The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

Swifts Creek bushfire, 14-12-2006, by Fir0002.
Via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-NC.

On New Year's Eve, I received an email from an Australian colleague today. She is home for the holidays in Melbourne and on her family's sheep farm in western Victoria.

She said there had been smaller bushfires near where her parents live, but they had been brought under control quickly. However, some friends of hers had had to take cover on the beach in eastern Victoria in order to escape the fires.

My colleague also said the she and her husband had driven to Adelaide, South Australia, recently. Temps had risen to 48C/118F while en route. Mind you, that part of Australia isn't desert--although it's somewhat dry. Think California or South Central Texas.

I loathe offering just "thoughts and prayers" when so many people and so much nature is under threat. But other than recycling better and reducing my carbon footprint, what can I do? Not to go all drama queen on you, but it feels as though the world is catching fire, climatically, politically, and socially, and there seems to be little that an individual can do to remedy it.

Perhaps, then, collectively we can do more--but that assumes that our political and business leaders are listening and understand the need to make swift, significant, unpopular changes. And that we the people will accept such changes readily. And that such changes are proposed from a place of the common good, rather than just to maintain the hegemony of government and business.