“Thoughts And Prayers”: ‘The Feed’ Brutally Skewers The Government’s Response To NSW Fires

A great deal of NSW is currently on fire. It is Spring.

Usually that kind of environmental devastation begins, at worst, in Summer. So many blazes, particularly at this time of year, is worryingly out of the ordinary.

Of course, we all knew that something like this was coming. We’ve been warned for decades that climate change was set to increase the number of freak weather events, and that the drought would continue to dry out our natural woodlands, making blazes inevitable.

But just try telling that to Australia’s politicians. After all, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Prime Minister Scott Morrison have spent every hour since the blazes began vehemently attempting to deny any link between the destruction and climate change.

According to them, it’s not right to “politicise” the blazes. Instead, we should simply mourn a problem while obstinately, repeatedly ignoring its causes.

It’s enough to make you weep. Or, at least, thanks to those folks over at SBS’s The Feed, to weep while bitterly laughing.

Yep, The Feed have dusted off their best yellow wig, and filmed a sketch lampooning the government’s almost pathological inability to say the words “climate change” and “fire” in the same sentence.

Beginning with an itemised list of the public figures that have gone on the record to draw the line between environmental collapse and our changing climate, the sketch descends into pure, hysterical surreality, as the government’s obstinance slowly morphs into straight-up denial.

Watch it through your tears here:

Repeat after us: "Thoughts and Prayers."@alex_c_lee @VZerbst @Jennaown pic.twitter.com/NVCX80jZRz

— The Feed SBS (@TheFeedSBS) November 11, 2019