Today, I resumed office after a long year-end holiday. It was at least pleasing to see one of my friends in the empty office. He is from Australia and he recently travelled from Sydney. With curiosity, I asked him about the ‘burning Australia’ and his first statement was – “The situation is alarming!!”
Recently we all were talking about the Amazon burning and how the lungs of the earth are damaging. We all had talks and it went into silence, and from the earth west coast to east coast – Australia is burning.
If you look at the scale of this fire, 19 people have been reported dead till date, more than 1200 homes are destroyed, 5.5 million hectares (13.5 Million acres) land is burnt, the possibility of more than half-billion animals have got killed and cities are covered under the blanket of smoke. Around 70 meters high flames are observed, more than the height of Sydney’s famous Opera House which is 65 meters high.
These fire are not new for Australia. They happen usually in summer with rising temperature and maybe by flashes of lightning. They are there for a long time, but this time the situation is different. These fires are gradually demonising. If you look at the graph since 1900, the death toll is continuously rising and the scale of these fires are getting worst day by day. Temperature is continuously rising across the globe. The situation is alarming!! Somewhere this is linked to so-called Global Warming, pollution and effect of our actions.
It’s time for us, not only to think but to act and bring the change in ourselves. I am not talking about the massive transformation of the country but just changing personal behaviour. Small things such as
- Reducing the waste
- Reducing the use of plastic and non-bio-degradable products
- Reusing what we can and
- Planting and a caring at-least couple of trees
If you do this, it will be a small step for us but a giant step for mankind.
Organizations, corporates, governments, politicians and leaders – its time to take note of these natural indications and take action- otherwise it will be too late for us to save the planet.
Sources:
- This one is great to imagine the scale of this fire – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-50951043
- The Telegraph – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/australia-burning-bushfires-bad/
- New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/world/australia/sydney-fires.html
It is the time to take a pause, think and take action…