In this Our Changing Climate environmental video essay, I look at why Australia, the Amazon, and the Central African Congo Basin is on fire. Specifically, I look at the scope and damages of the Australian fires for the 2019-2020 fire season and compare them to those of the Amazon and Congo fires. The video also delves into how climate changes influences and enhances the damage of wildfires and has lead to more intense fires across Australia and the Amazon. But this video essay also shows that the deregulation stances of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are partly to blame for the increase of fires in their respective countries.
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Resources:
1. Congo Basin vs the Amazon: a tale of two forest fires (RFI): http://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20190827-africa-forest-fire-amazon-deforestation
2. Resilience and fire management in the Anthropocene (Gillson et al.): https://tinyurl.com/t5mbjox
3. Climate Change, Wildfires, Heatwaves and Health Impacts in Australia (Arriagada et al.) https://tinyurl.com/vx2w5zm
4. Here’s Where Australia’s Destructive Wildfires Are Burning (NY Times): https://tinyurl.com/uqbvojy
5. Wildfire policies contribution to foster extreme wildfires (Fernandes et al.): https://tinyurl.com/stgvlsl
6. Worst bushfire conditions ever seen: Unprecedented danger is ‘a firefighter’s nightmare’ (new.com.au): https://tinyurl.com/qqwe69t
7. Multi-century cool- and warm-season rainfall reconstructions for Australia’s major climatic regions (Freund et al.): https://tinyurl.com/swqymu3
8. ‘This is Not Normal’: Climate change and escalating bushfire risk (Climate Council): https://tinyurl.com/tw3593t
9. The Global Extent and Determinants of Savanna and Forest as Alternative Biome States (A. Carla Staver, et al): https://tinyurl.com/vggroza
10. Australia fires: 8 things everyone should know about the bushfire disaster (Vox): https://tinyurl.com/uzv6ybd
11. Amazon fires increase by 84% in one year – space agency (BBC): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49415973
12. Australia fires have burned 46% more land than 2019 Amazon blazes (Insider): https://tinyurl.com/t2qvrah
13. Copernicus: A year in fire (Atmosphere Monitoring Service): https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/copernicus-year-fire
14. The Amazon Is on Fire. So Is Central Africa. (NY Times): https://tinyurl.com/y4fevwlg
15. Amazon tipping point: Last chance for action (Thomas Lovejoy and Carlos Nobre): https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/12/eaba2949
16. Deforestation soars, crowning Bolsonaro’s chainsaw strategy (Observatório de Clima): https://tinyurl.com/vzu3ooc
17. Fires Threaten Australian Towns That Have Already Burned Once (NY Times): https://tinyurl.com/su3gag7
18. Australia wildfires: Here’s what you need to know about the deadly blazes (CNN): https://tinyurl.com/unzqzbg
19. Carbon emissions from Australian blazes near Amazon fire levels (Reuters): https://tinyurl.com/qnton4d
20. A staggering 1 billion animals are now estimated dead in Australia’s fires (Vox): https://tinyurl.com/yg3fbny8
21. Fire Effects and Management in African Grasslands and Savannas (Winston Trollope and Lynne Trollope): https://tinyurl.com/sdg9s2e
22. Fire science for rainforests (Mark Cochrane): https://tinyurl.com/vfl8xdm
23. Calculating Deforestation in the Amazon (Mongabay): https://tinyurl.com/ycdua8w6
24. Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink (Brienen et al.): https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14283
25. The Amazon used to be a hedge against climate change. Those days may be over. (PRI): https://tinyurl.com/y8qzp266
26. Making Sense of Amazon Deforestation Patterns (NASA): https://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=145888
27. There’s no doubt that Brazil’s fires are linked to deforestation, scientists say (Science): https://tinyurl.com/y6rls6uf
28: Evolution of human-driven fire regimes in Africa (Archibald et al.): https://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/847
29: Congo Basin forest loss dominated by increasing smallholder clearing (Tyukavina et al.): https://tinyurl.com/w28febs
30: Australia wildfires: PM Scott Morrison defends coal industry amid catastrophic blazes (Independent): https://tinyurl.com/wajx8gp
31. Fires are devouring the Amazon. And Jair Bolsonaro is to blame (The Guardian): https://tinyurl.com/yyafcaj2
32. Why do they burn the ‘bush’? Fire, rural livelihoods, and conservation in Zambia (Christine Eriksen): https://works.bepress.com/ceriksen/1/
#AmazonFire #AustraliaFire #CongoFire