In Australia, searching for common ground amid scorched earth
May King sat inside the Wingello Village Store a block from the charred remains of the home where she had lived since 1998. Four days into the new year, a massive bushfire ripped through this small town, a two-hour drive from Sydney, forcing its 600 residents and the local fire brigade to flee. The blast of flames leveled a dozen houses, blackened the landscape, and delivered what she calls “the reality of climate change.”
“The fires we’re having in Australia this year – it’s unprecedented,” says Ms. King, a retired home decorator and former member of the area’s government council. Her century-old Victorian residence had belonged to the country’s registry of historical homes. “What does that tell us? The climate is changing. There’s no doubt about it.”
The store’s owner, David Bruggeman, listened as she talked. His shop serves as cafe, grocery, post office, and gathering spot, and when he and his wife and their seven children drove away as the inferno charged toward town, he expected to return to a building reduced to ashes.
The business and the family’s nearby home survived
“This could be our last shot”The prospects for cooperation
