As usually seems to be the case, it’s the first day of surprise when the fires do their worst. The latest news seems to indicate that, barring an unexpected change in the weather, the fires threatening Canberra have been kept behind their containment lines, and cool weather should also improve the situation further south. Like everyone else, I’ve focused first on the loss of life and the destruction of so many homes, but the destruction in the Alpine National Parks is also a huge blow.

Of course, fire is a natural phenomenon in Australia, as is the drought that sets the stage for it, and it’s very hard to distinguish random fluctuations from an underlying trend. Still, I think the evidence supports the view that the severity of the current drought reflects the impact of long-term global warming as well as shorter-term cycles such as El Nino. If so, we can expect more of the same in the future. I’ll post on this point in more detail in future.

Another issue that has been raised is the reliance of our culture on blame when things go wrong. This may be compared with other cultures which focus on a notion of Fate. I’d like to explore the question of chance, fate and blame in more detail in the future.

As all of this indicates, in the absence of further disasters, I’m planning a return to normal blogging on a range of issues, probably starting tomorrow.