According to the Guardian, the birds have learned to imitate the fire sirens.

The Australian magpie, voted bird of the year by Guardian Australia readers in 2017, is well known for mimicking the sounds it hears most frequently, such as dogs and car alarms.

Australia is not a preview. It is not a glimpse of the future. It is not a cautionary tale. Australia is a climate disaster, ongoing and in real time. The future, in Australia, is now. Again, from the Guardian:

Smoke still hung thick over the south-east of the country on Wednesday evening, even as weather conditions offered a reprieve to take stock of the destruction. On Wednesday afternoon, authorities in New South Wales and Victoria said another five people were confirmed dead, and another man presumed dead. They warned the death toll was likely to continue to rise.

At Malua Bay, on the NSW south coast, survivors spoke of how 1,000 people spent the night on the beach in a bid to seek shelter from the flames. “Everyone was on the beach, just covered in ash and smoke,” Al Baxter, the former Wallaby, told Guardian Australia. “There was a strange calmness. People were as close to the water’s edge as they could [be]. People were literally just lying on the beach trying to keep out of the smoke and ash.

This is the world we are leaving to the future. Australia is our first gift to our posterity.

The nature and scale of this bushfire season in Australia is unprecedented. Scientists have cited the lack of moisture in the landscape – following years of drought – as a key reason the fires have been so severe. Intense heat, dry conditions and strong winds have created conditions where the fire risk is considered extreme or catastrophic. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, at a reception for the Australian and New Zealand cricket sides at Kirribilli House, acknowledged the fires were “a time of great challenge for Australia”. Morrison reiterated comments from a New Year comment piece that focused on the resilience of communities and deflected debate about the underlying cause of the fires.

Lord, even there, with the country burning down, politicians must “deflect debate” on why the country is burning down. (Morrison is hearing it from his constituents.) As for this country, in which California and the West could easily stand in for New South Wales, the fires are barely making the news and, when they do, it’s as set decoration for koala rescues and cool videos. The fact is this has been going on for six weeks now and it shows no sign of abating. A half-billion animals are estimated to have been killed in these fires. It’s going to get harder to deflect that old debate. From The New York Times:

Australia is normally hot and dry in summer, but climate change, which brings more frequent and longer periods of extreme heat, worsens these conditions and makes vegetation drier and more likely to burn. The country recently concluded its driest spring on record. That was followed in mid-December by the hottest day on record, with average highs across the country of 41.9 degrees Celsius (107.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

Polls show a large majority of Australians view climate change as an urgent threat and want stronger government action to combat it. The catastrophic fire conditions have put an intense focus on the Australian government’s failure to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which traps heat when released into the atmosphere and contributes to global warming. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a conservative, has made it clear that Australia’s economic prosperity comes first. Even as his country burned, he has said repeatedly that it is not the time to discuss climate policy.

Jesus. Humans. Boy, I dunno.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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