Front Burner - Life inside Australia’s devastating wildfires

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Australia's eastern coast has been ravaged by wildfires that have killed at least 25 people, decimating precious ecosystems, and left an estimated 500 million animals dead. Today on Front Burner we hear from someone who knows what it’s like to see the sky burn orange and watch ash drop like rain. Jessica Friedmann, author of Things That Helped, hales from Braidwood, a small town in New South Wales, Australia. She’s written about her family’s experience with the wildfires. We speak to her today about why this wildfire season is so devastating and how she feels the government should be responding.

This is a CBC Podcast. in my life. I couldn't see. The smoke was so thick. I've lived here since I was four years old. I've never seen anything like this before. We're alive and that's pretty much it. It looks like an apocalypse. Australia is on fire and it has been for many, many weeks now. The country's eastern coast has been ravaged by wildfires, killing at least 25 people, decimating precious ecosystems, and leaving an estimated 500 million, half a billion animals dead. We're not getting in very many animals that are injured. It's because they're mostly dead. I'm hearing stories from the Rural Fire Service about hundreds, hundreds of wallabies just seen in piles dead. Today I'm speaking with someone who knows what it's like to see

the sky burn orange and watch ash drop like rain. Jessica Friedman is an author from Braidwood, a small town in New South Wales, Australia. She's written about her family's experience and we've reached her today in Melbourne to hear her thoughts on climate change, on why this wildfire season is so devastating and how she feels the government should be responding. This is FromBurn. Hi Jessica, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. Thank you for having me. So I know that while so many of us were celebrating the holidays, you and your family were just simply figuring out how to survive. Take me there. What was it like to be surrounded by these bushfires?

The first thing I feel as though I need to say is that we were very lucky. We live in town, in a little town in New South Wales called Braidwood, and there's a main street and a couple of blocks of houses where we are, and there's a lot of farms and rural properties and tiny hamlets where people have little houses on acres of bushland. So in terms of survival, you know, we were always assured that our house would probably be fine. A few friends' places have burned down completely. I'm sorry to hear that. It's just, it's pretty exhausting.

One of them had been hand-built over 30 years and now they're starting again from scratch. Wow. But the evacuation centre was set up in our town. So the main issue for us has been, as various fire fronts burn nearby, that there is risk of structural fire from embers and hot ash falling from the sky that we just always need to be alert against. Those in the areas of Bombay, Little Bombay, and surrounding areas west of Braidwood

are being told to take shelter as it's too late to leave. And, you know, you mentioned that your family was lucky. I think that the most recent numbers we have right now are 25 people who have lost their lives in these fires. Yeah, it's fairly bleak. It's in a way, again, sounds awful, but that is lucky. In the Black Saturday fires of 2009, it was a lot higher of a number. We have completed the identification of the 173 persons reported missing. I think this is a once-in-a-lifetime fire.

God willing, we don't see another one. Because the advice back then was to give people a choice, to either evacuate or to stay and defend. And a lot of people throughout Australia's history have successfully defended their properties against bushfire, but fire patterns have changed and those fires burned much, much hotter than anyone could have predicted.

So now people are being told to evacuate as soon as the danger becomes too high. Right, and they're not being given a choice. Well, no. It's hard to say to somebody, you know, there's no consequence. Nobody's going to jail if they don't evacuate. But the fire service is telling everyone to get out now because we all learned as children about fighting fires. They just don't apply anymore. The Inferno is now forcing the largest peacetime evacuation ever. And for the first time, the country calling up 3000 military reserves to battle the raging wildfires. We cannot guarantee your safety at present. Can you tell me how the fires this year

are different than previous fires that you've seen? You know, you mentioned 2009. Bushfires in Australia are not new. No, they're actually part of our ecology. Before colonisation, they were managed by cultural burning, which is a passion of burns, kind of a mosaic passion, during which Indigenous people set grass fires, which smouldered and gave wildlife a chance to flee and germinated plants like haikia that need an intense

smoke or fire in order to actually come alive. Our bush is designed for fire but that has become what the problem is. There's more and more mining, there's more and more animal agriculture, and there's less and less care taken in logging, which has been a major concern for activists. What it means is that our bushland is not being managed in such a way that controlled burns can actually be effective anymore. So what happens is, as happened in the Talaganda National Park, which was one of the fires burning near Braidwood where I live, a lightning strike set off a smoulder in the undergrowth. And then eucalyptus trees, which do burn, they're extraordinarily oil

rich and the leaves burn too. The whole thing just embr embraces fire eucalyptus forest went up and it spread in the canopy which was just parched from drought and we've been in about an eight month drought in new south wales the shoal haven river which is our local water source is nearly dry water's about to be trucked in. And the combination of extreme drought and extreme heat now has just been devastating. And so you mentioned development has been an issue. But when we talk about drought and extreme heat, do you believe that this is caused by climate change? Oh, my gosh, there's absolutely no question about it.

The RAD government released the Gano report, which predicted almost to the month that in 2020 bushfire conditions would be set for an extended burning period, that all the factors, predictable factors, were going to add up to an immense blaze. I have described the mitigation of human-induced climate change as a diabolical public policy problem. The costs of mitigation come early and the benefits are long delayed. And it has. Farmers who are on the land have seen the land just become drier and drier and drier. I went and talked to one of my favourites, Michelle at the op shop. I think you could maybe call it the thrift store in Canada. One of the volunteers at st vincent

de paul and she's been in the area forever and she's seen the river dry up over 30 years christmas beetles which will be around at this time she used to just scoop them out of the air because they were so thick and it's rare to see one now and you don't hear cicadas of an evening. You don't hear them anymore. You don't hear them anymore. Our dog barked at a frog the other day and we got so excited that there was a frog in our garden. Because you don't see as many frogs as you used to? No, even the blue-tongued lizards

aren't as prevalent this year. It feels markedly different even from when I was a child. You wrote this incredible essay in the Globe and Mail. You said that it feels like your children are living the Anthropocene. Yeah. This is what it feels like. It's hard to be a parent at the moment. On the Friday evening when we first had the fire front emerge, I spent most of the night pacing. My husband works in Canberra, which is an hour's drive away, and he couldn't get through for hours because the highway was closed.

So it was just me and Owen, who's my seven-year-old son. And I was really trying hard to appear cool and calm and in control and darling, don't worry, we're going to be okay. But within that, he needed to know that the risk was real and just trying not to scare him. And we got through that night, but every day when the sky looks like it's being dragged across the bathroom floor and the smoke is so thick sometimes we can't see to the front

gate. We don't have any P2 masks, which are the masks that filter out the worst of the particles because there's been a huge run on them. Everyone's sold out of air purifiers. And you'd think that they would just be distributed at the post office or something, but everyone is having to track them down themselves. And it's school holidays. The last few weeks of school were on a daily basis, depending what the air quality was like. And I don't know if the department's going to be able to fit every single public primary school with air purifiers. Kids with asthma are having attacks. And everybody's cooped up and going stir crazy because the world outside the window is just so unsettling. What does your son say about this?

He wishes he could be here in this interview. He was fairly certain that we both had been invited, not just me, because he's helped me do some research and background. I went along for a ride along with a wildlife carer who's feeding some animals in burnt-out areas, and I had to bring Olin because it's school holidays, no childcare. And he threw carrots out the window of the Jeep so that animals could eat them at some other time. He is a scout, and he's a socialist, a very strident little beautiful, charming little guy. His response was that we should start an institution called the national university of environment care where everyone can come and learn how to

care for the environment and he is just bewildered that anyone would participate in any kind of industry or behavior that would hurt the earth he's decided that he's head of the school's secret litter patrol and he runs around at lunchtime picking up all the rubbish and it just breaks my heart because at the same time the government is approving this coal mine in Carmichael. The Queensland government has given its blessing to Adani's plan to protect and preserve groundwater at the central Queensland mine site. After a comprehensive scientific assessment...

Politically, Adani has been sold as a job-creating bonanza. It's going to devastate the Galilee water patient. I just feel like I keep using the word devastate and I'm trying hard to hold on to optimism and hope and to let him know that things can change while knowing that for the last 20 years of being an adult, every political protest I've ever been involved with has failed. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Talk to me for a minute about the government here. Talk to me for a minute about the government here. You know, I know there are stories that keep popping up about your current prime minister showing up, sort of cradling a piece of coal in parliament. This is coal. Don't be afraid. Don't be scared. The treasurer knows the rule on crops.

It's coal that has ensured for over 100 years... The deputy prime minister. ...that Australia has enjoyed an energy competitive advantage that has delivered prosperity. Also in your piece, something I've been haunted by, you talk about how it's hard

to see what's happening now as a catalyst for change. Instead, you're seeing it as a consequence. You know, you hear people talking about Australia committing climate suicide. What do they mean by that? That's really what it feels like. We have known for so long, so long, if we had listened to Indigenous peoples to begin with, if there had been a treaty formed, all of this might have been avoided even later when people were just, you know, during the

freedom rights starting to come to the realisation that, hey, actually Indigenous people should be citizens. You know, we've got such a shameful history of the way that we approach our environment and the people who lived there before us. Our economy used to be built on the back of sheep and now it's built on coal. And people like to say, oh, we only contribute 1.3% to global warming or something like that. But the government, the Liberal Party, has done everything in its power to make coal its baby. I don't know why.

We welcome the fact that we're pursuing our climate policies while getting electricity prices down. And we'll do it without economy wrecking or job-destroying reckless targets. We'll do it with sensible wrecking or job destroying reckless targets. We'll do it with sensible targets that gets the balance right. What we're seeing is, you know, I mentioned my river, the Shoalhaven. That should be flowing abundantly, even in drought. But there are so many rivers to the north that have been tapped for the water that is used in coal mining. You know, even in the

middle of this drought in Queensland, the government has permitted a water mining license to a Chinese company. It's as though we're being stripped for parts, anything that can bring in a dollar at the moment so that the government can say, we're good economic managers and we're in surplus. And I feel as though we ought to have, I don't believe there's an enshrined human right to nature, but there should be. You talk about the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. There was a lot of anger directed to him before the holidays because he went on a vacation to Hawaii

when these fires were raging. So I'll be getting back there as soon as I can. He also went on radio saying essentially... I don't hold a hose, mate, and I don't sit in the control room. That's the brave people who do that are doing that job. More recently, he's been heckled by people who are survivors of this fire. How come we only had four trucks to defend our town? Because our town doesn't have a lot of money, but we have hearts of gold, Mr. Prime Minister.

Nah, you're an idiot, Michael. You really are. The anger seems so palpable. Is that fair? It seems like you certainly share that. Everybody is fuming. To use an Australian expression, we are ropeable. No one who has been touched feels as though we have not also been betrayed by government or abandoned. Morrison's just committed $2 billion to bushfire recovery.

This is not just in those areas that are experiencing fires now. They are in those areas that have already experienced fires and, sadly, those parts of the country which still may yet face great risk. But it's like leaving a $10,000 tip after you've smashed up a nightclub. Two months ago, he was denying that climate change had any place in the discourse. He just simply doesn't believe in it as though it's a matter of belief. What is he saying now? Is he saying that this is due to climate change now?

Yeah, now he's saying that his government has always acknowledged climate change. And what are we talking about? And we want to see the emissions reductions continue in this country. And we want to continue to better the achievements we've already made with measures that achieve that. And that's why our policies are constantly being improved. And he said that, you know, we need to be patient and in the heat of the moment and I know you're all tired and emotional. It's the line you get as a woman all the time, except it's applied to the broader country. There's an amazing piece of footage of a fiery who just flat out refused to shake his hand.

Morrison goes in and picks it up like a limp fish and shakes it anyway. And later on, he says to the local member of council... Tell that fellow I'm really sorry. Oh, I tell that fellow I'm sorry. He's probably just a bit tired. Local member says, nah, mate. He lost his house. This complete inability to conceptualize what life is like for people at the moment,

either directly affected or living in this climate of fear. And it's not just where the fires are burning. The smoke is everywhere. And for people who are infants, the elderly, people with respiratory distress. Because we don't know the health effects that could be caused down the road. I know the government is now saying that they'll do whatever it takes here. To do whatever it costs to meet those needs, to build our resilience for the future. The surplus is of no focus for me.

What matters to me is the human cost and meeting whatever costs we need to meet. Is that helpful for you to hear? No, it's salt in the wound. They're willing to do it now when they'll look like heroes, but they absolutely were not willing to do a single thing when it could have actually helped, when it could have prevented the spread of these fires. So no, that doesn't cut any ice with me. Okay, what would you have liked to have seen them do? spread of these fires. So no, that doesn't cut any ice with me. Okay, what would you have liked to have seen them do? I would have liked a tenfold expansion in the Indigenous Rangers program, where Indigenous people have been incredibly successful using traditional knowledge to manage

ecologies up north. I would have liked to have seen a paid firefighting force because the RFS, the Rural Fire Service, which you are probably hearing much about. Very much about. They're all volunteers. All volunteers. They're all volunteers just putting their lives on the line to protect other people. I would have liked to have seen a massive expansion in the protection of ecologies like the Gondwana forest that is now gone. of ecologies like the Gondwana forest that is now gone. You can't recreate the biodiversity of an ancient forest. You just can't.

One half of a billion animals are estimated to be dead. I would like to have seen a radical revision in how native forests are logged. I would have liked to have seen an end to native forest logging, actually. And the dams that have been constructed that have stopped our water flowing and the mountains that keep being approved above all reason, that divert water and dig up sacred land and pollute the earth. You know, we have water, we have wind, we have massive sweeping plains. It's all there in our poetry and it could all be used for a thriving renewables industry that, you know,

young people entering the workforce could take advantage of. We could be coming out ahead environmentally and economically. But instead we just have kept being fed this line over and over and over that the grown-ups know what's best. I've heard Scott Morrison talk about how he speaks for like the silent majority, the silent masses. They have their dreams, they have their aspirations. To get a job, to get an apprenticeship, to start a business. These are the quiet Australians who have won a great victory tonight.

And, you know, this is sort of in the context of the importance of these energy projects in Australia, which bring a lot of money and jobs and economic success to the continent and I will say there are quite a few parallels to similar arguments that we hear here in Canada about Alberta and the energy sector there what would you make of that? It's hard not to feel very cynical about that the quiet Australians are being spoken for very effectively by Morrison because they don't jump up and protest. They are assumed to be in complete agreement with every single thing that he does. But I find that very hard to swallow when he's recently proposed a law that may jail people for blocking traffic and protesting for climate rights. There are quiet Australians and there are silenced Australians. And he does not want to

distinguish between the two. But I would imagine that as he goes throughout Australia on his fire tour, he is going to have more and more people telling him to F off than he has ever experienced in his life as a politician, because people are tired of being silenced. That is certainly happening now. I was looking at some of the reactions this week from fellow Australians. I'm only shaking your hand if you give more funding to our RFS. Who else will be around here? Nobody. No liberal votes. You're out, son. You are out.

Me, nobody. No liberal votes. You're out, son. You are out. You talk about half a billion species killed, believed killed in these fires, forests gone forever. This is not the only issue that Australia is facing as one of the places in the world on the front lines of climate change. It's on the front lines and it's also a major player. If you want to look at it that way, the barrier reef which breaks my heart uh because i always thought that i would um grow up and swim there you know i never thought as a child i should start being worried about the great barrier reef i'll go and see all the coral before it bleaches irreparably but with dead, that's no oxygen in the ocean. And with hundreds of thousands of hectares, millions of hectares burnt, that's carbon released into the atmosphere. Trees that

aren't doing the job of purifying air anymore. Australia is vast. We need those resources simply to live. When you talked about surviving earlier in this interview, that's really the key point. If we want to continue to have a quality of life where our children can run around and play without a mask on, we need trees, we need ocean, we need air. They're not negotiable. They're really important. I hope that Canadians more quickly and without the need for this kind of catastrophe rise up and seize those rights. Jessica Friedman, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today. It's been really lovely. Thank you.

Okay, so right after we spoke with Jessica, we actually asked if we might be able to speak with Owen. It would be absolutely possible. Let me go get him. Is there an Owen in the house? Hello? Okay, hi Shannon and Jamie. I've got Owen with me. Hi Owen. Hi. Hi, my name's Jamie Poisson. I'm with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. So what do you want to talk about?

What would you like to tell people about what the fires have been like in Australia? Well, I want to tell them how they've been affecting not just people like adults, but also families and children. One day at school the sky was actually orange from all the smoke and the sun and it was like just an orange town in Brightwood that day. Your mom mentioned that you have some ideas how you want to make things better. Well, I really want to make things better by not harming the environment, helping it. So I'm a Joey Scout. I'm going to be a Cub Scout this year after July 19

because that's my birthday and I'm going to be turning eight and eight years to be a Cub. And the motto is help other people. And even Joey, even Scouts is getting affected a bit by fires. How so? Like they've been. I'm sorry, Owen. I know we got you earlier in the morning. Well, because of the fire, people are staying home. Okay. Owen, thank you so much for talking to me today.

That's no problem. Okay, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner, and see you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.