• Weather

Australia’s Extreme Heat Prompts Fears of Another “Black Summer”

• Australia
• Australian fires
• biodiversity
• brush fires
• extinction

The 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season burnt more than 18 million hectares across the country, destroyed more than 2,000 homes, and claimed the lives of 34 people and about one billion animals. The devastation was gutwrenching and a wake-up call to the entire world that climate change is our greatest existential threat. Yet as fire crews […]

• Land

Australia’s Wildfire Hell Continues

• Australia
• brush fires
• climate change

To say that Australia’s massive wildfires have been unprecedented is an understatement. The world has watched in disbelief at images of people and animals fleeing for their lives as more than 200 fires have burned roughly 12 million acres. As CBS News reported, the fires have forced more than 100,000 residents and tourists to flee […]

• Weather

Extreme Weather Around the Globe: U.S. Freezing, Australia on Fire, Canada Melting

• brush fires
• extreme weather
• sea level rise

Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, is being consumed by wildfires, with the city of Sydney at risk for the first time, and the government has declared a state of emergency in the region for the next week.  Meanwhile, here in the U.S., a massive arctic front has shifted south, bringing bone-chilling cold and snow to the middle of the country today, with more than 67 million Americans are under winter weather alerts and hundreds of cold temperature records could be broken.

Why This Matters:  This is more than just uncomfortable weather — it is dangerous.  This type of “catastrophic” wildfire risk has never happened before in New South Wales — and the public is being warned not to be dismissive — with officials explaining that these conditions mean that lives are at risk.  The same is true for bitter cold here — with snow from the Dakotas to New England over the course of the week, and it is not even mid-November.