I Am a Climate Refugee
A 1% chance of catastrophic flooding, every year. Then it happened. The government encouraged me to rebuild. I did. Three years later, it happened again.
I am a climate refugee in my own country — Australia.
Weather records where I lived showed a 1% chance every year of a catastrophic flood. One year my home flooded 40 feet over my roof. The government encouraged me to rebuild. I did.
Then THREE YEARS later — not 200, not 100, but three years later — another once-in-a-century flood wiped me out again, 40 feet over my new roof. Two catastrophic floods in three years.
The clock is ticking down at an accelerated pace. My two floods did not take 200 years, not even one century — THREE YEARS. That is accelerated climate change.
I could have responded by becoming frozen in FEAR. Instead I went on to understand the problem, completing a postgraduate in climate change science in 2015.
Previously, I thought climate catastrophe was in faraway places you see on the nightly news. But then I saw it in my own backyard. Literally.
I think people will not accept climate change until it is literally in their backyard, on their own smartphone, personally filming it. Then they will know. But it will be too late.
I will not bore you with science. But basically there are seven planetary tipping points. FIVE ARE ALREADY EXCEEDED. When the last two are breached — at that final point, fast approaching at ever-accelerating speed — there will be NOTHING that humanity or science can do to avoid inevitable climate catastrophe.
I am 68. I previously thought my 26-year-old son would have to face that catastrophe alone.
Now I believe both my son and I will face it together, in my lifetime.
All life on Earth as we know it will cease — likely this century — IF WE CONTINUE BUSINESS AS USUAL, which is literally killing us.
Take effective climate action NOW.
TICK TOCK.
Related Posts
Glenn Conroy
