I wasn't prepared for what happened in Canberra this past month. The effects of bush fires and by extension climate change was always an intangible notion, something I understood but did not directly experience.
As I walked through Canberra's civic on New Year's Eve, it felt like someone had dropped a smoke bomb on the capital. You could taste the smoke on your tongue — it was ashy metal, burnt charcoal. My eyes were assaulted by a stubborn smog that lulled you into a dreamlike vapour, and as the smoke pricked at your eyes you were left asking in Macbethian fashion if 'something wicked this way comes'.
But it was just more choke, more itchiness and Canberrans racing off like someone just bug sprayed a whole city. New Year's Day was even worse. My housemate and I barricaded ourselves in our 1970s 'embassy' cum 2020s public servant share house. I acquainted myself with terms such as AQI (air quality index) and PM2.5 (particulate matter) to make sense of the ACT government's reports on air quality.
Canberra has a reputation for being banal, bureaucratic and the 'bush capital'. But come 2020 it was in the news and twitter feeds for being the city with the worst air quality in the world, beating Delhi for the top spot. What followed were four days of intense heat, sunless mornings, Blade Runner sky hues and warnings to stay indoors as much as possible. But movement is life.
Air is life. And clean breathable air was being withheld by an unremitting climate rage that ravaged parts of NSW, Victoria and the ACT. Our postmodern complacency had allowed me to take clean air for granted. Staying indoors may have shielded you somewhat from the apocalyptic smoke raid, but even being inside most of us were probably still breathing hazardous air. If an ant can find its way into your room then air with particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometres surely can.
Getting an air purifier in Canberra was practically impossible. Even P2 masks weren't readily available. Every retailer was out of stock. What's more, Australia Post stopped delivering, so buying such goods online was sure to take at least a week. Many undoubtedly would have opted to leave Canberra, becoming transient climate refugees.
Canberra bashing aside, the bush capital is one of the most progressive in Australia, perhaps even in the world. The ACT was the first in Australia to pass a