Both grandsons are teenagers.
The last turned 13 just recently and said, “I feel like a new person”.
These young boys will both be old men when this century ends; yes, they’ll be in their 90s.
There are no assumptions about the maths, but there are a few about whether or not they will grow into old age.
Of course they face all the usual, and expected, trepidations of ageing, but the complicating and largely unknown factor is what will happen to the Earth as the decades pass.
We do know, however, with certainty that Earth will be warmer, drier and confusingly wetter than it has ever been, making life even more of a lottery than it was in the past.
I am conscious and aware that through living the life I have, the difficulties my grandsons face arise from my doings, along with those of many others, and so the responsibility falls upon me to do all I can to make amends.
That sense of accountability deepened as I read Bill McGuire’s book Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide.
McGuire, a professor of earth sciences at University College of London, wrote: “There is no easy way to say it, but the world of our children and their children will be a far more perilous one.”
Discussing the collapse of resources, the loss of habitable land and how nations will turn against one another in an effort to maintain or gain what they feel is their share and their right, McGuire said we should forget oil and gas, forget wealth, as the most valuable and essential asset on the planet was water. Without it, there would be no society or economy.
Driven by those concerns, a broader sense of care for my fellows, particularly my immediate family, I set out to do what I could from where I was, here in Shepparton.
First, I needed to find out what was happening and for nearly 20 years, regular train trips to Melbourne, sometimes twice a week, saw me in the audience listening to, and learning from, some of the best climate scientists, and their ilk, from all around the world.
That ‘educational’ adventure removed any doubt that it was humans changing the climate; so much so that these changes cloud the future of my grandsons and manifest serious complications and incomprehensible threats.
Aware I needed to start here, it was with trepidation that more than a decade go I set up Beneath the Wisteria in Shepparton’s then Maude St Mall, so called as that was where we gathered.
From that came Slap Tomorrow, a more activist group that brought high-profile speakers to town and has been busy since 2013, beginning with a forum attracting some 650 people to hear from a powerful panel of experts.
Of course, I haven’t been alone in this, as with me, and often showing the way, have been a group of friends who have been, and are, equally concerned about their children, grandchildren, other people and species, and the broader state of the environment.
I leave the final word to McGuire, who said:
“The measure of the maturity of any society must be how well it looks after the needs of every one of its people, and how it cares for the planet and all life thereon, by which metric we are little more than toddlers flailing about aimlessly in the dark.”
Suddenly, another, and unexpected, reason for me to focus even more on doing what I can to ease the climate crisis came just weeks ago, when my son and his partner announced they would become parents in late March next year.
I'm doing what I can from where I am to counter the climate crisis, but considering what Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein said, "It takes everyone to change everything", I'm going to need your help — please join me.