Australia: A Once Flourishing Environment

By: Joseph Chlestos

It is not a new concept that the Earth is being affected by climate change; however, for Australia it is a harsher reality than for other states across the world, as it is not just a country, but also a continent. From July 2019 until March 2, 2020, Australia had “‘active brush or grass fires.’”[1] Accordingly, Australia faced more than 240 days of wildfires, that left up to one billion animals affected, along with at least twenty-eight people dead, and 3,000 homes destroyed.[2] Along with up to one billion animals affected, including birds, reptiles, and mammals, the wildfires also destroyed nearly 18,000,000 acres of land.[3]  In an interview with CNN, Dieter Hochuli, an environmental professor at the University of Sydney, Hochuli stated “‘[t]he scale of these fires is unprecedented.’”[4] As a result of the 2019-2020 wildfires that struck Australia, the Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, stated, “Nearly a third of all koalas in [New South Wales] have died and about a third of their habitat has been destroyed.”[5] Another species that was drastically affected were Wombats, as they cannot handle heat and stress, and to make matters worse, they cannot run far distances, thus are likely victims for wildfires.[6] Although up to one billion animals were affected with Australia’s most recent wildfires, what is an extreme matter of concern are species that live in niche environments that “may have been wiped out entirely; these include the eastern bristlebird, the mountain pygmy possum and the corroboree frog.”[7]

[A]nimals' recovery depends not only on their population size, but also on the condition of their habitat. For instance, plants grow slower in high-altitude alpine regions, meaning it could be a very long time before species are able to return. Sometimes, even if a habitat heals, the animals don't come back. In 1993, a fire in NSW's Royal National Park wiped out the greater gliders -- a type of lemur-like gliding marsupial -- that lived there.[8]

Only time will time the real implications of the recent events of these wildfires in Australia.

Another key environment which has more of a global impact that has been deteriorating in Australia is the Great Barrier Reef. A significant fact most people are unaware of is that “[o]cean plants produce up to 85% of the oxygen in the air we breathe.”[9] Given the importance reefs have on the world, reefs only “cover less than 1% of the sea floor and are fragile. Stressful conditions cause the coral animals to eject the algae that live in them, a process called bleaching, which makes them vulnerable to disease, parasites, and death.”[10] Typically bleaching events were a natural occurrence that would happen every twenty-five to thirty years; however, “bleaching events are now happening every six years.”[11] A key question is – Why is this happening?

At local levels, humans can cause bleaching by polluting the water with runoff from agriculture or sewage from cities. On a global scale, the oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat that Earth's atmosphere has trapped due to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases, which come from burning fossil fuels. As the seas absorb heat and carbon dioxide, they become warmer and more acidic, conditions that can cause bleaching and make it harder for reefs to recover after a bleaching event.[12]

In response, “[m]any researchers think that by taking steps to rapidly cut emissions and eliminate local stressors like pollution, we may still be able to protect these environments or restore them enough so that they have a shot at recovery.”[13]

Dr. Zoe Richards, a Coral Scientist, has been studying the Great Barrier Reef’s Lizard Island since 2011.[14] During her study, “[i]n 2017 she saw ‘mass destruction of the reef’. Back-to-back mass bleaching in 2016 and 2017, and cyclones in 2014 and 2015, had wreaked havoc.”[15] Dr. Richards said “in January, she saw thousands of new colonies of fast-growing Acropora corals that had ‘claimed the space’ left by dead and degraded corals. In a three-year window without spiraling heat or churning cyclones, some corals were in an adolescent bloom – not mature enough to spawn, but getting close.”[16]  She went on to state, “‘[i]t was an incredible recovery’ . . . ‘[b]ut I knew if it was hit again, it would be terrible – and that’s exactly what happened.’”[17] Unfortunately, recently in 2020, mass bleaching returned to the reef in the Lizard Island section, which was enough to “turn the clock back on the recovery” that Dr. Richards had witnessed.[18] When asking if the Great Barrier Reef can be fixed, the answer some scientists suggest is that governments around the world need to make deeper cuts to greenhouse gas emissions than they have already agreed.[19]

The answer seems clear, we need to reduce climate change, and the way we do that is through the reduction of greenhouse gases. There are movies that show the world fixing itself, such as: The Day After Tomorrow. The movie depicts how the world rebounds, after its climate is drastically affected. Well recently the world has faced a pandemic that no one in our lifetime has witnessed. As a result of this pandemic, the world is now at a standstill and there are numerous news reports that the air pollution all around the world is drastically deceasing and is visible from satellites in space. This is something that I did not think was accomplishable. What will be interesting to see is how the last month of the world being “stopped” will affect the climate over the next year and the years to follow. Even though this is only one event, if climate change is not addressed at a global level after we recover from the Coronavirus pandemic, recent events in Australia will just a part of a larger issue that may not be able to be fixed.

#Chlestos #Australia #Coronavirus #Wildfire #climatechange

[1] Jack Guy, After more than 240 days, Australia’s New South Wales is finally free from brushfires, CNN (Mar. 3, 2020, 6:39 AM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/03/australia/new-south-wales-fires-extinguished-scli-intl/index.html.

[2] Id.

[3] Jessie Yeung, Millions of animals are dying from the Australian fires, and the environment will suffer for years to come, CNN (Jan. 8, 2020, 7:42 PM), https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/07/australia/australia-fire-wildlife-deaths-intl-hnk-scli/index.html.

[4] Id.

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.

[8] Id.

[9] Kevin Loria, The world’s oceans are in even worse shape than we thought, Business Insider (Jan. 5, 2018, 4:38 PM), https://www.businessinsider.com/new-studies-show-oceans-losing-oxygen-rapid-coral-bleaching-2018-1.

[10] Id.

[11] Id.

[12] Id.

[13] Id.

[14] Graham Readfearn, Rescuing the Great Barrier Reef: how much can be saved, and how can we do it? The Guardian (Apr. 4, 2020, 4:00 PM), https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/05/rescuing-the-great-barrier-reef-how-much-can-be-saved-and-how-can-we-do-it.

[15] Id.

[16] Id.

[17] Id.

[18] Id.

[19] Id.