I’ve been lamenting the normalization of apocalyptic wildfires for years in commentaries like “Wildfire Redux: California Burning … Again,” “Texas Is Burning,” and “California Burning: ‘The New Normal’?”
More to the point, in “Wildfires Rivaling Hurricanes,” I alluded to how climate change is forging a kinship between those affected by hurricanes and those affected by wildfires. Sure enough, after Hurricane Dorian devastated “my Bahamaland” last September, no people donated more generously to relief and recovery efforts than those who have suffered through wildfires.
It is in this spirit of kinship that I plead for donations to help fellow islanders Down Under with relief and recovery from this:
The outbreak of wildfires in Australia has reached a tipping point. Thousands of residents were evacuated this week, as bush fires reached the suburban fringes of Sydney, the skies turning blood-red. Coastline towns in the states of New South Wales and Victoria were consumed by the blaze, leaving thousands homeless. Many are stuck behind fire lines, trapped without power or cell service.
The Associated Press reports that 12.35 million acres of land in Australia has been burned. For comparison, the 2018 California wildfires burned less than 2 million acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
(NPR, January 5, 2020)
No doubt images of whole towns going the way of Paradise, California, are utterly heartrending. But there’s something even more so about images of the charred remains of helpless koalas and kangaroos, which are among over 500 million animals that have perished.
Thank God for the rain that fell yesterday. But iPINIONS fears its impact will be tantamount to one drop of water on the parched lips of someone dying of thirst. Indeed, nothing demonstrates Mother Nature’s feast-or-famine whimsy quite like her raining down biblical floods, tantalizingly, in nearby Indonesia …
My Australian mates assure me that the best way to help is to donate to the Red Cross and other reputable International humanitarian relief organizations.
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