Much has been made in the media about the current bush fire situation in Australia. Truth is the scale of devastation is impossible to grasp, in terms of sheer acreage of scorched earth, number of homes lost, lives lost and livelihoods ruined. When we add the effects on environment, habitat and wildlife (flora and fauna), the effects of the 2019/2020 summer will have long-reaching and potentially permanent ramifications:

I want to say that our leaders are on top of this, but have never had confidence in politicians, and am not convinced any can see past getting re-elected to make the hard decisions necessary for our continued existence. Indeed, when our PM chooses to go on holiday during the worst of it, when he and his colleagues continue to deny climate change, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence. They display a vandalistic attitude to environmental policy, and offer reckless abandon to fossil fuels and non-sustainability.

Their lives in our hands. “They” are our children, their children, the animals and plants that make up the biosphere in which we live. The “they” are US.

I bent some paper, a re-fold of the glorious Steven Casey model “Echidna” for lots of reasons (I gave my last one away, and need this model in my life). Ground-dwelling critters that live in shallow burrows are some of the most vulnerable. Add to the mix that these monotremes (egg laying, pouch wielding, milk making, hairy insect eating evolutionary mistakes), should they survive the passing fire front, will emerge to carpets of ash and no food.

All I can do is throw money at relief programs, act locally, think globally and hope responsible leadership happens … it is clear that unless we get organised, weather will continue to get weirder, fire and flood and blizzard will intensify. I no longer believe we can leave it to the politicians. When a teenager makes more sense that most of those in power (and makes them cross merely by speaking scientific facts), something has to change.