Australian bushfires: Our Pompeii Moment

Australians are fleeing a different kind of Vesuvius. Instead of lava and pumice stone, we are running from climate change.

KANGAROO ISLAND BUSHFIRES

The dreadful bushfire scenes coming out of Kangaroo Island, New South Wales and Victoria and the footage of drought stricken Queensland and New South Wales make me think of what it must have been like to have lived ignorantly, if uneasily, in ancient Pompeii.

Having somehow becoming used to the threat from Vesuvius, each Pompeiian must have reached a point in those final days when the rumblings became unbearable, and then terrifying, which is when they finally fled.

Australians are fleeing a different kind of Vesuvius. Instead of lava and pumice stone, we are running from climate change.

We are not learning invaluable lessons and we keep making the same mistakes, which will be our undoing.

Originally published as Australian bushfires: Our Pompeii Moment