U.S. Forest Service firefighter Brian Campbell loves his job - but he may not be doing it for much longer.

His $50,000-a-year salary barely pays the bills, and more frequent and dangerous U.S. wildfires are keeping him away from his wife and young children too often.

"The seasons are longer, and we're not being treated any better," he told our correspondent Avi Asher-Schapiro - one reason one in five federal full-time firefighting positions are currently unfilled, even as the U.S. West faces yet another season of punishing forest fires.

Donovan Lee, a 22-year-old firefighter who quit last year, put it bluntly: "You make more money at McDonalds," he said - and without all the risk.

As climate change impacts - from wildfires to record flooding - strengthen around the world, richer nations are fast discovering that their wealth and resources can provide only limited protection, and that they may be more vulnerable, sooner than they had imagined.

In recent days, Germany has been battered by catastrophic floods that Chancellor Angela Merkel called "terrifying".

"The German language can barely describe the devastation that's taken place," she said, as the country faces up to the need for massive new spending to try to adapt to surging climate risks.

In the U.S. state of Florida, engineering and climate experts now fear creeping sea level rise and storm surges worsened by climate change may have contributed to the deadly collapse of a residential building by seeping into its concrete foundation and corroding its steel supports - a huge wakeup call for similar seaside structures around the world.

"Champlain Towers just underlined the urgency about how we need to start thinking about our buildings in coastal regions," said Sonia Chao, who studies the resilience of coastal cities at the University of Miami.

In Australia, a lack of government action to curb emissions and protect the warming-imperilled Great Barrier Reef means the natural wonder may soon be added to the UNESCO World Heritage "in danger" list.

"Of all the major industrial emitters, Australia has thus far made the most anaemic of pledges going into COP26 (climate talks) later this year," climate scientist Michael Mann said in an interview.

The good news? Some unusual coalitions are making fledgling steps toward uniting to drive climate action - including one opposing new coal mines in Canada's Rocky Mountains, backed by country rocker Corb Lund, better known for hits like the "Roughest Neck Around" that celebrate oil workers

"This isn't a left-right issue. This issue seems to be resonating across the political spectrum - conservative, rural, urban and First Nations," he said. "It has been moving to see, in these super-divided times, people agree on something."

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Laurie

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