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| a homeless koala receives first aid |
It may seem a bit ridiculous to focus on the death toll of koalas as the wildfires in New South Wales and Queensland rage out of control. Amid the human deaths and property destruction, wild habitat that was already dwindling and fragmented, is being destroyed; about 12 million acres have burned with no end soon. The iconic Australian mammal has also been devastated. An estimated one-third of their habitat north of Sydney has been destroyed and thousands of them have perished in the flames. WWF estimated last year there were only 20,000 koalas living in the wild, and they are on course for extinction due to habitat loss by 2050. Their plight has gotten seriously worse since the wildfires have killed about a third of them.
Human victims in Cobargo, NSW are angry at authorities for what they see as a lack of concern for their plight trying to survive in
a literal hell on Earth. Perhaps these suffering thousands should be forgiven if they believe the end times are upon them.
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| credit: NYT |
The conservative political leadership of the nation is in a state of denial- for-profit about
the impact of climate change on Australia's seasonal wildfires. The current disaster is unprecedented in ferocity and length, primarily due to
a heatwave that has broken all records, drying vegetation to incendiary levels. Prime Minister Morrison's response to the undeniable connection between warming and wildfires is to attack environmental activists with incendiary rhetoric saying in a November speech, that there is a “new breed of radical activism” that is “apocalyptic in tone” and "brooks no compromise". He pledged to suppress
boycotts aimed at the country's coal mining industry. “We are working to identify mechanisms that can successfully outlaw
these indulgent and selfish practices that threaten the livelihoods of
fellow Australians, especially in rural and regional areas..." US Person thinks indulgent and selfish certainly does not describe in Morrison's lexicon the needless exploitation of wild habitat for profit that
may lead to the extinction of the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus).
