I have never felt more powerless as a parent than during the black wildfires of summer.
Rushing my two-year-old son to the hospital, I was overwhelmed with worry: there was no way to escape the toxic smoke, even where we lived in the center of the city. sydney. I went on and on. Like any parent, we were terrified of what the next few days would bring.
The call came from her nursery. Our baby had been choking on air. For months we felt like we had nowhere safe to go and no way to adequately protect it.
Our son was just one of over 4,000 people who ended up in the hospital due to wildfire smoke that summer – almost 450 people died from smoke inhalation and I will be forever grateful that he was not one of them.
I was reminded of how helpless I felt at the time when news of the latest State of the Environment report broke last week.
The report confirmed what we already knew from experience: climate change is having a real impact on the environment and we are seeing the effects now.
Extreme weather events, including wildfires, are becoming more frequent and intense, and the health impacts of wildfire smoke and future heat waves are among my biggest concerns for my children.
The environment in which we live and in which we raise our children is in decline because we have neglected it for generations. That trend will continue without substantial restoration of nature and ambitious climate action.
While my son was in the hospital, it was already clear that our youngest and most vulnerable were feeling the impact of our neglect.
The state of the environment report said: “Environmental degradation is now considered a threat to humanity, which could provoke social collapses with lasting and serious consequences.”
While the natural world is in decline, the impact of extreme weather on all of us will increase and our food and water security is at risk.
So again I’ve been thinking about what kind of environment we’re trying to raise happy, healthy and safe children, as well as the world that they and their children will inherit. What does the future hold for them?
The world today is already deteriorating before our eyes. But it is not too late to turn this story around.
To keep our children and wildlife safe in the future, we need a convention that recognizes two key Australian values: that we love and value our unique natural environment; and that older Australians have a duty of care to our young people.
Australians are very proud of our environment. We take our international visitors to feed kangaroos and see koalas, or take our families on bucket list trips to the Great Barrier Reef and the red deserts of central Australia.
We are also united by our sense of justice and the desire to protect children and the most vulnerable members of the community.
Federal Court Judge Justice Mordecai Bromberg described the impacts of climate change as “the greatest intergenerational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of human beings on the next”. He said this during his sentencing (since overturned) in a class action lawsuit challenging former environment minister Sussan Ley’s approval of a coal mine expansion. The approval went ahead.
Will the new Environment Minister fulfill the duty of care that one would expect from the position?
The fact that older Australians are bequeathing this deep ecological debt to younger and future generations should deeply concern us all.
If we really keep those values close, we can have an impact. With better education, care, collaboration, and advocacy from all sectors, we can stop the endless destruction and hold our leaders accountable.
We can introduce regulations that protect the air we breathe, the soil our farmers work, the water we drink.
But more importantly, we can ask our leaders to rule out approving new coal and gas projects: any new project is incompatible with a safe climate. This heinous compromise has to end now.
Any development project approval must consider the comprehensive climate impacts of all projects and activities that threaten our ecosystems, not each project in isolation.
We could follow the Welsh example of a law ensuring that listed government bodies consider the quality of life for current and future generations in their decisions. The Future Generations Welfare Law recognizes the duty of care that governments have with young people, and the care we have of our environmental, social and cultural heritage.
Solutions are available, but we need bold and decisive action and support at all levels of government and across parties.
The story I tell my now four-year-old son about our natural environment is simple: if we want to enjoy the beautiful nature that Australia has to offer, we must be the ones to take care of it now.
If our government and business leaders share our Australian values of fairness, pride in our natural environment and care for our children, they will hear the same story.