Australian authorities have arrested nearly 200 people for setting fires in the states of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. News agency AAP reports that nearly 85 percent of the fires now burning in Australia have been started, either accidentally or on purpose, by humans.
7News Sydney reports: “Police are now working on the premise arson is to blame for much of the devastation caused this bushfire season. A strike force will investigate whether blazes were deliberately lit and bring those responsible to justice.”
Still, climate activists, celebrities, and leftist politicians want to blame anthropogenic climate change for the number and severity of this year’s fires. Last week, Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders blamed those who are “delaying action on climate change” for “the blood-red sky and unbreathable air in Australia because of raging forest fires.”
Police in New South Wales have already arrested 24 alleged arsonists in the state. In Queensland, police report that at least 103 of the fires currently burning in the state were lit deliberately. Authorities in Queensland have identified 98 people, 67 of them juveniles, as the arsonists. Police are investigating many other fires and the arrest count may rise.
Since September, nearly 6.3 million hectares (approximately 16 million acres) have been burned, destroying over 1,500 homes and killing millions of livestock and other animals. The fires have killed 25 humans so far.
Dr. Paul Read, the co-director of the National Center for Research in Bushfire and Arson, believes that the vast majority of these fires are purposefully lit by “cunning, furtive and versatile criminals.”
“About 85 percent [of the fires] are related to human activity, 13 percent confirmed arson and 37 percent suspected arson,” Read said. “The remainder are usually due to reckless fire lighting or just children playing with fire.”
The realization that a vast majority of the fires raging in Australia are not from natural causes but were started by human activity — a fact that the mainstream media studiously ignores — brings up an uncomfortable question.
Is there a possibility that some of the fires currently laying waste to large portions of Australia were set by climate alarmists themselves in an attempt to prove their point that climate change is leading to more and more terrible fires?
Thus far, no real evidence has surfaced that climate hysterics have taken to fire-setting to prove their point that fires are getting worse, but the question is valid, since groups such as Extinction Rebellion and 350.org have promised to do “whatever it takes” to get governments to take action on climate change.
Extinction Rebellion has already blocked the road in front of Parliament in the U.K., glued themselves to the gates of 10 Downing Street, and blocked five main bridges in London for several hours in an effort to gain attention for their cause. Would setting some brush fires in vulnerable locations to make a point be something they might do?
In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro has accused Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio of paying for many of the fires that ravaged the Amazon rainforest this year to be set. Bolsonaro has also claimed that globalistNGOs are responsible for many of the fires that blazed in his country this year.
There are other similarities between Brazil and Australia when it comes to climate-change politics and wildfires. In 2018, Bolsonaro defeated socialist and pro-globalist factions — which touted action on climate change — in order to become president. The first fire season after he took office became one of the worst of the decade. In Australia, the Labor and Green parties were expected to breeze to power on the strength of their climate-action agenda, but climate realist Scott Morrison and his Liberal/National coalition instead won the day. The first fire season of Morrison’s tenure has been the worst in memory.
Of all of the so-called symptoms of anthropogenic climate change that the fearmongers in the movement say are coming, wildfires are the easiest ones for humans to help create. We don’t have the ability to suddenly spin up vast cyclonic storms or cause heatwaves and droughts, but all you need to start a wildfire is matches, fuel, and a lack of any conscience.
Until we actually find members of Extinction Rebellion or other climate-hysteric groups out in the bush or the forests with matches, the idea that climate hysterics might be starting some of these fires is pure speculation. But considering that 85 percent of Australia’s fires this year were started by humans, it’s not crazy speculation.
Photo: AP Images
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects with a primary focus on the ongoing anthropogenic climate-change hoax and cultural issues. He can be reached at [email protected].
