Halfway across the world from one another, millions were watching as their worlds crumbled.
Sydney, Australia and San Juan, Puerto Rico are nearly 9,900 miles from one another. One is in the southern hemisphere, one in the northern. Both are in tropical climates but, more than that, both have recently fallen victim to natural disasters. Puerto Rico was hit with a magnitude 6.4 earthquake on January 7th, one of the largest quakes to hit it in a century. For the most part, earthquakes with a magnitude between 6 and 7 on the Richter scale are said to cause extreme amounts of damage (costing in the billions of dollars) and often leading to some loss of life. Hundreds of thousands of injuries have already been reported with at least one casualty. The earthquakes hit again and again, within hours of one another, for over a week. Residents, especially in rural areas, find themselves without electricity or access to clean water.
Across the globe, Australia is ravaged by fires. Already 33 are confirmed dead and more than 38,500 square miles have been burned. Thousands of homes have been destroyed. To put this in perspective: by January 7th, the fires had burned 80 times more area than had all of the 2019 California wildfires combined. If this land area were to be superimposed on the surrounding Denver area, it would span from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Pueblo.
Most of the burn has been around the coast of New South Wales (the province in the southeast of the country), Victoria just south of there, and Kangaroo Island in South Australia. While the capital of Sydney has been surrounded by the fires, many have also broken out in the northeastern region of Queensland.
The fires, though, affect more than just houses and crops. There are an estimated 1 billion animals dead, and that excludes bat, frog, insect, and invertebrate populations. If they can escape in time, most animals have difficulties finding new habitats. The influx of migrating animals often creates resource strains as well. The fires create long-lasting issues with original habitats too - by burning through grasslands and brush, they dramatically change landscapes. Fire-ravaged areas are cleared of the flora that hides prey, making them vulnerable to the likes of big cats, foxes, and birds of prey.
Some of the species placed most in danger have included the green carpenter bee, glossy black parrot, dunnart, pouched frog, regent honeyeater, long-footed potoroo, and the brush-tailed rock-wallaby, most of which were already species that wildlife experts were keeping a close eye on. The koala went from vulnerable to endangered, and most of the affected koala populations included the few left not suffering from chlamydia. The maps below help illustrate the dangerous concentration of fires in areas with the most species considered “threatened.”
The fires are expected to continue at least until February. As we continue to consider the implications of such a fact, it is also important to note the causes of it too. Australia suffered its hottest summer or record in 2019 and the culprit comes as no surprise: climate change. As humans have continued to abuse the planet it has warmed, and warmed, and warmed; the fires are just the latest example of the consequences of ignoring the fact for so long. Earthquakes are not attributable to what we deem “global warming,” but the fracking which produces the natural gasses connected with CO₂ emissions has also been a root cause of their increasing frequency.
It shouldn’t take over two dozen deaths for climate injustice to make headlines. As it is, it should be the last straw spurring us all to definitive action.