It Used to Rain Like This Once….

Twice in a week now.  Heavy rain. 

This is unusual for our area, well it is unusual due to the fact that it is out of character for climate patterns of the last 14 years.  Back in the good old days, it used to rain often during spring and winter in southern Victoria for days and weeks on end, and it was a lush, green place.  I can even remember when the slogans on the Victorian vehicle number plates use to say “Victoria – The Garden State”.  Who would have though that all those vehicles helped put us in the mess we are in now.  It is no longer the garden state in most parts, that is for certain.

It is sad to think that my son Ben who is now 10 years old, has never really seen rain by the bucket load, day after day for weeks on end.  Very sad indeed and set to continue, unless of course we reduce carbon emissions to below 350ppm and stabilise the climactic patterns back to what they were. They may not return to exactly what it used to be like, but at least it will be predictable and we will be able to adapt, as will all other species on the planet.

When I first visited Melbourne in the late ’70’s, the running joke was that the city ‘had four seasons in one day’ and you used to carry an umbrella and light jacket around everywhere just in case.  I can visualise all of my Melbourne readers nodding their collective heads in agreement!  That is what it was like, and the city’s water supply was never considered to be under threat.  Instead, because of our own short sighted actions, we have changed this once productive and beautiful state into a desert where it rains sporadically in heavy, infrequent down pours.

I wonder, when I look back, for the reasons that we didn’t act sooner?  Is it that we truly are living in “The Age of Stupid“, and that our moral and ethical collective compass have been completely skewed?  We are obsessed with growth at all costs, and it won’t be until the last old growth forest is felled (which is probably why it doesn’t rain as much), or the Murray-Darling Basin becomes a dustbowl, or the last fish is caught in the ocean, will we stop what we are doing.  It won’t be because we have all had a green epiphany, it will be because we are physically forced to, and many will go hungry due to famine.

A sustainable lifestyle will be dictated to us, not by governments (if they even exist in the future), but by the planet Earth, which is the ultimate visible force in our lives and provides us with this wonderful place to live on.  This bleak future will only change if we decide quickly to change ourselves and we choose to begin to stop trashing the air, soil, and water.  We need to make amends to the environmental damage we have and are still causing.  I live the lifestyle that I do because I can see many possible futures, which do not all smell like roses, but will be hard times if we don’t have the right skill sets to carry us through.  So, I help teach others directly via presentations to local groups, by acting in a planet positive way, leading by example and hope that others will take the initiative to act before it all becomes too late to start.

How ironic that my rain post turned into a rant about climate change, but it is quite obvious to me that the two subjects are connected, as we are all connected to it.  Even more ironic is that the rain has stopped my irrigation project in its tracks, but it means that I don’t have to water the garden this week! 

All food for thought, as is this quote;

“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.”
Erica Jong (American writer and feminist, 1942)

I would rewrite the quote like this for better context about the subject of climate change;

“Truth is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t, and are fearful of acting upon the change that is necessary.”
Gavin, (Environmental Activist, 2009)