Part two of my world walk back in 2004/05 was walking from Melbourne to Sydney. Just a slice of the island continent as I had to juggle airline dates. It turned out to be some of the best days of the whole trip.
In the couple of months I spent walking along the Olympic and Hume highways from town to town, I got more offers of free nights, free food and warm support than any other place. They put me on the radio, in newspapers and magazines and were incredibly supportive as I covered just over 500 miles on foot for the Australian Cancer Council charity.
Naturally, they took the piss. I would have been gutted if they hadn’t. I’d arrive in town to be greeted with, ‘Oh not another bloody pom’ and be sent on my way the following day with ‘nothing to pay mate’.
The country was awesome, the people more so. To this day it’s the only place I could ever imagine living if I had to leave the UK.
Which is why along with millions of others, I’m heartbroken to see what’s happening down under with the horrendous bush fires. The Aussies are a hardy, resilient bunch who will come through this, but even for them it’s devastating to see the destruction to homes, nature, wildlife and the long-term impacts to their way of life.
The Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has been criticised for many things before and during this crisis. What stood out for me was his assertion about the balance between climate change and a healthy economy. That there was a necessary level of damage to be done to keep business and jobs in place.
It was an interesting echo of the words of the fictional US Vice President in The Day After Tomorrow who claimed that the fragile global climate was not as important as the fragile American economy. Hollywood will always embellish and accelerate stories to entertain us, but these words from a global leader show more than a grain of truth for the screen writers.
I’ve always steered away from the idea that we need to “save the planet”. We don’t. The planet will defend itself against us and rise again after we are gone. The ever-burgeoning natural landscape around Chernobyl shows the earth’s resilience. We can starve ourselves out of existence and this planet will float on through space, with a new start in the centuries to come.
Ideally, we would be accelerating the development of renewable energies to reduce and ultimately remove the dependency on fossil fuels. Given the all –permeating power of the vested interests on that score, it’s not surprising that progress is patchy. The Middle East in a world no longer dependent on oil? Well they’d continue finding ways to kill and destroy each other, but not hold the world to ransom habitually whilst doing it.
The latest round of climate change talks in Madrid last month kicked the un-recycled can further down the road. The next red letter day for this circus is Glasgow, where no doubt hot tempers, warm words, lukewarm enthusiasm and cold calculation will result in another deferred decision.
Back to Australia. It is a cruel, nightmare situation for a country and people that I really love. They were among the first and worst to suffer from the depletion of the ozone layer, identified in the late 70s. Yes, as a developed first world country they probably used the same damaging products and practices as the rest of us, but felt the brunt sooner and most severely.
Now it seems they are at the brunt again, as the doomsday scenarios depicting Mother Nature’s wrath at our profligacy come to fruition.
To help immediately, here are some contact details:
Support for people in communities affected by the fires
https://www.redcross.org.au/campaigns/disaster-relief-and-recovery-donate#donate
https://www.salvationarmy.org.au/donate/make-a-donation/donate-online/?appeal=disasterappeal
Support for local fire brigades
https://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/volunteer/support-your-local-brigade
https://www.rfbaq.org/donate-to-rfbaq
Good wishes for better days and lots of love to our cousins down under.
MC
Mark Cundy 