My climate change session got cancelled. Because of climate change.
I guess that pretty well says it all. Saturday morning at the Byron Writers Festival I was looking forward to talking climate change with Dr Joelle Gergis, an IPCC scientist and author and host Mel Bampton. But it was cancelled. Ironically because of the weather. Which was part of what we were going to talk about. In fact, the whole festival was cancelled, not just because of the rain. It’s climate change. You can deny it all you want, but the reality is climate change doesn’t care what you think. It will take you out regardless. Apparently, it’s not a fan of authors.
One of the things they don’t tell you about climate change is that along with warming, and adverse weather events, it also creates disappointment. For those of you, who like me spend all year looking forward to the one weekend of the year when we all come together to talk ideas and politics and stories in a glorious outdoor setting, the relentless driving rain was a serial pest. And when it comes in that hard you can’t beat it. You have to surrender. Safety first. It’s so boring.
I was just a few minutes into a session with authors Lisa Messenger and Sarah Megginson about their book The Power of Two, which told the unique story of their surrogacy journey. (I have to say journey here because I don’t know what else goes with surrogacy – other than surrogacy rollercoaster? Collab?) The rain came down so heavily we couldn’t hear ourselves talk, the water was rising around the tent, gushing across roadways, and then the power went down. More irony. So we sat on the edge of the stage and yelled at what was left of our audience until we were evacuated from the site.
Is this the future? I guess it is. Expect the unexpected. Coastal sea rise and global temperature rises of over 2 degrees which means something like 2.5 degrees here because we are a vast expansive country. It’s happening faster than we thought. We passed the 1.5 degrees and now we are crossing the dangerous threshold of human-induced climate change which could see millions if not billions of people in low- lying areas without a home. And local readers also without a festival! Climate refugees. Bad news Byron, those $30 million properties are gonna go under – you’re below sea level. So is Brunswick Heads. South Golden …actually nearly all of our region. We know this, so why aren’t we all climate activists?
Fossil fuels are fucking us up. They know it. Scientists know it. Our government definitely knows it. Yet the first thing they do when they get elected isn’t something bold like recognise the urgent need to reinstate the carbon tax that Abbott abolished, or fast-track to solar (which we have enough of to power this country 50 times over) but to extend the licence of Woodside’s North West Gas Project to 2070. Boo! Hiss!
When our local writers’ festival tells people they have had to cancel an event that is planned for our driest month because of the rain, I think, here we go. The new normal. The new normal is there is no normal. Just records being broken, patterns smashed, and people who’ve worked bloody hard standing in the mud wondering why they bothered.
Long-term climate change is causing NSW to warm and this is increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall near the coast. We need to pressure our governments to meet their climate targets. Yes for a liveable future. But also so we don’t die of heat… and boredom!
Big love to the Byron Writers Festival who have to clean up after a party they didn’t get to have. Kind of like our kids.
Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox column has appeared in The Echo for almost 23 years. The personal and the political often meet here; she’s also been the Greens federal candidate since before the last two federal elections. The Echo’s coverage of political issues will remain as comprehensive and fair as it has ever been, outside this opinion column which, as always, contains Mandy’s personal opinions only.
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. 
