The environmental impact of fires in Australia

Introduction

Wildfires in Australia have been and continue to be all over the news. This is a disaster of the continental level and deserves attention. However, the news coverage for this story is rather dualistic in nature and deserves its own essay. The reason for this statement is quite simple – wildfires in Australia are used by the political forces for their own reasons, which I find to be disrespectful towards the environment. Some people are using it as a sample of evidence to push the agenda, while the others are opposing it. That is why I need to tell you the truth about climate change, bushfires, and other things relevant to the issue.

Some backstory on the nature of Australia

Let’s begin with a simple thing – Australia is largely a savanna and desert. So, the vegetation in the region is naturally small and tends to dry out a lot of time because of the high temperatures that the continent is known for. So, being dry and lacking hydration, a large number of bushes are left with no leaves, which are covering the ground and drying even more. I guess you know where I am going with this. Clearly, this is one ingredient for a disaster – a whole territory that is filled with dry vegetation under the effects of extreme temperatures. Additionally, in recent years, Australia was experiencing the most extreme heat waves since the last several decades, which is naturally and truthfully attributed to climate change, although there are some other factors like the processes in the Pacific Ocean known as El Niño and its opposite, La Niña. Additionally, bushfires are not anything new for the continent; they happened before, although not that extreme.

The sides of the conflict: climate change activists and alarmists vs. climate change deniers

One side of the debate is climate activists and alarmists. It is an obvious truth that climate change is happening and it is leading to changes around the world. There is no denying that, especially considering all the academic evidence and essay examples that are available online. I stay on this page as well and believe in climate change. Still, attributing this to the changes in the environment caused by greenhouse gases alone is at least irresponsible. Just as with everything people say, there is always the other side, another point of view.

The opposing point of view is the well-known climate change deniers. This side of the argument states that there is no climate change and all the changes are but natural processes that have been occurring during the history of Earth. Partially they are right, as it is possible to easily find an academic work or essay about the history of changes in the climate that happened before. After all, at some points in Earth’s history, the levels of greenhouse gases were several times higher than now! Still, climate change deniers are wrong to set aside the effects of this time period. The reason is simple – the changes in the global ecosystem are accelerated by human activity, so the world cannot properly adjust itself.

The actual reasons and consequences of bushfires

Climate change is one of the reasons for the disaster that swept across Australia. After all, the consequently increasing median temperature implies that human activity has to do with it, no arguments against that. However, there is another side. In recent years, green activists of Australia were protesting against the controlled burning of bushfires that has the purpose of preventing what happened recently. So, the government decided to avoid the conflict of interests and stopped doing those sanitary activities. As you can see, both sides of the argument are right and wrong, mainly because dealing in absolutes never leads to anything good.

As for the consequences, they are tragic. Air and ocean pollution are probably the most obvious ones. I could boldly state that the large portion of Australia’s ecosystem will be recovering from such an environmental crisis for years, if not decades. It is also well-known that approximately half a billion animals died during the bushfires, which is a direct threat to some of the species that are unique to the continent. Also, the fires are displacing animals from their natural habitats, meaning more changes to the ecosystem.

Conclusion

The wildfires in Australia are a clear sample of both climate change and people’s blindness to the need for some measures to prevent this kind of issue because of ideological reasons. As a result, we are left with polluted air, water, a scarred ecosystem, and huge numbers of dead and displaced wildlife. Australia is a unique continent with some of the rarest species of animals on the planet and it has to be preserved.