People Are Wonderful

The Devastation

March is the beginning of Autumn in Australia. However, judging by our temperatures, it would be fair to think that we were still in the summer season. Today is the third of March and the temperature currently in Brisbane is thirty-three degrees Celsius. For those using the Fahrenheit scale, that is over ninety-one degrees. Our 2019/20 Summer has been the second hottest on record, and a season during which we have experienced our worst wild fires ever.

These fires started in Spring, became more severe during Summer and have only recently been extinguished with the help of much needed rain. Australia has been in drought now for several years.

Over one thousand five hundred homes have been destroyed, twenty-three people have lost their lives directly due to the fires, and there have been billions of wildlife deaths and injuries.

Eastern Australia is a fire prone area and the predominant species of trees in the area, Eucalyptus, have evolved to thrive on the phenomenon of bush fires. The Australian Aboriginals had controlled fire burns to manage the land. But the fires we have recently experienced were totally out of control. Thousands of volunteer fire fighters were involved in efforts to extinguish the flames. Millions of hectares of bush have been burnt.

For weeks east coast cities and towns, including the capitals Sydney and Brisbane, were choking on the thick smoke from the bushfires. In addition to the smoke there was dense red dust blown from Australia’s red centre because the country had been so dry. Light rain left red mud on car windscreens and elsewhere. This dust even blew as far as New Zealand, a distance of around four thousand kilometres across the Tasman Sea.

People Are Wonderful

In addition to the incredible effort of the thousands of volunteer fire fighters who persevered day after day in fighting the fires, people from all walks of life throughout the country assisted in any way they could.

Through these devastating fires we have seen the very best of our human qualities on display.

Donations of blankets, clothes, food and water came flooding into the areas affected by the fires so quickly and to such an extent that there were public announcements to stop sending them. The logistics of storing these items and in getting them distributed to those in need became a problem that could not be handled. People were asked instead to donate money. And, this they did!

Comedian Celeste Barber ran an online fundraising campaign which raised in excess of thirty-three million dollars. Millions more has come from other private donors and fundraising campaigns. In total over five hundred million dollars has been raised.

People had offered free housing to many who had lost their homes.

Sandwiches, meals and drinks delivered by individuals, magically arrived at fire fronts for the volunteer fire fighters.

Organised groups also became involved in the food distribution.

A Jewish community group known as, “Our Big Kitchen” hosted more than two hundred fire fighters daily with meals. A group of Sikhs drove from Melbourne, a distance of over seven hundred kilometres, to the New South Wales town ravaged by the fires. There they distributed over three hundred and fifty boxes of food and water.

Mittens, pouches and more were knitted throughout the world to assist koalas and other Australian wildlife affected by the fires.

These many acts of kindness and compassion gave me “warm fuzzies” about humankind. People I believe are essentially good, many are wonderful.

Grant and Donation Difficulties

Unfortunately, many who have lost their homes and businesses from the summer of fires are yet to receive any financial help from the money raised privately or from the government. This is in spite of the federal government weeks ago promising immediate help to fire victims. It seems that book-work involved in obtaining funds is so complicated that even Accountants are having difficulty accessing the funds. There are also rules with regard to registered charities that have received donations making it difficult for them to distribute the funds.

Where to From Here

The suffering goes beyond those who have lost everything. Businesses, especially those in rural areas, are not making sales. People do not have work and are not receiving pay.

Australians have a reputation for being resilient, and hopefully at some future date we will bounce back. But, in the meantime it will be a struggle.

Government Inaction

Australian fire chiefs have been warning the federal government for years about the potential looming crisis. No pre-emptive effective actions were taken. Our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, even decided to take a secret holiday in Hawaii with his family, whilst the country was burning.

We have some dinosaurs in positions of power in the government, who still are climate change deniers and want to establish new coal mines in the country.

The Future Goes Beyond The Current Term of the Government

Businesses and people generally know that climate change is real and that the fires we have had recently may in fact be a part of the new normal. The positive response from people, not just in Australia but throughout the world, to our recent crisis, helps me believe that we will find a way through future problems in spite of the tardy responses of this government.

We all need a long term future, not just a future for the remainder of the term the current party is in office.

I do not know how we can obtain intelligent long term future planning when we have people in power whose only concern seems to be obtaining popular support to get re-elected.

And, this problem is not just restricted to Australia. Our friends across the Pacific ocean in the United States of America, have an even greater problem with the destructive policies and actions of those currently in power in that country.

As I have already said, most people I believe are essentially good. Hopefully the majority of this world’s population also realise that we can not keep going the way we are and survive. Some things have got to change.

One of those things is the attitude of some governments and their leaders.

Perhaps it is time for caring intelligent people universally to garner greater support for the people who do really care about the future of this planet. Thank-you Greta Thunberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and others for the significant contributions you are making.