Those among you with memories longer than Trump’s after an Adderall fix may recall the October night owl article about drop bears. I have terrible news regarding them.
Drop bears may be going extinct.
The Australian wildfires are devastating; thankfully, everyone agrees on that. Unfortunately, the magnitude of the fires have been misreported by some.
There are those who claim the majority of the fire damage is located in New South Wales and Victoria, and that residents there are upset with the government for not doing more to end the conflagrations. They usually admit that other fires have sprung up throughout Australia, particularly by the coast, and that the presence of those fires has limited the ability of firefighters to travel to help the most afflicted areas.
They are geography deniers. In reality (reality in this case defined as information gleaned from Facebook) all of Australia is currently on fire, with the sole exception of the Sydney Opera House.
Thankfully, passing around memes on Facebook and Twitter has been demonstrated to be the single most effective way to help people in problematic situations. It’s not donating to places like the Australian Red Cross, or Salvation Army Australia, or the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Australia.
It’s worth remembering how #BringBackOurGirls saved a number of Nigerian kidnap victims. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s worth remembering how #BringBackOurGirls was praised for what it was supposed to do. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Trump era, it’s that results don’t matter.
So, some guidelines in helping the Australians. First, I ask everyone to remember that “worst fire season in years” is functionally equivalent to “worst fire season ever”. There have been almost thirty people who have lost their lives since this season started. That is almost certainly more than the 173 deaths in 2009, the 75 deaths in 1983, and even the 60 deaths back in 1926. There are some who will say that 30 is only half of 60, but they are math deniers.
It’s also key to remember that these fires are absolutely being caused by climate change, no matter what some foolish people may say. People who talk about things like the “fire triangle” or the “fire pyramid”, insisting that fires need heat, fuel, oxygen and a chemical reaction are simply attempting to twist science to their own ends. They are science deniers, or at least “scienceish” deniers.
You may notice that I’m using the term “deniers” as a method of denigrating all who oppose my point of view. This is not because I do not have a good argument against people who are attempting to use facts and reason, but rather because… Hey, look, there’s Ocasio-Cortez!
Now, where we? Ah, yes.
What we need to do is to push forth as many memes as possible, reminding people that the koalas are effectively extinct and due to die out tomorrow. We also need to push the idea that the Australian wildfires are so extreme that they’re creating their own weather pattern, unlike every other large wildfire in world history.
Remember, this is NOT the time to post those pictures about butterfly wings changing weather elsewhere in the world. We need uninformed memes about climate change now, not uninformed memes about chaos theory.
We need to end those fires. And we need to do that the only way that humanity can: by talking about it, preferably on the internet.
Please post, tweet, or even retweet what you can. The koalas may be extinct, but they can certainly be restored if enough “likes” are generated. And if the koalas are saved, there may be enough forest left for other native species to survive, too.
It’s for the children. The children who will be eaten by drop bears.
