UPDATE—(Sunday, Nov. 27, 2021)— It is November 27, 2021 with high temperatures and dry skies. Alfonso Tapia of Pine Mountain Club, who is in the midst of home-hardening his house, roof, decks and windows, with ember-screening on all vents for fire-proofing, just wrote: “Hey I’m watching ‘Burning.’ Check it out now on Prime Video. This is about Australia.  Made me cry.”

The chaparral terrain looks eerily familiar (except we have pines where they have eucalyptus stands). But the dark, smoke-choked skies and burned out communities have already been seen for several years running in California as well. Climate change naysayers are familiar voices throughout Australia as they are in the United States. And the disinformation experts are also familiar: Rupert Murdock media properties and fossil fuel (coal and oil) industry stakeholders in both countries.

It is helpful to hear the same lines we know in American Texas drawls and clipped Wall Street-speak used in “shrimp on the barbie” Aussie accents in Canberra and Sydney. In an instant we recognize the pattern of deflection. These tactics are worldwide.

This is an Amazon Studios production. The film is being made available at no cost for all Prime members. Have a look, and invite friends and neighbors to see it too. If you take this to heart, you may save your own life, the lives of your family, and perhaps even help us mobilize action to get our neighborhoods working together to save our communities.—Patric Hedlund, TME