Australia Is Burning: How to Help

If you’re wondering, “What can I do for Australia?,” here’s an answer: Donate to one of the organizations listed in this CNet article. If  you can’t donate even a dollar — that’s okay! You can still raise awareness by sharing the links with all your peeps. To get you started, here are six of the options, but there are so many more in the article.

• Australia’s Red Cross Disaster relief and recovery fund helps support evacuation centers and recovery programs for the affected communities
• The NSW Rural Fire Service has a donation page to support the firefighting efforts in New South Wales
• The Country Fire Authority is the state of Victoria’s rural firefighting service and you can donate directly here.
• The Country Fire Service in South Australia also takes direct donations.
• To help support firefighters in the state of Queensland, you can donate to the Rural Fire Brigades Association via their webpage.
• The Salvation Army has a disaster appeal donations page set up to deliver support to local communities affected by the blazes.
• The Victorian Bushfire Appeal is where state premier Daniel Andrews is suggesting to donate. The appeal directs money to communities in need, giving directly to those affected by the fires.

I’ve been told that the NSW fire appeal, which has raised a lot, has pledged to share its donations with other charities and states as needed, so that’s a good choice if you are having trouble deciding. And I sent my personal donation to WIRES Wildlife Rescue.

If you’re thinking, “Wait, what’s happening in Australia?” … well, it’s been burning for months.

On New Year’s Eve, 4,000 people were trapped on a beach. Four thousand! They escaped, but a number of people have died, with the toll expected to rise.

The CNet story I keep referring to has good, short explanations about which parts of Australia are affected; the causes of the fires; and the connection to climate change, so here’s that link once again.

Half a billion of Australia’s unique wild animals are feared killed so far.

One volunteer with Australian wildlife rescue group WIRES told Al Jazeera that, while searching for animal survivors, “maybe you see the shell of a body but it’s basically just a shape in the ash.”

Maybe this is conflating two wildly different issues, but it’s hard for me to understand how there are people who believe they can “protect” the health of their children by denying them life-saving vaccines while in more and more places around the globe, you need to wear a face mask just to step outside. Do they think we don’t share the same atmosphere as Australia, India, China, and Mexico?

Actually, there is a link between anti-vaxxers and climate-change deniers: Ignorance, denial, and corporate and political propaganda. Feelings are not facts, y’all, and there ARE ways to work on the big global issues. Get educated.