A brief look into the Australian bushfires

Olivia Wick, Reporter

The Australian bushfires: An event that has landsided into the media over the past two weeks, where celebrities have called attention to the scorching land, where people have turned a blind eye from the previously-reported Amazon fires to the opposite corner of the Earth. Even though the fires in Australia have just been blown up in the media, the bushfires have been raging since late September of 2019. 

When the media blows up in such a humongous proportion, singling out just a few of these events, many people focus on just those, and not on the fact that these fires happen every single year in Australia, meaning that these fires are not an uncommon event. Not to contrast with the extremity of the harshness and the tragic state that New South Wales is in, where most of the fires have been raging, but fires like these happen at a much milder degree every single year in Australia. It’s very important to remember that this is not an isolated event, but rather an event that has been developing for years, with only now the media calling attention to New South Wales’ tragic state. 

Scott Morrison, the current prime minister of Australia, has been the one to get the most heat from the public eye, who made the decision to not complete burn-removal of the bushes that caused the wild bush fires across four states. There had been several factors into his decision, including the factor of chance, for the emissions that came from hazard-burning bushes in advance of fire season would contribute to the country’s total emissions, even just banking off the chance that they would catch on fire. 

Even though the prime minister has caught the heat of blame in the public eye, the blame is also placed on every country, as the rise in temperature caused by their emissions has significantly played a factor in inducing these bushes to catch on fire naturally. In the meantime, the fires are still blazing, scorching the delicate ecosystems and wildlife across the country.