Coping with Climate Change Distress

There has been a recent flurry of articles and radio stories regarding the rise of climate grief and ecological anxiety in Australia and abroad. 

For some support and advice on living with such distress a number of groups came together to publish this pamphlet on coping with climate change distress.

Read the pamphlet, download it here - “Coping with Climate Change Distress.”

Living in an echo chamber, just like everyone else

I live in an echo chamber.

I read about the climate crisis, frequently; I hear about the climate crisis, many of my friends talk about the climate crisis; often, I travel to and from Melbourne to listen to lectures about the climate crisis; I’m involved with two Shepparton-based groups focussed on climate matters; I maintain a blog (“Beneath the Wisteria”) and several months ago started a podcast (“Climate Conversations”) that are both about helping others better understand what damage we have caused to the world’s climate system.




And just a week ago I was in Myrtleford for a day-long conference/launch of a project to embed climate adaptation in agriculture.

 Further, last Saturday week, I spent the day at the Tatura Transition Towns annual film festival entitled “The Power of Youth”, which, in its own way, was an extension of the “School strike for Climate” movement.

And is that out of balance? 

No, not at all, especially when you consider the blinkered view of others who see the world through the prism of economics and profit, and so work tirelessly to maintain a way of life that is at odds with our wellbeing and is herding humanity toward an existential apocalypse.

And do I have hope? Well, most days yes, and others not so much. My spirit rises and falls, but to be without hope would be to deny my humanity and so I cling to the idea of American author Studs Terkel who said: “Hope dies last”.

What we understand as the market system can justifiably claim many of the advances enjoyed by humanity, but its sustenance in the last six decades, in particular, has seen the atomization of society leading to the stupendous enrichment of a few coupled with poverty and inequality in many corners of the world.

Ancient Greece philosopher, Aristotle, lamented, even then, the inbuilt damning contradictions of the market system, but I write with care for American professor and author, Steven Pinker, has dedicated entire books to reminding his readers just how good life is for most people.

The idea of doom prosecuted by much in the media distresses Pinker and in his view does not fit with daily realities presently faced by many around the world.

Pinker, of course, has made judgements about contemporary, tangible and understandable matters, but the climate crisis is, as writer and consultant Roger Molins, says is quite different; it is intangible.

“We do not perceive climate change as it is, we do not touch it; it absolutely defies the definition of what a thing is.” he writes.

Yes, the facts are grim but they alone will not change our behaviour and it was only last week that Dr Margret Hickey, speaking at Shepparton’s La Trobe University, when discussing writing through the Anthropocene, pointed to stories, true and otherwise, as being the lever that shifted humanity. 

Many practical things will help us mitigate the causes of climate change, and adapt to its unfolding difficulties, but the essence of who we are is to be found in our stories; stories that need to be told, urgently.

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.”

Visit Australia and enjoy a variety of 'shitfuckery'

In launching season two of the new Honest Government Ad,  Giordan from Juice Media said:

“Thanks so much to everyone who gave me feedback on the preview which I posted at the start of the week, and a big shout-out to Leanne for coming up with the genius “Authorised by Tourism New Zealand” message at the end! (proving that sometimes the best “Authorised by” messages are the ones that are completely unexpected haha). I really love crowdsourcing input, so I love that we can do this from time to time :)

“If you were around when we launched the very first Honest Government Ad, all the way back in 2016, you might remember that it was also called Visit Australia. Lucy and I made it in just a day. It seemed like a fun idea to try out. We had no budget, no actors (only Lucy’s voice), no animations - and NO idea this would turn into such a beloved ongoing series.

Z”Here it is in case you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V41-uYPXw6I

“So this is why I’m kicking off Season 2 by revisiting that original HGA, updating it for 2019. (This might become a tradition for starting off new HGA seasons!)”, he said. 

Here is the latest from the “Honest Government Ad” series.

Funerals are markers in our lives, and that of communities

Attending funerals and recording the names of mourners was among the early tasks for a junior reporter, and friend, who worked at this newspaper as a sub-editor before returning to his home in England.

A list of mourners would probably not make good reading unless that list was personally important in that underlined, or said something about the standing within the community of the person being buried.

Funerals are markers in our lives, and that of communities.

Funerals are fascinating affairs, bringing together a disparate group of people from lovers, family, friends, work colleagues, enemies, advocates, the local who is “at everything”, and the occasional character who can’t wait for the formalities to end and the free food of the wake to begin.

However, they can also be a learning experience with tales told during the eulogy revealing a whole new aspect to the life of the person  being buried.

Some things are alarming, some are ridiculously funny and some help you better understand why things are the way they are and within that explain something about history, particularly the era through which the soul being celebrated lived.

A near 90-year-old aunt was buried in Echuca recently and the stories of her life evoked a host of memories, among them what a wonderful story teller she was.

Nothing was ever missed and within a flash, a riveting and almost scary tale about a police escaper crashing through the backdoor could change to a side-splitting story, without interrupting the original story-line, about burning the breakfast toast.

It’s worth retelling a little about the fellow running from the police, he burst into my aunt’s house with the police in close pursuit, my aunt and her husband retreated to a bedroom, while the police and the villain crashed about the house, pepper-spray was involved and the arrest took some time until the four or five police officers finally cornered and subdued the escaper.

That story had a certain vigour and it was re-energised in every telling by my aunt, but that was just one story from the week as it was only as few days later that a rogue bull escaped from the city’s sale yards and ended up in my aunt’s yard.

Soon after, some people searching for the bull arrived, shot it and it died in my aunt’s driveway. Those stories weren’t told at the funeral, but my aunt told them with such colour, detail and shrieks of laughter that they are fixed my memory.

Funerals are frequently life-markers, both for individuals and communities.

There is alway pre and post funeral memories and beyond that, it seems they say something about your inclusion in whatever community you call home.

St Arnaud in central west Victoria was my home for about two years in the early eighties and although my family and I enjoyed our time there, never did I feel sufficient connection with anyone to attend a funeral.

Having moved to Shepparton from St Arnaud and lived here ever since, I now attend two or three funerals a year, although I am getting older and so friends and other community colleagues are dying with an alarming regularity. 

Attendance at a funeral, beyond immediate family and friends, has always seemed to me a marker of your arrival as a “local”.

And the elephant wasn't even in the room at Mooroopna drought summit

The elephant, it seems, wasn’t even in the room during the recent Drought Summit at Mooroopna.

Federal Agriculture Minister, David Littleproud.

However, the Federal Agricultural Minister, David Littleproud, the Drought Envoy, Barnaby Joyce and the Federal Member for Murray, Damian Drum, and about 100 agitated others were.

Sadly, I wasn’t there, but inquiries suggest that had the elephant turned up, it would have been turned away as the thought that we had caused the troubles that malign the lives of our farmers did not have much currency among those in the room.

Australia, like the rest of the world, is barrelling down the climate change highway.

Most everything the climate scientists predicted has and is happening, but with one significant difference; it’s unfolding somewhat quicker than envisaged. Yes, the abyss is almost visible.

There was, according to reports, a widely held view at the drought summit that the water shortage compounding the troubles of our farmers was a “man-made drought”, meaning the country’s water resources had been badly managed.

Such conversations are little more than a distraction from the real game, the fact that our disrupted climate system has changed weather patterns and the reality is that we get less rain where we need it and more where we don’t.

And when we do get it, it comes in great bursts, quickly runs off, leaving a scant amount to soak in, and as it vanishes so does some of our rich and valuable top soil. The long-term benefit fo that downpour is damnably slim.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) knows about the elephant and in it latest report outlines the climate effects of 1.5ºC and 2ºC warming and discusses the efforts that will have to be taken to hit those targets; targets that current emissions-reduction pledges get us nowhere near where we need to be. 

The IPCC said our transportation, land-use, building, energy, food, and other systems need to be redesigned from the ground up to reduce emissions and prepare for a warmer world.

Drought envoy, Barnaby Joyce.

The conversation we must have to prepare for that warmer world is not one Minister Littleproud, Drought Envoy Mr Joyce, or local Member, Mr Drum, are willing to initiate as the essence of where the discussion must go contradicts their fundamental political ideologies.

It was only a week ago that the leader of the CSIRO’s Earth Systems and Climate Change hub, Dr David Karoly, who is known to many in the Goulburn Valley, echoed an earlier comment when he said Shepparton was inline for successive days of 50 degrees Celsius.

Those temperatures combined with a drought, man-made or otherwise, will force acknowledgement of that elusive elephant and with it serious discussion about seeing Australia embrace the idea of a “climate emergency”, something now being discussed by Britain’s House of Lords.

And while we contemplate that idea, it is interesting to note that Australia, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, has just left its hottest March on record.