redbaron
irony based lifeform
(initially posted in random thoughts thread, realised it was too extensive to contain there.)
So far:
500 million animals have been killed
over 5 million hectares have burned (over 6x the amount of area that the california wildfires have burned)
air quality is amongst the worst in the world in Sydney (if not actual worst?)
fire season still has another 2-3 months left to go
100s of kilometres of coastline cities don't have potable water and need to boil it because of contamination due to fire - there is no failsafe or governing body that regulates this in a time of crisis, or that has ever been put in place: so people are literally communicating this information on Twitter, trying to reach as many people as they possibly can to let them know to not risk drinking unsafe water as their supply has been contaminated potentially with toxic chemicals. it's not even known if boiling it will make it safe
our current government in power is made up of religious fundamentalists who deny that climate change actually occurs, or that we need to have better preparation and responses to bushfires
majority of the media in the country is murdoch-owned, so instead of holding our right-wing religious fundamentalist, climate denying, inactive government accountable: they're busy running smear campaigns against the people who speak out against government and call for real change to act
the CSIRO (australia's national science organisation) has been publishing studies demonstrating that climate change will lead to fire seasons of increasing severity and duration for almost 3 decades. a previous government (roughly centre-left) introduced a carbon trading emissions scheme, which reduced carbon emissions in the country: and then was removed ASAP as soon as said climate-denial fundy govt. came to power a few years later.
more recently in our latest elections, one party had an extensive and well outlined proposal to increase our firefighting capacity and to tackle climate change: both locally and globally. oops, they didn't get voted in (what a surprise!)
since then they have increasingly removed citizen's rights and sought to censor the population. seeking to make protesting illegal, looking to charge whistleblowers with a crime and to impose the right for religious medical practitioners to deny care to those that do not share their faith.
our current PM declined to meet with multiple ex-fire chiefs who were all extremely worried about this upcoming fire season (on the basis of meteorological data and an ever-increasing mountain of scientific evidence of the effects of climate change on the severity of our fire seasons) and instead fucked off for a holiday
of course, murdoch media try to somehow blame a state premier for also being on holiday (even though in her same state, she had increased funding to fire prevention and containment services, and had an extra 50 fully trained firefighters along with extra equipment ready to deploy - and also, no fire in her state ((bear in mind that during fire season, there are always fires!)) was considered beyond 'advise' level. that is to say, there was no threat to communities, they were considered under control and there was no indication from weather reports or otherwise that there would be an emergency or that it would be beyond the state's firefighting capacity to contain)
in the meantime, our PM is spending his time and taxpayer money funding propaganda advertisements: and in a link he himself posted which had a length description about supporting our volunteer firefighters with donations: the donation link was actually directing funds to his political party. it was taken down after significant backlash for the trickery, but no comment on whether the funds the party had received via donations will be redirected to volunteer firefighters
despite this being the worst case of bushfires in national history, the PM refuses to declare a national emergency. what this means is that volunteer firefighters who rely on payments via the welfare system to support them/their families while they are taking months off their jobs (normally a volunteer firefighter would expect to take a week or so during a season, just in their local area) they are actually having their pay DOCKED - because they are not fulfilling their 'work requirements' in this period. if he were to declare a national emergency (as he rightly should anyway) then these volunteer firefighters who are going above and beyond to defend people's livelihood from the fires, would actually be receiving the funds they need and their families need to survive
oh and riot police dispersing teenagers who are peacefully protesting is always a fun thing to have in your country too.
also our government is set to spend $4.4B on subsidies for further fossil fuel development in the country (further increasing our emissions)
i have to fact check the next number, but apparently spends $29B per year in subsidies to fossil fuel industry as well. unclear if $29B per year, or last year, or total for the duration of a fiscal year at some point - or multiple years. just saw the report on it and have to investigate. in any case, whatever it is: our government has spent an absolute fuckload of money to subsidise fossil fuel industries while making zero effort whatsoever to move us toward other forms of energy generation
(despite the fact that again, our CSIRO has published a large number of studies spanning decades on the suitability of alternative sources for a significant portion of our power demands, both now and into the far future)
these fires are terrible, but the majority of these problems are not new to Australia either. we've been well on the road toward a classist, fascist dystopia for the better part of two decades for quite a while now. these fires are simply removing the band-aid that has been repeatedly slapped over the problems, while the murdoch-based media gloss over them and spend all their time stonewalling and smearing people who actually have evidence-based positions and aren't climate change deniers
good times
So far:
500 million animals have been killed
over 5 million hectares have burned (over 6x the amount of area that the california wildfires have burned)
air quality is amongst the worst in the world in Sydney (if not actual worst?)
fire season still has another 2-3 months left to go
100s of kilometres of coastline cities don't have potable water and need to boil it because of contamination due to fire - there is no failsafe or governing body that regulates this in a time of crisis, or that has ever been put in place: so people are literally communicating this information on Twitter, trying to reach as many people as they possibly can to let them know to not risk drinking unsafe water as their supply has been contaminated potentially with toxic chemicals. it's not even known if boiling it will make it safe
our current government in power is made up of religious fundamentalists who deny that climate change actually occurs, or that we need to have better preparation and responses to bushfires
majority of the media in the country is murdoch-owned, so instead of holding our right-wing religious fundamentalist, climate denying, inactive government accountable: they're busy running smear campaigns against the people who speak out against government and call for real change to act
the CSIRO (australia's national science organisation) has been publishing studies demonstrating that climate change will lead to fire seasons of increasing severity and duration for almost 3 decades. a previous government (roughly centre-left) introduced a carbon trading emissions scheme, which reduced carbon emissions in the country: and then was removed ASAP as soon as said climate-denial fundy govt. came to power a few years later.
more recently in our latest elections, one party had an extensive and well outlined proposal to increase our firefighting capacity and to tackle climate change: both locally and globally. oops, they didn't get voted in (what a surprise!)
since then they have increasingly removed citizen's rights and sought to censor the population. seeking to make protesting illegal, looking to charge whistleblowers with a crime and to impose the right for religious medical practitioners to deny care to those that do not share their faith.
our current PM declined to meet with multiple ex-fire chiefs who were all extremely worried about this upcoming fire season (on the basis of meteorological data and an ever-increasing mountain of scientific evidence of the effects of climate change on the severity of our fire seasons) and instead fucked off for a holiday
of course, murdoch media try to somehow blame a state premier for also being on holiday (even though in her same state, she had increased funding to fire prevention and containment services, and had an extra 50 fully trained firefighters along with extra equipment ready to deploy - and also, no fire in her state ((bear in mind that during fire season, there are always fires!)) was considered beyond 'advise' level. that is to say, there was no threat to communities, they were considered under control and there was no indication from weather reports or otherwise that there would be an emergency or that it would be beyond the state's firefighting capacity to contain)
in the meantime, our PM is spending his time and taxpayer money funding propaganda advertisements: and in a link he himself posted which had a length description about supporting our volunteer firefighters with donations: the donation link was actually directing funds to his political party. it was taken down after significant backlash for the trickery, but no comment on whether the funds the party had received via donations will be redirected to volunteer firefighters
despite this being the worst case of bushfires in national history, the PM refuses to declare a national emergency. what this means is that volunteer firefighters who rely on payments via the welfare system to support them/their families while they are taking months off their jobs (normally a volunteer firefighter would expect to take a week or so during a season, just in their local area) they are actually having their pay DOCKED - because they are not fulfilling their 'work requirements' in this period. if he were to declare a national emergency (as he rightly should anyway) then these volunteer firefighters who are going above and beyond to defend people's livelihood from the fires, would actually be receiving the funds they need and their families need to survive
oh and riot police dispersing teenagers who are peacefully protesting is always a fun thing to have in your country too.
also our government is set to spend $4.4B on subsidies for further fossil fuel development in the country (further increasing our emissions)
i have to fact check the next number, but apparently spends $29B per year in subsidies to fossil fuel industry as well. unclear if $29B per year, or last year, or total for the duration of a fiscal year at some point - or multiple years. just saw the report on it and have to investigate. in any case, whatever it is: our government has spent an absolute fuckload of money to subsidise fossil fuel industries while making zero effort whatsoever to move us toward other forms of energy generation
(despite the fact that again, our CSIRO has published a large number of studies spanning decades on the suitability of alternative sources for a significant portion of our power demands, both now and into the far future)
these fires are terrible, but the majority of these problems are not new to Australia either. we've been well on the road toward a classist, fascist dystopia for the better part of two decades for quite a while now. these fires are simply removing the band-aid that has been repeatedly slapped over the problems, while the murdoch-based media gloss over them and spend all their time stonewalling and smearing people who actually have evidence-based positions and aren't climate change deniers
good times
