It's hard to decide if Australian PM Scott Morrison is tone deaf or coldly callous

via Richard Chirgwin, 8 December 2019

via Daily Mail (UK), 21 November 2019

Bushfires that are unstoppable and relentlessly merge into mega fires. In NSW alone over 2 million hectares burnt out to date and 724 homes lost (276 more fire damaged) along with more than a thousand out buildings now just ashes.  Six people confirmed dead as we enter the second week of the fourth month of major bushfire activity in the state and hazardous air quality has seen a spike in hospital presentations for respiratory problems.

Yet this is Scott Morrison's attitude as captured by The New York Times (online), 6 December 2019:

Australia Burns Again, and Now Its Biggest City Is Choking.....

In Australia, however — where the air in Sydney was ranked among the worst in the world last month — Prime Minister Scott Morrison has resisted.

“The response has been to double down on denialism,” said David Schlosberg, director of the Sydney Environment Institute at the University of Sydney.....

Instead of addressing the public’s concerns, Mr. Morrison has suggested that some forms of protest should be outlawed, while refusing to meet with retired firefighters who have warned for months that more resources are desperately needed to battle the blazes.

On Friday, Mr. Morrison merely acknowledged that the haze in Sydney “has been very distressing to people.” He recommended downloading an app that tracks the fires.

Asked about a new report questioning Australia’s stewardship of the Great Barrier Reef, which is being killed by climate change, he repeated a false assertion that Australia’s carbon emissions are declining (scientists have shown that they are still rising).

Some critics are starting to wonder how long the government’s position can last......