Watching a Big Island Burn
What do we have to learn from the environmental disasters in Australia? Dr Anjani Ganase, coral reef ecologist, who studied and worked at the University of Queensland, reviews the timeline to extinction. The fires in Australia are examples of the abrupt and severe consequences of human induced changing climate. According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, 2019 has been the hottest (1.5 C above average) and driest year (40 % less than the average rainfall) on record; their data goes back to 1910. The fire season is longer and more severe than ever; bush fires started since spring in September and have yet to ease. Along the eastern and southern parts of the country, over 100,000 square kilometres of land have burned. This area is equivalent to the size of Cuba, the largest Caribbean island. The Australian bushfires are the most obvious among the environmental disasters that are the result of the climate getting drier and hotter. Most severely impacted are fra...