Postpone the Australian Open
In the past few weeks, the pictures and videos we are witnessing from Australia are simply horrifying. The country is now fighting its history’s worst fire, with the largest peacetime mass evacuation ever.
We all need to be talking about the climate crisis unfolding all over the world, especially in Australia.
People are losing their homes, some are dying. Animals, like koalas and kangaroos, are dying. Some species, that live in the forests of Australia, will become endangered.
On January 7, it was said that 25 Australians had died because of the bushfires.
Thousands of Australians have evacuated their houses as it is and the weather prevision for upcoming weeks doesn’t seem to be promising. Australia, a lot like the state of California, is used to fires, but this is a first.
History is being made. Will we wake up before it is too late? As in many situations, humans always seem to wait for tragedies before acting. This case is not an exception to this pattern. We all idealize the world we would love to live in and this perfect world means taking actions to achieve our goals.
After the fires go away, there will probably still be climate change deniers in some corners of the world. Some close-minded individuals who only care about their immediate needs and that are not able to look at the big picture; the world as a whole and the fact that we all are citizens of the same planet, whether we like it or not.
Even though we have been talking about the fires for a few weeks now, they have been going on since September, razing more than 9.9 million acres across five states. Entire towns are disappearing, a situation that has never been seen before.
With all of that, should we act as if nothing is happening? Should we bury our heads in the sand?
One of the biggest tennis events of the year, the Australian Open (created in 1905), is coming up in a couple of days. From January 20 to February 2nd, la crème de la crème of tennis players, women and men, from around the globe will meet in Melbourne, in hopes of winning the 1st Grand Slam of the year.
Players will even arrive at the venue as early as January 14 for the qualification rounds.
The decision should be obvious: postpone the Australian Open. People are dying: this is an unprecedented tragedy.
The country is going to hell, and sometimes there are bigger things than sports. If people are so worried about the economic repercussions of cancelling a big event like this one, they should get over it because the Australian Open occurs every year.
On January 4, the world number one, Novak Djokovic, said it was worth rescheduling the event. Not because Australians are suffering but because the ambient conditions (the air) could be hurtful for the player’s health.
Lots of players are saying they will raise money for victims every time they serve an ace. The Aussie tennis sensation, Nick Kyrgios, was one of the first to lead the way. He announced that he will donate $200 for every ace he serves over the month of January, money that will go directly to bushfire relief.
Tennis Australia, the governing body for tennis in the country, already said it will give $100 for every ace served during the ATP Cup in Brisbane, Perth and Sydney.
Supply money is great, but for respect for the victims of the bushfires, from a moral perspective, the Australian Open Tournament Director, Craig Tilley, should make the decision to cancel the event. The worst-case scenario would be to reschedule it later in the season. Even if I’m a big tennis fan, I would feel bad watching the tournament if at the same moment people are dying. If it goes on while there are still fires going around the country, I’ll boycott the event, as should we all.
Believe in Climate Change Now?
Climate change is real. After seeing such fires, it is hard to believe that there are still climate skeptics around the globe. All the scientists and activists like Greta Thunberg are right: we need to act fast with drastic policies. Not just with words but with actions.
Chris Dickman is one of those experts. Environmental Science Professor at the University of Sydney, he links the bushfires directly to climate change. “What we’re seeing are the effects of climate change. Sometimes, it’s said that Australia is the canary in the coal mine with the effects of climate change being seen here most severely and earliest… We’re probably looking at what climate change may look like in other parts of the world in the first stages in Australia at the moment”, said Professor Dickman via a press release from the University of Sydney.
Twenty years ago, barely anyone was talking about climate change. It has now become a hot topic, let’s hope it’s not just a trend. Writing and speaking about it is great but more needs to be done. To fight this fight, it cannot come solely from individuals, governments need to start acting with realistic but revolutionary solutions.
For example, governments should put bold policies in place to force automobile companies to produce electric vehicles in the next five years. Oil is the past, it shouldn’t be the present. Australia should say goodbye to coal and move on to the future.
Not only is the entire planet warmer than ever before, the global temperatures are worrisome and especially those of Australia. Record-breaking temperatures everywhere! The country has barely received any rain over the past few months and there isn’t a lot in the forecast.
Remember what happened in November 2015? The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference was really promising. At that time, I was doing my undergrad and teachers were taking a portion of our classes time to discuss what was happening in France. That convention (COP 21), which culminated with the Paris Agreement, was designed to find solutions and actions to fight climate change.
It was agreed that countries — 174 countries and the European Union- needed to do everything in their capacity to limit the rise of temperature below 2°C before 2100; in relation to pre-industrial levels.
Climate change was on everybody’s mind. But at that moment, the world was in a different place, we weren’t yet witnessing right-wing populist political movements around the globe and Obama was still President of the United States of America.
The most powerful country in the world, the U.S.A. now has a commander in chief who does not believe in climate change. Trump has even backed away from the Paris Agreement (June 2017); which sends a horrible message to the rest of the world.
On September 27, walks were held across the globe. Was this year the year the planet woke up and realized we face a climate crisis?
All around, it will get warmer in the next decade. There will also be more and more floods as the sea level will continue to rise as a result of the melting of the ice sheets.
The Prime Minister Not Welcome
Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has been criticized by his fellow countrymen since the beginning of the bushfires for not being there enough and not showing empathy for struggling people. As multiple citizens have said to the media, the government, precisely the Prime Minister, has not put in place a solid crisis management strategy to deal with situations like this. I think that what frustrated many Australians during the peak of the crisis was that Morrison was on vacation in Hawaii, at the very moment that New South Wales was declaring a state of emergency.
Member of the Liberal Party of Australia, Morrison continues to defend the coal industry amid the bushfires.
To assist in the recovery from this tragedy, the Australian government announced on January 7th a “$2 billion initial contribution to the new National Bushfire Recovery Fund.”
Species Disappearing
Large sections of forests are being completely destroyed and the death toll of animals is troubling. According to an insider, more than one billion animals have died since the beginning of the historical bushfires. Some have died from the flames directly while others have perished from indirect causes.
Just in the New South Wales region alone, nearly a third of all koalas have died due to the fires. A third of their habitat has been destroyed.
The images we see from sick animals are hard to watch. I was reduced to tears watching one koala rescue, from a video from The Sun, where we can see that the lonely animal is clearly struggling by hearing him scream out of pain. On top of that, researchers don’t have the population data for multiple animals, like bats, frogs, and invertebrates. Consequently, it is difficult to estimate the number of deaths for these species.
According to scientists, some species, like the eastern bristlebird, the mountain pygmy possum and the corroboree frog may have been all killed.
According to experts, once the animals return in areas where there were flames they could potentially die because they will lack the resources needed, and could then fall prey to new predators.
What we are seeing, lots from abroad on the news, was unimaginable a few years ago. According to a CNN article: “ Australia has the highest rate of species loss of any area in the world, and researchers fear that rate could increase as the fire disaster continues.”
Controversial Fireworks
As the entire world was celebrating the new decade, there was a big paradox happening in Australia. As bushfires were spreading across the country, there was a New Year’s Eve fireworks display. As the citizens were watching the pyrotechnics displays, more than 4 million hectares (10 million acres) had already been burned. Not only is the fireworks display a big event for Sydney but it costs a lot of money. The 2018 show alone cost $5,8M last year.
Before the festivities, two hundred and fifty thousand people signed a petition arguing that Sydney’s fireworks should be cancelled. Scott Morrison said it was worth letting them go as planned, which is what eventually happened.
As the world is changing, mindsets are evolving, is it not time for every country to stop these big pyrotechnic shows that contribute to pollution? Yes, they are impressive, but it isn’t mind-blowing to witness fireworks. It won’t transform your life, we would still be doing fine without them.
In regards to the bushfires, it seems as if the situation is less disturbing than it was before. But as I said before, there are things in life that come before sports.
