Australia Firestorm
From January to December, the story of 2020 is one of fire. We rung in the New Year with Australia ablaze amid a record-setting fire season. The satellite image above shows smoke streaming off the continent thousands of miles out to sea. At one point, it encircled the entire Southern Hemisphere.
The list of maladies tied to the fires and smoke is long. They include more than 3 billion animals dead, an area as large as Washington state burned, smoke-stained snow in New Zealand, the most toxic air on Earth in Sydney, a $1.5-billion medical bill, and double the annual average of Australia’s carbon pollution pumped into the atmosphere. About the only positive—if you can even call it that—to come of the bushfire was a whole new style of fundraising to help those in need tailor-made for the digital age.
Scientists have suggested Australia’s previous climate is no more as the continent rapidly warms, and the bushfire season from hell was a flammable showcase of what the future holds.
