My social media feeds are an outpouring of humanity and grief. Offers of spare rooms for evacuated residents, fundraisers, rage at the lack of coordination and empathy from those who command resources.

Our federal government must admit that this fire season is unprecedented and made more unpredictable by human-induced climate change—otherwise it condemns us to this being the new normal.

In this blog post, I try to not dwell for too long on the federal government's response to the bushfires, and point out the crisis is in fact unprecedented.

My conclusion is that prime minister Scott Morrison must meet immediately with former fire chiefs who have been requesting a meeting since April 2019. Share this demand on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube.

Andrea Leong at a Sydney climate and bushfire rally, 11 December 2019. From Instagram.

In the lead-up to the federal election we announced a bold and forward thinking policy to drastically increase the amount of renewables in Australia. A simple idea: ~ 800% renewables ~

Download: Submission to the Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia (PDF, 150 KB, 16 September 2019)

See all the submissions on the inquiry website.

Dr Andrea Leong is the Leader of the Science Party.

--

Despite what you might have heard, "greenies" and their supposed opposition to hazard reduction burns are unlikely to be responsible for the intensity of the current bushfires. 

Let's look at New South Wales as an example.

With approval for Adani’s Carmichael mine imminent, and a surge in support for renewable alternatives, a simple hypothetical arises:

What if the Adani mine site were covered with solar panels instead of holes?

To be clear, digging holes is part of Australian life¹, and the special dirt that comes out can help keep our nation prosperous, but while some types of this dirt will remain important into the future², some may contribute to catastrophe.³

This blog post is also shared as a video.

--

When we think of climate change, we probably think of the effect on our land, waterways and oceans, which is of course a huge aspect of climate change. That's our cultural heritage at risk; and agriculture makes up 14% of our exports, so climate stability for us is food security and economic security.

But climate change impacts our cities as well, and that's a big deal, because 90% of Australians live in cities.