Just recently I sat through a meeting with a group of friends who talked about many things, among them the importance of living locally and, of course, climate change.
It quickly became evident that, like me, my friends were flagging as the weariness and energy-depleting contrast of living in a carbon-intense world and trying to encourage something quite different was taking its toll.
Just one evening later, I listened and watched as Noel Pearson delivered his Boyer Lecture on ABC television and although not necessarily a fan, Pearson’s passion and intensity ignites in me some inexplicable need reach out to and care for my fellows.
Feeling the despair, loneliness and discouragement of my friends, I sat down and wrote the following.
Like you, my friend, I too am weary.
Like you, my friend, staying loyal to the impossible is simply hard and sometimes massively lonely work.
Like you, my friend, I too get depressed.
Like you, my friend, what do I have to say, or do, to have people come on board?
Like you, my friend, I have always thought facts would carry the day; those facts would change minds; and those same facts would ignite action.
Like you, my friend, I was wrong — facts don’t change minds or attitudes, it is to their emotions we must turn to. Facts, it seems, alienate many people.
Like you, my friend, my views are pragmatic; it’s facts to which I turn and upon which I lean when plotting my course.
And, like you, my friend, I am tired and alarmed about our feckless attitude regarding the trouble we have caused and how we will repair that damage.
Again, like you, my friend, I need to take a deep breath, straighten my back, throw back my shoulders, re-ignite my passion, refurbish my internal infrastructure, return to the field, speak truth to power and look this existential challenge in the eye.
Like you, my friend, it alarms me that many people deemed successful and intelligent by modern society’s standards continue to be nonchalant and seemingly wholly unmoved by the science that tells us, unequivocally, that without making seismic changes to how we live our lives, trouble awaits.
Nearly a decade ago, the Shepparton-based group Slap Tomorrow gave the residents of the Goulburn Valley a ‘wake-up’ call, and despite the repeated alarms since, many still slumber or, at least, sleep walk towards the precipice.
Like you, my friend, I know some people have at least one eye open, as a Sustainability Victoria report has found that more than 70 per cent of people see climate change as a matter of concern.
That, my friend, is undoubtedly encouraging, but it’s unsettling that such concern does not translate into action; a willingness to join and work with local groups aiming to confront the climate crisis head on.
Like you, my friend, I too wonder why people sit on the sidelines drawing comfort from arguments that his has all happened before (it hasn’t) and wallowing in the belief that technology will bail us out (it won’t) when the sharpest minds in the world repeatedly point to its failings and inability to deal with a such complex and sweeping problem.
And so like you, my friend, I too wonder what people can do?
Well, my friend, the answer can be as complex as the problem, and so we can begin by doing what we can from where we are, and as is the answer to many things, ‘Google it’.
What we can do is join a group that is searching for solutions, back those who are making an effort. The City of Greater Shepparton has a Climate Action Emergency Plan and it needs your support, and the one thing we can all do is vote for someone, at any level of government, aware of the need to address climate change and so make sure it’s on the agenda.
Yes, my friend, I’m weary, and I wrote this after sitting through a meeting at which you talked about being tired, about “running out of puff”, about how you have exhausted your ideas, and then mentioning how other groups working to combat climate change are equally fatigued.
And so although it often feels lonely, we are not alone. Thousands all around the world are concerned and doing something about climate change and right now many of the world’s leaders have just met in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh to discuss that issue at the United Nations Conference of the Parties, known as COP27.
Finally, my friend, we need to be aware that the climate crisis has broken the promise of progress.
And so, even today, many people who are not necessarily climate-change deniers, who resist meaningful action, who refuse to acknowledge just how broken our economic system is and deny how much damage industry disinformation has done, still watch from the sidelines.
So, again, what do we do? Join us, move from being someone who is concerned to a person of action, as action is the best antidote to depression.