April 9th, 2007
Chris Sitka on coping with climate change in Australia
“December. Mahlandia, Australia.
Here in Australia global warming has got so hot that we have ignited. In the last three weeks over 2 million acres of eucalyptus forest have gone up in smoke in the State of Victoria. It is summer here. And what a summer! The hottest and driest ever.
Having no dam water means we have little water to spare for reserves to use in case of a bush fire. Everyone here is being urged to develop a well thought out bush fire plan. Big tubs of water positioned so that buckets can easily be thrown on small fires ignited by flying embers are essentials. A bush fire plan involves innumerable preparations. Suzanne tends to spend most of her worrying time on the lack of water for the garden theme, and I tend to spend mine on the unfinished bush fire plan theme.
We are flat out trying to keep the orchard and garden we planted alive. Rushing round with buckets of water. Mulching like mad - even though mulch is a fire hazard. On the days when it is 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more we put shades over plants to protect them. We have a crazy collection of old milk crates, horse blankets, uprooted dead plants and anything we can find to throw between the searing sun and the wilting plants.
We won’t be planting anything more this year. (That is if I can restrain plant-a-holic Suzanne.) If we keep alive our new orchard and berry patch that will be a huge achievement. Those are European plants, and even the natives are turning brown and brittle. We have to make choices about what to try to save. The lovely old shady birch tree cries out for a drink, competing with the few tomatoes we have allowed ourselves and many other contenders.
I spent weeks reducing the leaf litter beneath all the stands of eucalyptus on our six and a half acres that I could manage. This in the hope that if a fire comes the flames won’t race up into the crowns of the tree creating gap leaping fire balls of eucalyptus vapour. The drought causes trees to drop leaves and branches (to save respiratory stress). So I could go back now, if I had time, and rake more back from around the trunks.
This may seem like negative thinking. But this state is set to burn and the fire bugs are about. I try to be alert but not alarmed. It is hard to keep watch for smoke when the whole air is thick with smoke. You can’t know if the fire is 150 miles or 1.5 miles away. Some days you can’t see half a mile away.
Then there are the animals. We gave our horses away to good homes a few weeks ago. There is no grass here. We lost the outside agistment we had and feed is 4-5 times the price it was last year. Many crops failed and were destroyed this year. Ironically record cold snaps in spring killed huge percentages of the commercial fruit and vegetable crops. Prices are on the up and up. Just the sort of year in which you would want to grow your own. Even if you have the water the sun is shriveling the survivors.
Back to the animals. We would have had to build an expensive fence to stop the horses from roaming to search for green pick. Last year they happily chewed on what was here. The expense was getting too much. Also we may need money to buy water.
February.
We are still dealing with the drought current in Australia and our personal struggles with the effects. In the meantime there have been more dramatic events, and some relief as well. So good and bad news.
Firstly thanks for all your magic calling for rain for us. We got results! On New Years Day we had a big downpour and we got over an inch of rain. Never mind that it was so heavy it began to wash our driveway away. It partially filled our rain water tanks and gave the garden and all the trees and shrubs a good drink. None too soon as many native trees had began to perish. Many shrubs and small trees were already brown leaved and gone.
Unfortunately the rain did not fall heavily enough in the bush fire areas and the fires continued to burn wildly and expanded to over two and a half million acres of mostly forest land. One day with a temperature of 105 degrees Fahrenheit the fires burnt out major electric pylons supplying our state with emergency electricity (many people were sucking up power into their air conditioners). The power went off in much of the State of Victoria including in the capital city Melbourne, leaving at least 3 million people without power.
Trains stopped, traffic lights went out, air conditioning stopped, people were trapped in lifts and many were stuck at work in the city unable to get home and found themselves cooking in the heat and choking in the smoke from the bush fires enveloping the city. It brought the severity of the drought home to the folks in the city. Everyone had an uncooked dinner (if they could get home at all.) The authorities were pleading with people still on power to turn off all appliances - especially air conditioners.
Somehow our place missed out on the power cut. We don’t use an air conditioner anyway. We rely on old fashioned ways of keeping cool. It is too ironic that the heating up climate has resulted in an explosion in the purchase of air conditioners in Australia, and that these then contribute to the global warming people are responding to!
Again a disaster has gone a long way towards waking up the populace. Local newspapers are describing a huge shift in public awareness about global warming, water shortages and the need to develop a more ecologically sustainable way of life. People are reporting how they now feel guilty doing things they took for granted (like running the tap while they wash their hands or brush their teeth). They feel nostalgic for things they know will never be allowed again here - kids playing under water sprinklers on the lawn in the summer heat. (We also have some of the worst UV levels in the world and all kids wear hats and full body clothing whenever outside now.)
Australians realise that our old way of life is already going, going, gone. People with green lawns (once an Australian iconic standard) have a sign out front explaining where they get their water from, such as recycling. Otherwise they find vigilantes cut their hoses in the night or report them to the authorities.
Water thieving is becoming common. Rainwater tanks on school buildings drained while school is out. Water Garters sell stolen tap water to people to put in their rainwater tanks. The purchasers are reported to the water authorities when they are seen watering their garden and the water is tested by the ‘water police’ who find the chlorine and prosecute the villains.
It has never been this dry before. However, ironically, we had more rain recently. We had a major flood over much of Australia last week! We got some of this rain here at Springmount - which filled up our tanks, and we were able to scoop enough water to fill up all the many and varied containers we have spread around our land (anything that will hold water).
Good news, you might think. But this rain was a result of a tropical cyclone moving much further south than ever before. Another global warming phenomenon. We have been deluged by a different climate zone! Record summer floods where it is not meant to flood in summer. Much destruction was caused. The food crops that survived the unseasonal snows and frosts (in summer), and unseasonal early heat in Spring, and unseasonal wind storms, and unseasonal drought, was now threatened with moulding diseases or washed away. Fruit split before ripening. Potatoes sprouted before fully grown. It is getting very hard to grow any food.
The number one item on Australia’s political agenda is water, water and water. The politicians are all trying to position themselves as our watery saviors whilst coming up with unsustainable schemes which will enhance their power, and enshrine water control to private enterprise. They want to privatize our rivers, tax our rainwater tanks and transfer farmers from our temperate southern climate to the tropical north- because there is more rain and water there. Private dams are already taxed and bore water is controlled - except for things like Uranium mining, and forest pulping, and oil production other huge industries which are allowed to use millions of gallons a day while the average person is not allowed to even wash their windows or water their vegetable garden.
Folks are beginning to wake up to these facts and demanding to know why.
There is a huge comet in the south western sky here at the moment. For a while we couldn’t see it because of the smoke and clouds. Last night I got a good look and it was mind blowing. An immense long tail taking up a goodly proportion of the sky. It sent shivers up my spine. As well as being a once in a lifetime sight I knew it was a significant omen, as comets have always been.
We are in an unparalleled crisis here in Australia - but a new awareness is being born.
Thanks to the recent deluge and some cooler days the bush fires have stopped spreading and are burning themselves out. We are out of immediate danger and on track for long term survival of this beautiful Mother Earth.”
Chris Sitka writing in Maize: A Lesbian Country Magazine.
It’s only a matter of time before everyone on the planet will be facing climate change-related problems; though the type and severity will undoubtedly differ, the sooner we in the West wake up to the reality that we can’t go on as we are the easier things will be when that time comes. We can learn to live differently now, by choice, or we can learn to live differently the hard way, of necessity. I know which one I pick; how about you?
