Our lost summer

 For me summer in Australia has always been very special. Hot. Often very hot-with clear blue sky and lazy hours in the pool. Beautiful early mornings with crystal clear water-yes. But this year has been different. Depressingly different.

 Ever since early November when we drove upto Port Macquarie for the family anniversary and smoke blanketed the Pacific Highway going north the bushfires and the terrible drought have been always present.The smoke haze has rarely gone away. Some days it is barely present but other days it has been suffocating here and elsewhere.
We went down to Manly on Sydney Harbour on the Monday before New Year's Eve to have lunch with visitors from the UK. It should have been a perfect day as above the brown haze the sky was blue but the smell and the haze took the edge off it.

Worse than our trifling personal woes has been the continuous stories of the death and destruction from the fires. Our beautiful country is being destroyed along with its beautiful wildlife. Every hour brings news of fresh destruction. Now over a thousand homes destroyed along with hundreds of shops, businesses and farm buildings. It's like listening to an account of a war where we are losing and that is what it is. The firefighters have done an extraordinary job and have saved many more properties than have been lost but nothing can disguise the horror of it all and most of us are suffering from fire fatigue.
As bad as the fires themselves are there is the feeling of total despair at the response to the fires of our politicians, both state and federal, and now we have the climate change deniers -led by the Murdoch media in full fake news mode- putting out fake news that the fires are the work of arsonists. Yes, there are a few arsonists-there always will be - but all the major fires are the direct result of lightning hitting tinder dry vegetation.
What I do not get is what is the motivation of the climate change denialists. What is driving them to their extreme position?

This week we have had two old style summer beach days when the wind kept the smoke away and in years gone by I would have gone out with my camera but these days taking photos on or near a beach with a serious camera instead of a smartphone-particularly if you are a man on his own-is not a good look. So the photo is a golden oldie- Terrigal Beach on Christmas Day 2011. It was taken with my Leica X1.