Sydney has finally caught up with other world cities — the ones with unbreathable air. With bushfires ringing the city, we now have air quality worse than Delhi, Beijing and Mumbai.
The famous Opera House is hardly visible through the thick haze of smoke. Ferries have been cancelled. In offices, smoke alarms blare constantly. In my suburb, senior citizens labour up the road to the shops, clutching hankies to their mouths. In the centre, office workers wear breathing masks.
While radio-presenting, I felt so nauseous I brought a bucket into the studio in case of vomiting. I told my listeners and was rewarded with stories of them dry-retching in cars, bent double with asthma, or being felled by migraines.
Liam Gallagher said the smoke made the city feel “spooky”. Actually, “biblical” might be a better word — with eerie red sunsets that look like the end of time.
One thing, though, is more bizarre than our haze-filled skies: Australia’s politicians don’t seem to have noticed.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has offered “thoughts and prayers” but declined to discuss fire-related issues. For instance: climate change. Or whether Australia’s defence force needs a fire-fighting capacity. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack attacked “inner-city lunatics” obsessed with climate change, saying people “don’t need the ravings of woke capital city greenies when they’re trying to save their homes”.
The message from our leaders is: it’s all in hand. Australia has always had fires. It will be all right in the end. Citizens — and volunteer firefighters — are not so sure. So far the fires have destroyed more than 700 homes and killed six people. They’ve been earlier, larger and longer-lasting than ever.
“Unprecedented” could be our word of the year. There are the unprecedented fish deaths in our inland rivers; the unprecedented level-one fire warning for Sydney; the unprecedented day of blazes in every state and territory.
Yet Australia’s politicians struggle to act. Climate-change deniers sit in the party room of the conservative coalition. They killed off the last prime minister, and the current incumbent is loath to give them a second chance.
Labor, meanwhile, is tied to the mining unions — enthusiasts for coal. Even the Greens have baggage: a decade ago they knocked back a compromise that would have delivered lower emissions.
Why do we accept such a failure of leadership? The most dispiriting explanation is that Australians often vote in winter, by which time they’ve forgotten about the travails of summer.
This time, though, is surely different. A political message seeps through every door and window. Every breath now comes with an insistent warning. When it comes to global warming, it’s time for Australia to be a leader, not a laggard.
Richard Glover presents Drive on ABC Radio Sydney
