Watching our politicians fumble through the bushfire crisis, I’m overwhelmed by déjà vu

As someone who has studied Australian climate policy and politics closely, this summer’s bushfire crisis have been both heartbreaking and bewildering. The grave warnings politicians ignored for so long have now come to pass.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison was savaged by
critics for refusing to meet former fire chiefs.

The fires may be without precedent, but these dark weeks have also brought an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. It’s hard to believe, but the Morrison government’s fumbling response to the fires and the broader climate crisis is in many ways history repeating.

From the disastrous optics of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s trip to Hawaii to blaming conservationists for the fires, our politicians keep making the same blunders and rolling out the same failed strategies.

Read the story from The Conversation by a researcher on sociomaterial transformations and social movements from Keele University, Marc Hudson - “Watching our politicians fumble through the bushfire crisis, I’m overwhelmed by déjà vu.”

Seven Ways Climate Change Will Hit California in the Next Decade

The fires burning in Northern and Southern California right now are catastrophic and heartbreaking. The entire city of Paradise is devastated. Malibu is in flames. An eerie smoke rests over the Bay Area, leaving an ominous orange light and thick air through which kids are walking to school in masks. The scariest thing of all may be that due to the ever-worsening trend of climate change, this is fast becoming the new normal. While fearmongering is rarely helpful, in this case our biggest worries may become a reality.

The eerie reality of climate change.

The fact that the EPA, our government’s foremost legislative body responsible for stemming the tide of impending environmental catastrophes, was recently run by Scott Pruitt, a man who made it his mission in a past lobbying career to essentially dismantle its very foundations, should frighten every American. (Fun fact: while his former position is still officially unfilled, it’s being quasi-filled by Andrew Wheeler, an under-the-radar man with a gobble similar to Mitch McConnell’s who’s quietly and incrementally advancing the interests of the fossil-fuel industry.)

While Californians are pushing back on the White House’s sins against good ol’ Mother Nature, the sobering, unholy facts still remain: our seas are rising; our air is warming; and our flora and fauna are disappearing. The damage has been done—we’re now in crisis-management mode.

Read the story from Medium by Matt Charnock - “Seven Ways Climate Change Will Hit California in the Next Decade."