Not even catastrophes like these seem to bring any political action. How is this possible?
Because we still fail to make the connection between the climate crisis and increased extreme weather events and nature disasters like the #AustraliaFires
That's what has to change.
Now. https://t.co/DQcZViKJQz— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 22, 2019
An attempt by celebrated teen climate-change activist Greta Thunberg to blame the Australian government for devastating bushfires threatening Sydney has been rebuked by the country's leader.
Advertisement - story continues below
Thunberg wrote above a link to a news story: "Not even catastrophes like these seem to bring any political action. How is this possible? Because we still fail to make the connection between the climate crisis and increased extreme weather events and nature disasters like the #AustraliaFires. That's what has to change."
But Australia's prime minister, Scott Morrison, the Australian reported, said he didn't take office "to impress people overseas."
TRENDING: FBI agent undermines Pelosi's claim of insurrection 'incitement'
"Australia and the Australian government will set our policies based on Australia's national interests, on what Australia needs to do. That's where I keep my focus," Morrison said in response to Thunberg's tweet.
"It's not for me to make commentaries on what those outside of Australia think that Australia should do. We'll do in Australia what we think is right for Australia. And that has always been my guiding principle.
Advertisement - story continues below
"I'm not here to try to impress people overseas. I'm here to do the right job for Australians and put them first."
American Thinker Editor Thomas Lifson noted his website's Australia correspondent John McMahon cited a history of the fires by Peta-Louise Mary Credlin, an Australian political commentator and former chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Abbott :
The Black Thursday bushfires in Victoria in 1851 killed about 12 people and are thought to have destroyed five million hectares, or about twice the area burnt so far this year in NSW. The 1898 Red Tuesday bushfire, also in Victoria, killed 12 people and destroyed about 2000 buildings. Victorian bushfires across February and March 1926 killed 60 people. The 1939 Black Friday bushfires, also extending over two months, killed 71 people. In another month long Victorian bushfire emergency in 1944, nearly 20 people were killed. In February 1967, the Black Tuesday bushfire in Tasmania killed 62 people. The 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia killed 75 people and destroyed about 2500 homes. And the 2009 Black Saturday bushfire in Victoria killed 173 people and destroyed about 4500 buildings.
McMahon also quoted the second stanza of a well known Australian poem published in 1908 to demonstrate that droughts long have been a common characteristic of the island nation.
I love a sunburnt country
a land of sweeping plains
of ragged mountain ranges
of droughts and flooding rains
Advertisement - story continues below
I love her far horizons
I love her jewel sea
her beauty and her terror
the wide brown land for me