Vale Jenny and John Barnett

Had just starting reading The Age this morning in my favourite cafe in North Fitzroy after dropping my son at school when I got a very sad call. Can't be confirmed due to the intensity of the fire, but it seems certain that two key members of the Mammal Survey Group of Victoria, Jenny and John Barnett, have died trying to escape Steels Creek. Not long after we came back to Victoria, my family and I went camping with them at Cape Liptrap and elsewhere. My daughter, then about 10, has very sharp eyes and a strong animal instinct. She found an owl pellet - a 'cough up' little ball of skin and fur. The Barnetts, making we new members feel at home, were immensely kind and knowledgeable. They gave years of volunteering and career work for the better understanding and protection of both wild and domestic animals. So many people have been touched, many disfigured, devastated by this hell of wildfires. So many animals and birds and plants lost too. We know of no worse peacetime disaster here. It's a huge wakeup call on climate change. In time, some healing will take place. New growth will, we hope, return. Nothing could make this catastrophe worthwhile. We are clutching at embers. But let's hope our sluggish leaders finally start to get the urgency of our world's need for protection from ourselves, and especially from the industries who have callously exploited our naive lack of safeguard regulations against pollution, and the governments who have ignorantly backed them at our great peril. Ignorance is razed. The climate change wolf is over the threshold. The meeting for a new lock may need to be brought forward.