Twelve Mayors of fire stricken areas, including Byron Shire’s Mayor Simon Richardson and Tweed Mayor Katie Milne, have signed a statement today ‘calling on the Australian government to acknowledge the link between climate change and the catastrophic fire conditions facing New South Wales and Queensland this week’.
They are two of 71 councils across the country which have declared a Climate Emergency.
‘If the Government doesn’t start treating this as a climate emergency, it is hard to feel confident that they will do what is necessary to address it,’ Councillor Milne said.
‘People are starting to get really frustrated and angry about this with more and more protests.
‘The government needs to act, not just lock up these people who are parents and grandparents desperately worried about the future and their children,’ she said.
Byron Shire Mayor points out that there is clear evidence for climate change and its impacts in the raging bushfires.
‘Everybody who’s involved with the bushfires are talking about climate change, the only people who aren’t talking about it are the politicians and their media supporters,’ said Mayor Richardson.
The statement has also been signed by other fire impacted councils including Bellingen, MidCoast and Noosa, as well as areas on extreme fire alert such as the Blue Mountains, Ryde, and Hawkesbury.
’It’s quite obvious that this is very different from something that we would expect on the Mid North Coast. This is a wet area that has lots of rainforest and we’re seeing them dry out and burn. It’s also quite obvious to anyone who’s been watching the discussion around climate change that this is exactly what the scientists were talking about,’ said Mayor of Bellingen, Dominic King.
All the Mayors are are calling on the government to ‘recognise the spiralling costs to the community from catastrophic fires, and provide more funding and resources for frontline services’.
I’d like to believe that the ‘call’ will be taken
& listened to… but this government is a
play-pen of yahoos. I’ve a pet lizard who
could do the job they’re paid for.
The “brand loyalty” of conservative voters, appears to have ruled beyond any rational thinking.
The big question is, What will it take to break this flawed rusted-on belief-system, and for society to finally wake up and vote for supporting life, instead of burning all life into extinction?
Sure, there’s China and USA, the huge emitters, but we can only vote for good governance in this country, and hope that beyond that, we will at least have some shaming rights over them, for change.
Never let a good crisis go to waste and the alarmists are out to push their Co2 global warming theory.
Fires have been part of the Australian landscape since forever, What did Captain Cook observe when he sailed up the east coast , LOTS OF FIRES and we are led to believe some trace gas essential for life is the cause of all this , give us a break!!
Prof Andy Pitman the Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes says,
“…as far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought.”
“…there is no reason a priori why climate change should make the landscape more arid.“
… mean while in America, an early start to Winter with record low temperatures ..doesn’t look like much of a warming trend to me.
What are your qualifications again Anton? I assume it must be relating to studies of the ecosystems and landscapes of this country over the past millenia based on your comments.
I’m glad you’ve used the opinion of a climate change scientist, even though thousands of other climate scientists and emergency responders as well as anyone with a basic grasp of science and common sense can make the correlation.
And just so you know it’s ‘climate change’ so you get extremes in both cool and warm weather. Maybe stop watching Sky News and reading Facebook posts for your news.
I have to ask you, is the world flat?
Is the World flat? well not where I am standing
Sssssshhh. Now is not the time talk about anything to do with climate. Mayors just be quiet, be good little ‘Quiet Australians’.
While Rainforest burns Richardson bulldozes it for a bypass of the bottom end of Jonson St