According to the financial press today the fires in Australia will have no impact on their overall economic performance.
A slight fall (0.1% GDP estimate) will be counteracted by a growth in infrastructure investment as people re-build.
28 people lost (I don't have figures for those injured), 2 billion wild animals and some small communities.
But the fires were almost exclusively in "economically inactive land".
Given the media attention to this fire can the consequences be so small?
Reports suggest the fires have added 400 to 450m tonnes of CO2, about the same as the annual release of CO2 coal from Australias mines.
We can do something about coal burning, but not bush fires, it seems.
Food for thought.
I dont know how true it is Peter but I have seen reports that bush fires are a frequent issue in Oz so whilst these are worse than normal, they are far from unknown. Whats more the situation has been made worse by stopping scrub clearance on land in the name of the environment and tree numbers so it has spread worse than it might otherwise have had.
It seems likely that it has happened at just the right time to be picked up by the "climate emergency" activists, which is not to say that it isnt climate affected or that there isnt an emergency. Just that the reporting has painted a picture of a one off event solely dues to the Ozzie governments policies. Bit like everything here is down to "austerity".
