In this region we are all, except for a few, living on floodplains or areas prone to further landslips. And as far as I can remember, this community motto has been ‘act locally think globally’. Then it stands to reason that we as a community understand what is happening globally, so we can set a local example, of empathy, compassion and inclusion.
Climate change in the long term is an existential threat for the whole of humanity. However, like the very nature of capitalism, climate change does discriminate. In the short term, Noami Klein avers climate change is hitting the poor first and worst; whether that is being abandoned on the rooftops of New Orleans or Lismore.
This means increasingly we will be faced with overlapping crises. Devastating weather events and the need to provide temporary housing for citizens who have lost all of their belongings. Prince Street pod houses is an example of acting locally, where temporary homes are built, and built quickly.
The local public outcry about the pod houses, most of which has been imbued with fear, mirrors world leaders’ stance on climate migration. That is while headlines are quick to employ the label ‘climate refugees’ on the world stage, displaced global citizens are considered in countries like the US to be a national security threat and without refugee status.
