Something that began with an act of courage was formally acknowledged at The Woolshed in Shepparton last Tuesday night.
Facing a palpable headwind, former City of Greater Shepparton Mayor Shepparton Seema Abdullah, used her casting vote in March 2020 to see council declare a climate emergency.
And now, last week on Tuesday night, about 50 people gathered at The Woolshed for the launch of the city’s climate emergency action plan.
The COVID-19 crisis had confused and delayed creation of the plan; a plan designed to create a pathway to zero emissions for council operations by 2030.
Within the plan are ways that business owners, homeowners, community groups and schools can get involved in climate action and get support for the broad reduction of emissions by all in the city.
Speakers at the launch included climate councillor Professor David Karoly, who made a virtual appearance, Waranga Catchment Landcare co-ordinator Louise Costa, from Rushworth, and the Melbourne-based director of carbon neutral strategy for La Trobe University Andrew Jennings.
And representing Shepparton’s youth were Youth Climate Change Leadership Program participants Lillian Richardson and Mia Dainton, who were at the end of the second day of a three-day Shepparton region program of Youth Leading the World.
Recently, an international climate activist once said: “We are the people, the world has been waiting for.’’
Well, last week, particularly on Wednesday afternoon, I was fortunate to be at The Woolshed and see the kids “Shepparton has been waiting for’’.
Prof Karoly used unequivocal evidence to illustrate that Shepparton, the Goulburn Valley and the world faced challenging times as Earth’s temperatures continued to rise and weather systems continued collapsing into unrecognisable and dangerous patterns.
Students from the youth program were challenged to leave the three-day event with ideas and projects they could implement, to impact both their schools, their respective communities and, along with that, ensure their passion excited peers.
Shepparton city’s chief executive Peter Harriott, who has been driving the city’s climate emergency response from his Welsford St desk, was the MC for Tuesday and was pleased to note that all councillors, with the exception of Mayor Shane Sali and Cr Ben Ladson, attended, indicating total council support for the action plan.
Cr Sali was at a Geelong meeting discussing Shepparton’s involvement with the Commonwealth Games and Cr Ladson was representing council at another community meeting.
Cr Abdullah did not see her casting vote as brave or courageous, rather something that needed to be done and, she said privately, if it hadn’t happened then, it would have most certainly been in place by now.
The idea that Shepparton, and in fact the entire world, needs something like an emergency response to what’s happening is both sad and disappointing as the damage we are causing to Earth’s atmosphere was, in a modern sense, first articulated in the 1980s by NASA scientist, James Hansen.
Had we acted then with intent, the pressure we are under now would have been avoided and the anguish many feel would not have existed.
However, here we are now — we have a climate emergency, our council is showing the way and so the responsibility now falls upon us to, and employing a baseball analogy, “step up to the plate”.
Robert McLean is a former editor of The News