“In a country where there has always been more space than people, where the land and wildlife are cherished like a Picasso, nature is closing in”.
In particular, bushfires are:
“…forcing Australians to imagine an entirely new way of life. When summer is feared. When air filters hum in homes that are bunkers, with kids kept indoors. When birdsong and the rustle of marsupials in the bush give way to an eerie, smoky silence”.
Nature fights back:
“What many of us have witnessed this fire season does feel alive, like a monstrous gathering force threatening to devour what we hold most dear on a continent that will grow only hotter, drier and more flammable as global temperatures rise”.
And the fear. Hanging in the air like ashes in the wind:
“Last month in Cobargo, a dairy and horse town six hours’ drive from Sydney, I stood silently waiting for the start of an outdoor funeral for a father and son who had died in the fires a few weeks earlier. When the wind kicked up, everyone near me snapped their heads toward where a fire burned less than a mile away”.
A new normal raises its head, takes a quick peep, ducks back down when it spots Scott Morrison:
“It’s no wonder that all across the area, known as the South Coast, the streets in summer have looked closer to the quiet found in winter. Perhaps, some now say, that’s how it should be.
“We should no longer schedule our summer holidays over the Christmas season,” Professor Eckersley said. “Maybe they should be in March or April.”
“Certainly, we should rethink when and whether we go to all the places in the summer where we might be trapped,” she added.
Smoke and fire as a source of change:
“Smoke may be more of a catalyst than flame. For much of the summer, a fog of soot has smothered Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. In Sydney alone, there were 81 days of hazardous, very poor or poor air quality last year, more than the previous 10 years combined. And until the recent rains, the smell of smoke often returned”.
And to wrap up: every article requires at least one moron, for “balance”:
“Near a bus stop, I met Bob Gallagher, 71, a retired state employee with thick white hair. He felt strongly that the criticism of Mr. Morrison for not doing enough about climate change was unfair.
“The first thing the government needs to do is run the economy,” Mr. Gallagher said. “I just don’t understand what these climate change people want.”
Not to die maybe?
[Epic cover photo: Matthew Abbott for the New York Times—this photo will win prizes]