Recently Australia faced one of their worst bushfire seasons they’ve ever had. With the fires engulfing over 10 million hectares of Australian land, demolishing anything that stood in their paths. It is estimated that nearly 8,400 koalas have fallen prey to the fires on the mid-north coast of New South Wales and the kangaroo island in south Australia have lost 50% of their koala population. These bushfires with the on-going excessive tree-clearing for agricultural and urban development have acted as a catalyst in the decline of the koala species with only 80,000 koalas left in the wild. With the mass fires destroying most of the eucalyptus trees koalas were recently declared to be functionally extinct.
The Australian bushfires are a common event happening each year. The fires are given their own season -the fire season. The fires can take place any time during the year but the recent most fires of 2019-2020 are seen to be the worst ones. The fires are not always harmful to nature, the nature is seen to cope. The fires cause larger trees to fall leaving way to smaller trees to grow and cherish only for fires to wipe them out again, this can be called the circle of life. Which raises the question that if the fires are normal then what’s causing a problem? The answer is the “Indian ocean dipole” which is simple the difference in the temperatures of the east and west side of the Indian ocean. Which at the moment has seen the east to be cooler than average and west to be hotter than average leading the winds to flow towards Africa causing floods in Africa and droughts in Australia, yet again this is also normal. But our reckless behavior pushes climate change, more cars, more fossil fuels and more emissions have lead to a harsher environment, and a greater difference in the temperatures of the east and west of the Indian ocean. This climate change leads the trees to be dry and tinder and not damp, the fact that trees are dryer than what they should be allows the fires to spread at a more rapid pace.
Yet some people seem to ignore the fact that an impact of this scale can end up having a significant and lasting effect on all of us. The carbon dioxide released from these bushfires are so massive that glaciers in New Zealand, that are 4000 kms away from the fires are caramelizing causing the white snow to turn dark. We wear white or lighter coloured clothes in summer as these colours reflect the sunlight, the darker the colour of the snow gets the more sunlight its seen to absorb and the faster they melt. Which means that whatever carbon dioxide we release results in more glaciers melting. Costal cities such as Shanghai, Miami and Mumbai have less than 30 years left. The carbon emissions from these fires has been estimated to take a century to be naturally absorbed.
We can’t reverse what’s already happened but what we can do is help making things a little better. By making donations you can invest your money into something you know is for a better cause. You can also help by reducing your carbon footprint by following the 5 “R” S;
Refuse – single use plastic
Reduce – your purchases
Reuse – your products
Rot – your wet waste
Recycle – your dry waste
It’s the small steps that we take today that make our tomorrow, if we don’t carry out these steps now we won’t have a tomorrow. Its time for people to change, its time to start believing, climate change is real and its not waiting for us to change before it changes the face of our very earth.
The Stem Club 