Australia: we are all complicit!

No-one is left untouched by the images of Australia in the media. I am not either, but what shocks me most of all is not the red images of the flames, it is not the kangaroo trying to get away or the wallaby roasted on the barbed wire. It is not the koala drinking from a bottle, holding a human’s hand. What shocks me most is our total lack of awareness that we are all complicit! Complicit in setting the house on fire, a house we all live in.

I refuse to believe that global warming is a problem caused / maintained / that can only be changed by rich industrials. At the beginning of every production line there is a consumer with a demand. At the end of the supply chain stands a consumer with a credit card, and yes by consumer I mean you and I. If consumers stopped buying or started buying more sensibly, then factories would stop producing. Big industrials will not produce what they can no longer sell! Denying this is just too easy. We don’t have to let them tell us what we need.

For the same reason I refuse to believe that this is something only politicians can change. This too is just too easy. You don’t have to wait for the government to ban plastic bags, to ban diesel cars, to ban anything slowly (or rapidly) destroying this planet. You can stop using it by your own personal decision. Politicians are very often puppets on a string of, … well… and anyway, most of them are too busy lining their pockets, or too busy securing their re-election.

Also the argument that plastic pollution and massive consumption in general has got nothing to do with global warming is not true. Have you ever asked yourself the question what the real cost is of the production of cheap clothes, of that online order shipped from China for that gadget you think you so desperately “need”? Do you understand your emissions when you fetch those four croissants by car on a Sunday morning? Do you understand the environmental cost of producing single use plastic for your fancy lunch bowl that you have delivered on your doorstep, because you want to eat healthy food? Most people don’t.

Also the argument that one person’s choice to start living differently is not going to change the world, is too easy. Mass movements start with one individual….. look at Greta!

We all live far above our natural means, yes so do Mick and I. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but we have realised years ago that we need to change the way we live dramatically. Because of this, we are often regarded as the silly hippies; we are often deemed naïve in thinking this is going to save the planet.

I don’t have children so I don’t have to worry about their future. And I live in a low-risk city in a wealthy and low-risk country. I could get away with not caring. But I do care.

What has been happening lately, not just in Australia, also in Jakarta, the Amazon, the UK, the US, Mozambique, … has strengthened us in our belief that what we are doing is the only way forward, but we have so much more to do to save this planet.

So no, I shall not be praying for Australia. My prayers have never ever brought relief to anyone anywhere in this world.

Raising awareness with this blogpost will be my contribution. It may not bring relief to the Australians today, but it might tomorrow, because tomorrow it will hit them again, and one day it will hit us…. and it will happen within our lifetime.

Please share if you care ….

Photograph: courtesy of Mieke Richart