Bushfires Down Under pose threat to life, cricket & community
By Tanya Aldred
Awful news from our cricketing cousins in Australia, where wild fires are once again burning across the country.
Extremely hot, dry and windy conditions are fuelling the flames, mostly in Victoria but also in the eucalyptus forests of New South Wales, with one person dead and approximately 350,000 hectares of land already burned. A state of emergency has been declared in Victoria.
As well as the extreme danger to life, homes, vegetation and animals from the fire, smoke affects air quality over a large region, dangerous especially for children, the elderly, pregnant women and anyone trying to exercise outside.
It was only a few years ago, during the Black Summer of 2019-20, that Australia was ablaze for months from the worst bush fires in its history. The Sydney horizon turned orange, then black, and flames licked the outer suburbs, a Sheffield Shield game was played through heavy smoke, and cricket from the Big Bash to U11 games was cancelled.
The landscape was devastated - 33 lives lost, 19 million hectares of land burnt, three billion animals impacted -and there been little chance to recover either ecologically or on a human level from the stress and trauma. Now it is happening again.
Although individual fires cannot be directly attributed to climate change, the fossil-fuelled weather has increased the likelihood of weather conditions in which bush fires thrive.
“Our emissions are causing worsening heatwaves and fire weather in particular,” said Dr Andrew King, a climate scientist from the University of Melbourne. “The longer we delay real action to greatly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we can expect even more intense heatwaves and fire weather for years to come.”
Cricket lovers around the world suffer as the climate crisis deepens. Cricket authorities do not pump for oil, but they can make change - reduce their carbon footprints, say no to fossil fuel sponsors and help build resilience at international and grass roots levels. The Hit for Six report has a wealth of recommendations, if there were only a combined will to put them into action.
