Opinion: Planet Earth—you have my attention

Posted on 11 February, 2020

“You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk of it falls on you,” Margaret Atwood, The Testaments.

I really picked the wrong time to be reading a dystopian novel, as “chunks” did fall from the sky as a catastrophic hailstorm hit my home—Canberra.

I was failing to cope with the relentless doom as each day for the last month I’d woken with a smoke-induced headache and reports of no end in sight; and now, Margaret, the freakin’ sky was falling.

“Where were you on New Years Day 2020?”

It will be a question we’ll be asking ourselves over the years alongside other jarring, tragic events we’ve experienced through life where you remember exactly where you were when it happened.

I was in Canberra with my family, staying home for the festive season. We had already spent weeks with dust storms from the west and smoke from the east with fires burning north and south of Sydney and pollution bad enough to have health warnings issued.

Then came New Year’s Day when Canberra took the unenviable title as having the worst air quality in the world, accompanied by oppressive heat.

Friends were losing their homes in bushfires at our treasured South Coast and held up in evacuation centres. I felt awful, but I hadn’t lost my loved ones, my home, my business. Then I felt awful for feeling awful; a guilt that says you’ve no right to feel the way you do. Useless. I felt useless.

Ok Planet Earth, you have my attention. These fires are just one symptom of your complex health issues. But what can I do?

I can separate fact from conjecture. When we have multi-faceted arguments as to what caused these fires it is important not to let ourselves be distracted from the over-arching warming of our planet by those who seek to turn us away from Al Gore’s inconvenient truth. Forest litter does not explain the increasing ocean temperatures.

I can be clear and focussed. Do I really need to ask myself why some push a barrow-full of climate change denial?

This is a war of planet vs. economics that wouldn’t exist if the practices we have that emit carbon into the atmosphere weren’t profitable. Money, moolah, smackers, cold-hard cash my friends. Dig deep enough, and the buck stops with the buck.

I can vote. We currently have a Prime Minister who practices a strong faith that relies on him believing something that can’t be proven yet is reluctant to utter the words “climate change” let alone make world-leading decisions. I need to consider this when I next get the chance to vote.

“Show me your understanding of climate change science and your plan to follow scientific recommendations to reverse it,” is what I’ll be asking of the candidates.

I can choose where I spend my money. I can choose what I buy, where I buy it, where is it made, ensure it can be recycled or repurposed when I’m done with it, or get it pre-loved it the first place.

Even better, I can pre-Marie Kondo and decide if it’s going to bring me joy before I buy rather than after I’ve sent it to land-fill. I can want what I already have.

I can choose to invest in ethical, carbon-neutral businesses or, even better, seek out businesses whose sole purpose it is to find alternatives and solutions to the warming planet. Fat lot of good money is going to do if Braidwood is a seaside town!

I can do even better. Like recycling my rubbish, composting my garden waste, reducing my water and power consumption and use my car less. I’m not bad at this, but I could be so much better. I will be better.

I can engage more. Like seeing if there are plans for a carbon rating on everything we buy like with nutritional panels on food. Sure, it will be fraught with how it is calculated, and the spin-doctors will be sure to try to persuade bias for the industries they represent, but this shouldn’t deter us.

I can be steadfast. The rain that has come should not comfort me as to dilute my intent and try to lure me away from the bigger picture, which is still not pretty.

I can be optimistic. In his movie 2040, Damon Gameau focusses on current known technologies and practices that—if embraced now—would bring us back to carbon-neutral by 2040. Not hopes and prayers, but real practical things that we should invest in.

New Year’s Day 2020 will remind me that our planet, the place that sustains our lives and provides us with all our needs, doesn’t care what species we are, what gender, what nationality or religion, what political persuasion, whether we live in a burrow or a brick-veneer, whether we have a job or not.

The planet will react like you’d expect when poisoned; run a temperature, ache and shake, vomit, and do what it must to survive.

Planet Earth, you have my attention.

• Want to step up your recycling game? Check out these ACT printable guides.
• Want to see the current technologies that give hope to the planet? Visit whatsyour2040.com.
• If you are feeling overwhelmed by recent events, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14