Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Climate scientists have expressed their dismay that Aussie politicians are not treating this year’s awful bushfire season as a wakeup call for climate action.

Leading scientists condemn political inaction on climate change as Australia ‘literally burns’

Climate experts ‘bewildered’ by government ‘burying their heads in the sand’, and say bushfires on Australia’s east coast should be a ‘wake-up call’

Lisa Cox
Sat 7 Dec 2019 06.00 AEDT
Last modified on Sat 7 Dec 2019 06.03 AEDT

Leading scientists have expressed concern about the lack of focus on the climate crisis as bushfires rage across New South Wales and Queensland, saying it should be a “wake-up call” for the government.

Climate experts who spoke to Guardian Australia said they were “bewildered” the emergency had grabbed little attention during the final parliamentary sitting week for the year, which was instead taken up by the repeal of medevac laws, a restructure of the public service, and energy minister Angus Taylor’s run-in with the American author Naomi Wolf.

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Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist with the University of NSW’s Climate Change Research Centre, said she was “surprised, bewildered, concerned” that the emergency had prompted little discussion from political leaders this week.

“Here we are in the worst bushfire season we’ve ever seen, the biggest drought we’ve ever had, Sydney surrounded by smoke, and we’ve not heard boo out of a politician addressing climate change,” she said.

“They dismissed it from the outset and haven’t come back to it since.

“They’re burying their heads in the sand while the world is literally burning around them and that’s the scary thing. It’s only going to get worse.”

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/07/leading-scientists-condemn-political-inaction-on-climate-change-as-australia-literally-burns

The reason, of course, is just like in the USA the Aussie bushfires are a forest mismanagement issue, not a climate change issue.

Government hostility towards back burning and harsh treatment of farmers who try to manage fire risk has led to a catastrophic buildup of fuel load in the Aussie bush, and now that accumulated fuel load is burning. Big surprise.

In my opinion Climate scientists who try to take advantage of a problem which is obviously not climate related are simply exposing their activism and lack of objectivity.