Dad became the 'man-of-the-house' at just four-years-old.

My dad was just four-years-old when his father died.

Dad had two younger sisters and so effectively only a baby himself, he instantly became the “man” of the house.

My dad's swing-saw looked a lot like this.

My grandfather, dad’s dad, was something of an enigma to me as anyone who actually knew him was dead before I arrived, and any record of his life is slight or simply doesn’t exist.

We do know that he owned and operated stables in Echuca’s main street, opposite the Catholic church and stretching through to High St.

He died when a horse kicked his head and we don’t know if that was instant or he died later. I could research it I suppose, but it is not in my nature to look back, despite knowing that preparation for the future is best founded on an understanding of the past.

Dad died in 1992, on my wife’s birthday sadly, and I thought a lot about him as I sat listening to Professor Brendan Wintle talk about the million species at risk of extinction.

An eager interest in the topic was piqued when he asked the audience what is was that posed the greatest threat to Australian mammals.

The audience response was as expected, covering all the usual suspects such as cats, forest clearing, urban sprawl and cars, but Prof Wintle surprised most everyone when he declared it was “rabbits” which were decimating our mammal species. They eat all the grass and leave nothing for others.

Dad had matured quickly into the man of the house and by the time he had reached double figures he was supplementing the family larder and income by catching and selling both rabbits and mussels.

And although rabbits, which were then a pest and still are, might give us reason to curse them for the devastation they cause to our landscapes, there was in fact a vital source of sustenance for many Australian families early last century.

Dad, who rarely talked about himself and you had to drag the stories from him, told of coming home from a rabbiting expedition with nearly more rabbits than he could carry hanging all over his bike.

He said that they were in such proportions one year that if confronted by a fence they were unable to get through, they would chaotically pile up at the fence until the late arrivals could rush over the squirming bodies of their compatriots to clear the fence.

It was during those plagues, he said, that the paddocks themselves appeared to be moving - they were effectively alive with rabbits.

Dad had little education and tried his hand at many things before becoming a beekeeper, and eventually the president of the Victorian Apiarists Association.

As much of the specialised equipment he needed wasn’t available in the pre and post First and Second World War eras, he was forced to design and build his own, including a caravan-like extracting plant and a huge shed with two insulated “warming rooms” critical to the honey extraction process.

Being a beekeeper and so working in what was considered an essential industry - bees wax was needed for weapons sent to the tropics - his attempts to enrol in the armed forces were denied.

As he was one of the few men in what was largely a “men-less” community, it was his task to provide the wood for many families and so about then he dreamt up and built a swing-saw - a rather large blade on the end of a long a metal arm and powered by a small motor that allowed him to move and saw up logs.

Many watching him build it said it would kill him - it didn’t and worked just as he imagined.

And how we need minds like those of my dad now!  He was resourceful, resilient, inventive and because of the life he was born into, he inherently understood the three R’s we all need to hold close now - reduce, reuse and recycle.

And we just don't get it!

We just don’t get it.

Or, maybe we do understand but feel overwhelmed and impotent.

Or, maybe the busyness and demands of modern leave our pool of worries full to overflowing.

“What frightens us most in a madman is his
sane conversation” - French novelist, Anatole
France wasn't talking about Australia's PM,
Scott Morrison, but he could have been.

Or, maybe we have faith in our decision-makers and leave it to them believing they have the answers.

Or, then again, maybe we just don’t care.

Well, whatever, we still don’t get it

We are facing, and yes, “we” includes all of us here in the Goulburn Valley, is an existential crisis.

Extreme, over the top? Well, not really as we, and again that, of course, includes all of us here in the Goulburn Valley, have had complete disregard for the global commons as we use it as a place to dump whatever it was we didn’t want.

The science we all champion, but interestingly not “all” of us, particularly when that same science refutes personal ideologies, has toted up the cost of our flagrant abuse of Earth’s commons illustrating that humanity is now saddled with a debt beyond its means to pay.

There is, however, just the slightest of chances that we can settle that debt and it won’t be with money, rather, it will be with hitherto unseen changes in our behaviour.

Writing in The Washington Post about this unfolding dilemma and how to confront it, author Bruce Beehler said: “One thing is for sure: We need to believe so to be able to function at full capacity as concerned citizens.

“We should all spend more time outside to breathe in the fresh air, salute the songs of birds and trills of toads, and savour nature. The fact is, the antidote to the depressing true stories purveyed by the news is the joyful abundance of thriving nature all around us. Nature isn’t dead; even our backyards tell us so if we’re willing to pay attention.”

He added: “Only smart collective action, led by courageous people working with intelligent and well-funded organizations and agencies, can mount the necessary effort to keep our Earth from peril.”

“With an inoculation of the magic elixir of bountiful nature, we can engage with spirit on behalf of our wildlife and forests, our bays and seas, and our one and only atmosphere. Despair is not an option”, Beehler concluded.

People here in Goulburn Valley may imagine themselves remote from the problems of a changing climate, but they are wrong as any observant soul will have already seen changes in weather patterns.

Many of our decision-makers insist Australia’s contribution to the worsening of climate change is so small that as a nation we can do nought, and as we can have no impact we should simply continue with our present energy-rich consumptive lifestyles.

Anyone prosecuting this argument, from our Prime Minister down, is misleading us, relying on “thoughts and prayers” when scientific facts illustrate, conclusively, that what we need are decisions and actions, such as phasing out all fossil-fuel energy favouring renewable sources and the incorporation of a climate emergency/crisis into the decision-making process.

That’s high level, but what can people here in the Goulburn Valley do?

Leave their car in the garage, walk or cycle whenever possible; only fly when there is no alternative, and then only when it is absolutely necessary; plug up the gaps in your house making it cheaper to both heat and cool; encourage the City of Greater Shepparton to declare a climate emergency; become active, make a noise and push for changes wherever you can.

Listening to our PM Scott Morrison following the outcome of the  recent Pacific Forum, I could think only of what the late French poet, journalist and novelist, Anatole France, said: “What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.”