A search for balance and rationality in the bushfire debate

I’ve been seeing social media posts seeking a ‘rational voice’ in the Australian bushfire debate about ‘who is to blame’. The left attacks Scott Morrison, the right blames ‘greenies’ for prevention of back burning. There always seem to be two sides to a debate and intensifying tribalism can leave some onlookers seeking to take a step back and mediate, to try to pacify an uncomfortable emotional environment.

It seems an ever increasing trend in public discourse on Australian politics, once a debate starts to crescendo to say we need rationality, we need to avoid ‘class war’ and that the truth is somewhere in between the opposing political tribes. Traditionally this was what we were taught in school and was fairly accurate at the time. This was before the ‘Cambridge Analytica‘ era of spin, fake news and routine deployment of disinformation as a political weapon.

Outright falsities have been pedalled on both sides, sometimes for profit (e.g, claims that firefighter Paul Parker who cursed Scott Morrison and then collapsed was sacked for dissent). However, voices defending Scott Morrison are relying almost entirely on misinformation, generally pitched without any credible evidence or eloquence, not leaving much scope for a ‘rational’, happy middle ground. Placing blame on ‘greenies’ for preventing pre-emptive hazard reduction burning has been routine during bushfires for decades (see this article from 2013), but the facts do not support this view. This is not ludicrous like Trump blaming Californian fires of 2018 on the governor preventing firefighters from accessing water, but the Australian conservatives are reading from the same playbook. A new conspiracy theory emerging is that the unique scale of this fire catastrophe is due to ‘serial arson‘. There are substantial forces who have decided to permeate such rumours using digital scammery, with troves of ‘fake news’ posts generated by bots on twitter. This serves to sew doubt and confusion where the situation is actually quite clear in some key respects.

Thousands of bushfires start in Australia every year with historical causes of ignition including: 13% confirmed arson, 37% potential arson, 35% accidents involving campfires, back-burning and machinery, with only 6% typically due to lightning strikes. These ignitions are inevitable but the unprecedented scale of burn this year is due to extreme dryness during winter and intense heat that began in spring. The dryness is due to an exacerbation of the Indian Ocean Dipole climate phenomenon, which occurs more often now than it did historically, due to global warming. This causes more rain in the western ocean, and less on the eastern side (Australia). So the bush in 2019 – even in winter – was bone dry and ready to ignite, and spread like … wildfire.

To add to this, 2019 has been the hottest and driest year on record, and with a warm dry winter, experts warned and feared a long and harsh bushfire season. This warning was not a lucky guess by some fringe group that seemed prescient only in hindsight. The risk was well known and understood in the mainstream of fire strategy and reported in popular media. Fire chiefs lobbied early in 2019 for measures including Australia’s own fleet of water bombing planes. The opposition, the Australian Labour Party included such measures in their election promises.

Scott Morrison is not to blame personally for climate change or the increasing frequency of an Indian Ocean Dipole. But much of his action and inaction before and after the fires has been far below the standards we should expect from a Prime minister (shockingly Alan Jones agrees!). He certainly has done everything in his power to prevent any progress on tackling climate change, including ousting his former party leader due to differences of opinion on climate change and same sex marriage. Technically, his personal influence as national leader for 16 months on the overall warming of the earth would be a small fraction of 1%.

Scott Morrison is to blame for failing to meet with fire chiefs or provide additional resources to the firefighting effort in time for them to be effective. Why would he act so contrary to the nation’s interest? Because any admission of such a risk, or of the existence of climate change is ‘off message‘, unpopular with his base, his party, and counter to the interests of his fossil fuel donors. As the crisis began he sought to divert attention, change the subject, arrested peaceful protesters, and reduced his opportunity for leadership and response by taking an inopportune holiday. Whilst the need for a break from work is understandable, the leaders of countries have different obligations to the average worker.

Scott Morrison’s ties to the coal lobby are well established, and for the remainder of his time in power he will most likely do everything in his power to continue to hamper national and global efforts to tackle climate change. He will hope that Australia forgets it’s rage and anger, and that this passion turns to numbness before the next election. And he will pray that his current intense unpopularity does not provoke his party to attempt yet another ‘spill’.

It is hard to know how much of a better outcome would have been possible had more fire fighting resources been allocated sooner. However, the response of Scott Morrison to downplay, disappear, disinform and deny is unquestionably unstatesmanlike and categorically not what we want in a national leader. A catastrophe like this inevitably raises awareness of issues surrounding climate change because it brings to light real physical consequences of climate change, much more fathomable than abstract concepts like a mean temperature increase of 1 degree (which sounds on face value unremarkable). Given that the Liberal party have been climate change deniers and skeptics for decades, it is absolutely in their interest to do everything possible to create division and confusion to distract from the cause of the unprecedented proliferation of fires this season. Links with climate change are absolutely undeniable, and you will find no credible source anywhere saying anything emphatically contrary. I only hope that the Australian public, and the rest of the world looking on in horror, will not forget this and no longer stand by and allow public discourse to tolerate giving ‘fair and rational’ credence to points of view that do not deserve our attention whatsoever.

PS: I have included credible references for nearly all of my claims, from reputable sources, including a top tier scientific journal, international and local left and right leaning publications.