I write this on Monday morning. The rain is coming down. It’s like a torrent. Like someone left the bath tap turned on fully and forgot. The water is rising. My town is going under.
My friends have water coming into their houses. Some have moved to dry ground. Some are praying it’s not going to get higher. How do you know? It’s uncertain. The only certainty is that we are in trouble. This is clear and present danger. The whole Northern Rivers has been issued an evacuation order, which is a bit terrifying for those where the water is coming in fast because there is literally no way to get out.
This is the great equaliser. It doesn’t matter what you believe, whether you vote for Clive Palmer or Albanese, for the Greens or the coalition, whether you vaccinate or you don’t – nature doesn’t discriminate. You can’t hide from the climate and the climate is coming. In buckets. Tractor buckets. We are in the middle of a catastrophic climate event. People are going to die.
Peter Dutton has put up a GoFundMe to raise money for flood relief. Yep, he’s asking us to pay for his government’s lack of action. For his government’s abject failure. How dare they ask the people of Australia to pay! The same government invested $173 million into the Beetaloo Basin shale gas reserve. Before that they’d tipped a cool $19 million into the coffers of the company wanting to develop it. Ironically, it’s coal and gas and their subsequent climate impacts that are drowning us right now.
Climate change is real. It’s lapping at your door. It’s why you’ll end up sitting on your roof. And guess what, our current government are the ones who’ve embarrassed us by dragging the chain at Glasgow; who bickered over emissions targets, who settled on a shamefully low and life-threatening emissions reduction ‘commitment’ of just 35 per cent by 2030. Well, Scotty, this is what we face. By backing your profit hungry mates, and not backing change, you’re drowning us. We’re drowning in your lies, and the tangible consequence of lack of action by successive coalition governments. And there is more to come. So much more.
How long are we going to run?
There is a war in Ukraine right now. We watch in horror and sadness and think it won’t ever happen here. But there is a war here. A climate war. This is how it is fought. One catastrophic climate event after another. We had devastating fires. And now we sit, powerless, in the grip of water. Our homes, our habitat, our native animals are all at severe risk. Our landscapes are being filled with polluted waters. They are saying this will be the worst flood event on record.
Climate change has a profound effect on the weather. The changes in atmospheric temperature can lead to more severe storms and greater rainfall. Climate change impacts mean warming increases precipitation variability, meaning more periods of extreme precipitation. And more of the other extreme – drought – bringing fires. We’re having one-in-100-year weather events every 10 years now, or less! Cyclone Debbie was in 2017 – WTF!?.
All that seems a bit academic right now when what we need to do is stay safe and get through this.
We have to reach out to our community. Check on your neighbours. Think about those living in their cars. The homeless. If you are safe and dry then open your doors. We have to look out for each other, because if the best our government can do is a GoFundMe after the event, then we’re fucked.
You see, they don’t have to worry. They’re the elite. They always take the high ground. Let’s look after each other. Stay safe.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
