Country Squire
THERE’S NO DENYING CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL WHEN THE BEACH COMES TO YOU, WRITES ROB INGRAM.
BACK IN THE days before we preheated the planet to meltdown level, summer holidays meant going to the beach. Everyone went to the beach. We were expected to go to the beach. It was unpatriotic not to go to the beach
Old-timers remember how it was. I was discussing the summer break with an old-timer the other day and he asked, “Are you going to the beach?”
“Those were the days,” I said, “but now the beach has pretty much come to us.”
We used to go to the beach for sun and sand and warm days and balmy nights. Or sometimes to the river. Remember rivers? Some used to run so you could float down them on tractor tyres or air beds. That was back when the fish were under the surface.
Today, ravaged by the worst drought on record, we’ve got all the sand we need here at home. It came in on the dust storms from the west and piled up against the house and the out-buildings and the fences. And it has completely changed the nature of the game at the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Barry’s, bastion of the noble sport in Dunedoo. Today, all you need is a putter and a sand wedge.
So we don’t need to go to the beach for sand… or sun… or warm days. I read recently that 20 of the 21 hottest years since the 1860s occurred in the past quarter of a century. We’ve seen — or felt — nine of the 10 warmest years on record since 2005. Last year and last summer were the hottest ever. And there’s nothing we can do about it. The only sensible advice I’ve seen about climate change was a message on a T-shirt. It said: “Think Globally, Act Locally… Panic Internally.” How can you not panic when this year’s UN Climate Change Summit announced the global warming outlook is much worse than originally predicted. That’s pretty bad when they originally predicted it would destroy the planet.
When we moved to the Central West of NSW — a four-hour drive from the coast — the town sign read ‘Elevation 400 metres Above Sea Level’. Well, at the rate the glaciers and sea ice are melting, the sea will soon be lapping at our ankles.
This realisation is starting to have a strange effect on ordinary people. Most folk will tell you that I’m pretty ordinary and I’m beginning to change my opinion about the US President’s sanity. I’m wondering if, perhaps, he’s a climate change visionary. Maybe he wants to buy Greenland because he figures it will be the new Riviera?
When children around the world go on strike to tell us that when they replace us and they’re in charge they’d like farms and food and rivers and forests and snow and rain too, you’ve got to listen. When young couples stop planning to have children because of uncertainty about the future — of any guarantee of breathable air and drinkable water — you have to wake up to the horror of what we’ve done to the planet.
No, we’re not going to the beach this summer. We’re okay for sun and sand and warm days and balmy nights. And we’re okay for melanomas and UV radiation, for that matter. We’ll save the planet our exhaust emissions of driving to the coast. We’ll draw the curtains and close the blinds and turn the air conditioning down to 20. We’ll watch the cricket on television and wonder why there are no spectators sitting out in the sun at the ground. We’ll give the barbecue a miss this summer, and find something in the fridge.
We’ll Think Globally, Act Locally and Panic Internally. And we’ll despair that there are still people out there who think global warming is just about changes in weather. It’s about changes in whether we can go on living or not. But have a great summer break anyway.
TODAY, RAVAGED BY THE WORST DROUGHT ON RECORD, WE’VE GOT ALL THE SAND WE NEED HERE AT HOME.