesday, had to flee against 4,000 people to the beach to escape the high temperatures and strong winds propelled the fire roll. Nothing, the weather Bureau, pointed to the fact that the disasters of the last few days could not repeat soon.
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After a slight slowdown on new year’s day the extreme temperatures of the last days to return again – up to 42 degrees in individual places, so the forecasters. To strong, Gale-force winds threatened again. They act like a giant bellows for the flames.
On Wednesday evening local time burned alone in the state of New South Wales, 131 fire. Their extension and intensity of the criticism of the government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison is always louder. Even in the conservative media columns of the resentment shows itself in the reader’s letter. “Life for these people [politicians] on a different planet?” the 34 year old Sophie asks, “don’t see that we need to finally do something about the root cause: climate change.”
The woman is typical of a growing number of citizens who were standing in front of the recent fire season, the issue with disinterested, or even skeptical. Scientists have warned for years against intensification and frequency of fires. The average temperature in Australia has increased since 1910 by one degree Celsius. These higher temperatures were substantially responsible for the fact that the Vegetation is drier than in previous years, according to experts. As a result, the fire would fight more aggressive, and more difficult, says the former fire commander Greg Mullins.
Morrison refuses but for years, the connection between global warming and fires is as important to recognize. Instead, the former Marketing Manager, also focused in his new year’s address on Patriotic platitudes. “One thing we can celebrate in Australia, is that we live in the most fantastic country in the world, and the wonderful “Aussie spirit”, which means that we master all challenges that we face, that we are always optimistic in our future.”
On the beach from Mallacoota photo: Louis Boyle-Bryant
The climate goals of Australia in the international comparison, modest: the country wants to reduce emissions by 2030 compared to 2005, only 26 per cent. According to the independent science website “Climate Action Tracker” is this “inadequate” and not with the Paris objective to keep global warming well below two degrees Celsius. Australia was also placed in the annual analysis of the “Climate Change Policy Index” of the 57 world’s largest emission Nations consistently down. In the most recent study, Australia was ranked as the sixth worst country in terms of climate change overall.
critics see in the close interdependence between the influential coal industry and the leading political parties of the reason for the steadfastness of the conservative government, even during the fire disaster on your point of view to hold. Several of the most influential members of the government Cabinet refer to themselves as “climate skeptics”.
As a response to the growing criticism from the population, the government repeated in the last days of a propaganda counter-offensive from. Australia per capita is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases on the globe – would contribute “enough” to climate protection, wrote to energy Minister Angus Taylor in the Pro-government newspaper The Australian. The citizens would have every reason to be, “proud” to. The politicians are again assertions, the qualified experts that are longer in the or than half of the true unmasked had been repeated.
Frank Jotzo, Director of the center for climate and energy policy at the Australian national University, responded in the newspaper the Guardian politely damning. “I would characterize [Taylor’s article] as a selective use of statistics, the Australia’s emission rate to look good, not while he looks like in reality at all well.”, as the leading climate policy expert in Australia.
On the beach from Mallacoota photo: Louis Boyle-Bryant
So, Taylor claims, for example, Australia was “only 1.3 percent of global emissions, so that we can exercise without the cooperation with the largest emitters such as China and the United States is not alone a meaningful impact”. This number does not take into consideration the fact that the country is a leading global exporter of coal. When this fuel and exported Gas would be taken into account, such an analysis would be to Australia for almost five percent of the global carbon footprint from the combustion of fossil fuels is responsible.
The Melbourne social scientist Binoy Kampmark writes on Wednesday: “The government’s claim that Australia could not be held responsible for what others do with the provided ‘prey of the earth’, is an arms exporter with a amoral compass and a sense of Selective”. Taylor had used at the recent climate conference in Madrid, together with the representatives of Saudi Arabia, and Brazil are active against effective global action to curb global warming.
