As I anticipate my first encounter with a tropical cyclone, I find it hard to sit still and thoughts swirl through my mind like the winds in the storm. Waiting for the gale to start and the rain to bucket down, I keep thinking about the cognitive dissonance of these times and the insane ‘realities’ we are asked to accept every day.
We seem to have transitioned from denying the weather is changing, through denying that humans are to blame for it, to resigning ourselves that it is inevitable. What happened to trying to prevent the vast amount of suffering that we are unleashing on ourselves and all other living beings? Why aren’t we doing every possible thing in our power to protect our home and survive?
Consequences of burning fossil fuels
As I write, the water temperature is 26.6°C in Byron Bay and 26.9°C in Brisbane, and it is these elevated temperatures, plus the lack of an upper trough of cold air, that are causing Cyclone Alfred to intensify instead of abate as it approaches land. The world is laying out the consequences of burning fossil fuels before us in a way that could not be clearer.
It might seem on the surface as if our beloved leaders are finally considering planning to take some sort of action to mitigate global heating, but it doesn’t take much digging to discover their words are meaningless and their deeds are hollow.
Global climate science institute Climate Analytics released a report last year showing that current Australian government policies will lead to CO2 emissions increasing by 50 per cent over the next decade. The report predicts that by 2035 Australia’s fossil fuel exports, along with domestic CO2 emissions, would consume nine per cent of the remaining global carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5°C.
Australia is a high emitter of CO2
While governments pretend that, like taking food from someone else’s plate, exports somehow don’t count, Australia remains one of the highest per capita emitters in the world. Last year The Australia Institute found that subsidies to fossil fuel industries had increased by 31 per cent to reach $14.5 billion.
According to the report, ‘Australia is not taking serious action on climate change. Instead, the majority of its governments continue to subsidise the fossil fuel industry and greenwash their poor climate policies.’
All of these distressing statistics are presented to us as practicalities of the modern world and simple facts of life.
Sometimes I feel crazy and extreme in this society, but deep down I know it is an entirely reasonable desire to live in a world without food and water shortages, ever-increasing heat and devastating natural disasters occurring nearly every week.
In the upcoming election, the mainstream narrative tells us that we have to choose between a party that has just approved four new coal mines, with many more in the pipeline, or one that is trying to distract us with a nuclear fantasy that won’t be operative for 20 years, while they increase coal production and cap renewable energy.
Time to change the vision
I can’t accept this version of reality. We don’t have to go along with a story so full of plot holes and logical fallacies. It is both possible and urgently necessary to change the narrative and create a future worth living for. We need to vote as though our existence depends on it, and we need to take immediate action to protect this world, our home.
♦ Emma Briggs is the Convenor, Byron Environment Centre.
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. 
