For our children and grandchildren that is. On the weekend we went with our grandchildren and other family members to AQWA - an aquarium showcasing local sea life. The place was packed with kids having a wonderful time racing around oohing and aahing at the display tanks filled with stunning fish and jewel-like corals and being fascinated by the fish, turtles, sharks and rays being fed and swimming around and overhead as we went through the huge aquarium on a gliding track. This last was so popular with our littlies that we went around four times and they left under protest but as I watched these amazing creatures I couldn't help but wonder how many of their kind will survive climate change and in particular what is the future of our corals.
The waters off Western Australia's very long coastline have always been kept relatively warm by the Leeuwin current which flows south along the coast. It gives us natural wonders like the World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef - the world's longest fringing reef - where you can swim with whale sharks for example. Which is fine - or has been until now. The thing is climate change has meant that the surface temperature of the ocean is now the hottest it has been in the time that records have been kept and this is confirmed by our indigenous people's oral history dating back centuries. We're seeing coral bleaching events when corals under heat or other stress for long periods expel the symbiotic algae - these normally live within coral structure and give them their brilliant colours - and they then starve to death.This is happening along the coast even as far south as Rottnest Island only a few kilometres off the cost of Perth. On the eastern coast of Australia the Great Barrier Reef - a much better known World Heritage wonder - is under serous threat as this National Geographic article shows.
And this is only talking about corals. The thing is these tiny creatures are now not reproducing fast enough to enable reefs to repair themselves and when the reefs go as they are that affects everything in the food chain. I find it truly scary to think that when my grandchildren are grown to adulthood - only a matter of fifteen to twenty years off - this world of diversity and the equally wonderful world on land may be all but gone and what does that say for humanity's survival? The UN says that we can do something about the inevitability of climate change if we all act and act now. Why are we even wasting this precious time to quibble about what we should do?
What's the worst that can happen if we do as the Australian school children who have been striking and campaigning for action are asking? Their demands are from the School Strike 4 Climate Australia website are:
1. No new coal, oil or gas projects including Adani
2. 100% renewable energy generation and exports by 2030
3. Fund a just transition and job creation for all fossil-fuel workers and communities
That all sounds very sensible to me.
If we can make a difference to the future of our planet and the lives of our children and grandchildren why on earth wouldn't we?
2 comments:
Hi Helen,
People with young children, or in your case young grandchildren, should be really concerned about climate change. Unfortunately it leads many, unlike yourself, to become deniers, otherwise why would they have voted in the current government?
You do have to wonder how anyone can deny it's happening, don't you. I've been seeing warnings that we're heading for trouble for the past thirty years at least but it's just been ignored. A lot of it comes from misinformation in the media as far as I can tell. Here the Murdoch controlled media in particular has a lot to answer for.
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