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Media Narrative Questioned as Aussie Authorities Count 183 Fire-Related Offenses

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CORRECTION, Jan. 13, 2020: This commentary when published stated, both in the headline and the body of the commentary, that “more than 180” people had been arrested and charged with “fire-related offenses.” This is incorrect; 183 people faced legal action, but that action ranged from “cautioning” to actual arrests. Only 24 people faced actual criminal charges, according to a Jan. 6 news release from the New South Wales Police Force that we should have cited when we first published the piece.

Also, the commentary stated conclusively that the fires were “not produced by climate change.” While The Western Journal questions the validity around much of the science pointing toward man-made climate change, we cannot state conclusively that climate change did not contribute to the number and severity of these fires, particularly as they have been “fueled by drought and the country’s hottest and driest year on record,” according to Fox News.

We have updated both the headline and the commentary itself to reflect these facts. The Western Journal regrets these errors.

As devastating bushfires continue to burn into their third straight calendar month in Australia, officials seem to have zeroed in on one of the disaster’s prime movers: arsonists.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported Monday that 183 people have been arrested and charged with fire-related offenses in the southeastern coastal state of New South Wales, where fires have claimed the lives of 18 people and destroyed nearly 1,500 homes since November.

Those arrested include 24 people accused of deliberately starting bushfires.

“Unprecedented numbers of people had been arrested and charged with arson offenses,” Liberal Member of Parliament Craig Kelly reportedly said in an appearance on the Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s “RN Breakfast.”

“The arson is not caused by climate change,” Kelly added.

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The sound of barbecued crickets chirping could be heard from left-wing climate activists as the news broke.

Do you think reporting on the Australia wildfires has been alarmist?

Having invested weeks and weeks into successfully crafting the narrative man-made climate change had been responsible for one of the driest seasons and greatest natural disasters ever to hit Australia, climate zealots were met with the harsh reality they had fallen into a trap.

Not waiting for any of the facts to come to light, progressives from the Hill to Hollywood, academia to the media, played on repeat videos of raging fires and suffering species in an attempt to forward their radical environmentalist agenda.

Never straying from their traditional playbook, international leftist elites did everything they could to tug on the heartstrings of the everyday citizen and win converts to their fast-growing religion of climate sensationalism.

Of course, one would be foolish to assume that the failure of such mass narrative manipulation would result in anything even remotely resembling course correction or admission of error.

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In fact, before ever reporting on the arrests themselves, outlets such as Britain’s The Guardian began to hedge against the shifting tides of the news cycle, suggesting widespread claims of arson were mere “disinformation.”

“Bot and troll accounts are involved in a ‘disinformation campaign’ exaggerating the role of arson in Australia’s bushfire disaster, social media analysis suggests,” reporter Christopher Knaus wrote Tuesday.

“The bushfires burning across the nation have been accompanied by repeated suggestions of an arson epidemic or ‘arson emergency,'” Knaus continued. “The false claims are, in some cases, used to undermine the link between the current bushfires and the longer, more intense fire seasons brought about by climate change.”

Now, how the officially recognized perpetration of 24 arson arrests and 159 other fire offenses in light of this disaster could possibly be described as anything other than an epidemic or emergency is beyond me. The Western Journal has reached out to the New South Wales Police Department, but did not immediately receive a response.

But the clearer epidemic here is the fact that the left is entirely unwilling to give up the narrative.

There is simply no quit in them.

Without question, the fact that Australia is having the hottest and driest year on record has contributed to these fires. What remains in question, however, is whether that weather is reflective of climate change, and even it if is, whether that climate change is man-made, as so many would have you believe.

That is far from “settled science,” if such a thing even exists.

If only you could glance at the overwhelmingly convoluted thoughts floating around in the left’s hive mind, you would see the only disaster here — at least for them — is the fact that one of the worst environmental disasters of the 21st century was at least partially induced by fools and criminals, with the role played by climate change still in doubt.

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Andrew J. Sciascia was the supervising editor of features at The Western Journal. Having joined up as a regular contributor of opinion in 2018, he went on to cover the Barrett confirmation and 2020 presidential election for the outlet, regularly co-hosting its video podcast, "WJ Live," as well.
Andrew J. Sciascia was the supervising editor of features at The Western Journal and regularly co-hosted the outlet's video podcast, "WJ Live."

Sciascia first joined up with The Western Journal as a regular contributor of opinion in 2018, before graduating with a degree in criminal justice and political science from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper and worked briefly as a political operative with the Massachusetts Republican Party.

He covered the Barrett confirmation and 2020 presidential election for The Western Journal. His work has also appeared in The Daily Caller.




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