Wildfires are a regular occurrence in Australia, but on New Year's Eve, residents of the state of New South Wales experienced blazes stronger and more destructive than they had in years. In several of the southeastern towns, smoke blocked out the sky, houses were destroyed, and thousands of tourists and locals were forced to flee to nearby beaches. Seven people have died so far, and several others are unaccounted for.

Climate change is pretty scary stuff and we've been ignoring it for too long as it's a difficult thing to address politically -- it requires difficult choices and drastic changes in lifestyle of millions of Americans that nobody really wants to seriously. But everybody knows, this is the decade -- the 2020s -- when it's going to bite hard.