Australia Burning

Abstract

Hiking through the Australian Alps in November of 2019 and looking down on a burning world from up high in Kosciuszko National Park, Tom Griffiths reckons with the social and environmental impacts of increasing-in-frequency-and-intensity forest fires across the country. Placing the events of Australia’s Black Summer, a period of intense forest fires from 2019 to 2020, in the context of environmental history, this article examines Australia’s position on the front line of the Pyrocene and the nation’s multipronged rash of climate denialism while offering insights about Australia in a warming world.