Climate inaction presents more serious dangers to firefighters globally today, but particularly in Australia, the driest inhabited continent on the planet. Since the Royal Commission into the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, Australia’s all-time worst bushfire disasters, founding director of the Australian Firefighter’s Climate Alliance (AFCA) Jim Casey has advocated tirelessly for a larger, more professional fire service and a change of attitude to keep up with climate change and more extreme fires, something the FBEU, the first known trade union of firefighters in the world, has recommended for decades. Jim led the first general strike of firefighters in half a century back in 2012. He says today, the business of firefighting is getting harder and more dangerous.
“the business of firefighting is getting harder and more dangerous.”
The historic strike of firefighters in Sydney, June 2012. Photo courtesy Jim Casey.
The UN stated recently that 2016 is set to be the hottest year on record. You’ve said that the 2009 black Saturday fires in Victoria were your ‘road to Damascus moment’. Speaking about the changing behaviour of bushfires, you’ve argued for a ‘single system of command and control’ to meet the challenges presented by climate change?
Jim: There’s a clear argument. Extreme weather behaviour is going to make for more and more natural disasters—bushfires are the kind of, sexy one, the high profile one. But it’s not just that, it’s also flooding where we’ve never had flooding, it’s drought where we’ve never had drought, it’s storm and tempest behaviour, it’s all of those things.
So given that, it makes sense to have your first responders organised as effectively as possible and the division we’ve got between the RFS and Fire Rescue NSW is just a waste of resources. There should be a single fire service in NSW, arguably a national fire service. But we’re not going to see it any time soon because of the bureaucratic empires that people build up and which they will defend and I think that’s a real pity.
Having said that, it’s not the biggest problem. The biggest problem really is that the overall resourcing for the sector is not going to keep up with what’s required. The Climate Council estimates that we need to double the amount of professional firefighters by 2030.
We’re basically holding constant. In NSW we’re kind of increasing at a rate not consistent with the growth of the population in the state, so the idea of doubling it … well we’re going to need to see more disasters I think before government comes on board with that.
Based on these estimates, what are you expecting to see this bushfire season?
Jim: Look, I never make this prediction. The only thing which you can say confidently, if it’s not this summer it will be one soon. The hotter summers and what that’s meant, particularly actually wetter winters too, your fuel load increases, the shorter space in winter makes it harder to actually get some of the hazard reductions done.
So every year, we’re basically looking at conditions which get more and more potentially disastrous. Whether it’ll be this year, or whether it’ll be next, or the year after that, I can’t tell you. I do know that either way, people like me will be the ones going out to put out the fires and … we need action on climate change.
“The Climate Council estimates that we need to double the amount of
professional firefighters by 2030.”
The nexus between capitalism and the climate crisis will be in sharp focus when Naomi Klein comes to receive the 2016 Sydney Peace Prize in November. You’ve similarly underscored the interdependence of climate change, growing inequality and resource depletion. What kind of impact do you think Klein’s visit will have when she will inevitably, put the spotlight on climate action in Australia?
Jim: It will be absolutely meaningless in terms of this government doing anything differently, but I’m hoping it will be extremely significant in terms of actually helping grow and mobilise the climate change movement, to make the government listen. One of the things which I have found quite surreal is being asked ‘do you hate capitalism?’.
But the real thing which strikes me about all of that is, people like me, our feelings about capitalism are kind of irrelevant. The real problem, it’s actually the environment. Capitalism is going to smash itself at this rate.
“But the real problem, it’s actually the environment.
Capitalism is going to smash itself at this rate.”
Recently you cited Thomas Picketty in an article for The Guardian to help stimulate a constructive conversation about income inequality?
Jim: The point that I was making about Picketty is that it is significant when you see major economists like him—academic researchers really—advancing an argument that income inequality has become so entrenched and so systemic, the nature of the system itself is something which is going to cause enormous problems for everyone.
Now really when people like him or Warren Buffet are making those arguments—and they’re not alone—it is a break from the neo-liberal consensus of the last thirty years.
So I think what’s interesting is that most informed opinion would say that the way we organise our society economically at the moment is putting enormous stress upon the social fabric through a widening gap between those who have and those who don’t and enormous stress on the planet.
Now that’s not me saying that as a wide-eyed firebrand, that’s me saying that as someone who can read a newspaper and someone who can read economics books and can see that’s a reasonable position to advance.
The recently published Inequality Report in 2016 estimates that inequality will cost the Australian economy $13.1 billion by 2019. What would you like to see emerge in a meaningful national conversation on our economic system In Australia?
Jim: We need to be talking about the way the world is organised, why so few have so much and so many are disenfranchised. We need to talk about why power is concentrated in particular ways and what it does then to the society as a whole.
So it’s interesting, the report that estimated how much structural inequality will cost … it’s a useful figure, but I also think it’s really important for us to remember that the people who are making that money don’t care, they really don’t and nor should they in a sense.
So we need to become economic actors and force our interests onto the stage because no one’s going to do it for us. You can’t do it on the back of reasoned argument or the appeal to a higher power. You do it on the back of your own capacity to organise.
“We need to talk about why power is concentrated in particular ways and what it does then to the society as a whole.”
The Australian Firefighters Climate Alliance is a platform for Australian firefighters to come together and call for greater action on climate change. AFCA stands to help firefighters prepare and respond to the current and future impacts of the climate crisis, and advocate for the prevention of further damage to climate systems through strong policies and community education.
Fire & Rescue NSW provides fire and emergency services, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to approximately 7.6 million people throughout NSW. In 2014/15 FRNSW responded to 128,076 emergencies, an average of 351 per day. FRNSW employs around 7,000 firefighters. Of this number, around 3,500 are on-call firefighters.
Further reading:
Bigger Hotter, ‘Firestorms to become the New Normal’ in Australia
http://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/bigger-hotter-firestorms-to-become-the-new-normal-in-australia/news-story/176c62c0b16f5991413b7138980cd4bf?csp=894375387e565f3c01d5e660c5024e8c
Feature photo: Smoke from the 2009 Victorian bushfires spreads over the Tasman Sea and New Zealand. The imagery was acquired by the Aqua satellite, and is at 500m resolution. The image was the MODIS picture of the day on 10 February 2009. Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC (Source: Wikimedia Commons).
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