Byron Shire residents make the connection. A small but passionate group gathered on Main Beach as part of a global day of action to ‘connect the dots’ between climate change and extreme weather.
Without a whole lot more people adding their weight to the fight for our planet we are not going to make it. We seriously are not. There are solutions but if a football game or a music festival can attract many thousands to a single event and a world event for global climate change action only draws the few, we have a problem.
We are in serious waters now, with Queensland’s 44,000 coal-seam gas wells a certainty to pollute our water supply, and NSW not far behind them on the fossil-fuel proliferation.
We may be at the front edge of wholesale mortality of the world’s forests, says Dr Craig Allen. Renewable energy is being shelved by our governments who fail to connect the dots.
Studies point to a common pesticide as a culprit in declining bee colonies in the US and other parts of the world. Bees are vital to life on earth, pollinating 90 per cent of the world’s crops. We can no longer leave our delicate food chain in the hands of research run by the chemical companies and the regulators that are in their pockets. Without immediate action to save bees, crops will fail and food security will become food wars.
More CO2 means more severe flooding, bushfires and droughts, yet the average person in the street is just not getting it. We need to move quickly towards big solar and renewables
Bringing it closer to home and our own health and wellbeing: there will be temporary closures of Byron Shire National Parks due to aerial spraying with metsulfuron methyl. I researched metsulfuron methyl since we are going to be once again sprayed from a helicopter with it throughout the winter months. Metsulfuron methyl, while considered safe, did show on the Pan Pesticides Database that this chemical was ‘slightly toxic’ to honeybees – with their note: Population-level effects on honeybees may occur even if a pesticide has low acute toxicity. So our bees will be affected but perhaps a few million bees is fair collateral damage for the mass eradication of weeds.
We must stop spraying toxic pesticides, especially from a helicopter in areas of high population, that can indiscriminately destroy or at the least have detrimental affects on everything in its path.
Connect the dots. It is time we all stood up and said, ‘Here am I, what can I do to help?’
Rose Wanchap
Byron Bay
