December 2019, Wildfires in Eastern Australia
The fires are really full on (intense). 4000 people sitting on a beach down on border of Victoria is unheard of. So many fires they can't keep up with them.
The word catastrophic is common language now on weather and news. Still the prime minister (PM) calls them disasters as though they are a natural phenomenon. Our PM talks insincerely about Aussie spirit and the amazingness of volunteers ,who are actually hard working people unpaid and suffering from smoke exposure, exhausted, getting killed, and don't want to be fighting fires. They could do without the bullshit (insincerity).
Sydney is a basin and surrounded by fires so air quality is very bad and skys have been grey for weeks from smoke. We can't go for a walk as air quality is so hazardous. Many blue collar workers are suffering as there are no workplace laws designed around air needs. A young adult I know has chronic asthma and is a blue collar worker outside, although working in tunnels the air quality is very bad.
Air quality was so bad one group of outdoor blue collar workers stopped work. They wanted to not have out door workers exposed to air that was up to 200 times over hazardous levels. When they tried to pull in the workers the managers accused them of taking illegal industrial action. In response the Union official ended up on the TV nightly news looking like the most reasonable person on earth.
In another workplace a young adult worker in direct production I am close to asked 2 managers for a heat plan to assist workers to cope with extreme heat; they both ignored him. He has stood up for a few things that most people would consider a basic human need and is being ground down for it, he is 23. He and a young adult muslim worker in direct production were left to deal with a million people funneled through the city to see fireworks that made very bad air quality worse.
4 hours before they burned tonnes of fire crackers they told people to wait to go into the city for the new year fire works as air quality was too bad. Kind of bizarre. (Illogical) 20 fire chiefs tried to meet the PM but he refused.
Basically every piece of wilderness is on fire in NSW and other states too. One town could not fight as they had no water left.
It's the biggest change here the level of destruction in and in every way politicians look like a dead weight.
I'm always worried about my young adult worker in direct production friends asthma which is getting worse and worse.
Am pissed off and tired.
People are tired and sad.
Best I've got to write at this time.
Thanks for asking me.