Climate change has affected me by causing me mental harm as I feel anxious about the long-term effects that it might have on everyday Australians.
Taylors Lakes, VIC
Hi, my name is Chantal and I am currently a first year university student. Climate change is something I am very passionate about and I have made this clear by participating in the School4Climate protests that happened in Melbourne CBD.
Climate change has affected me by causing me mental harm as I feel anxious about the long-term effects that it might have on everyday Australians. In 2021, during my final year of high school, climate change became a very topical issue at my school. It was evident that the government was not doing enough to help eliminate climate harm and we were informed about its seriousness. After doing my own research and diving deep into the issue, I felt so upset about the reality of the situation. Looking around the world there are so many examples of climate harm and its consequences on quality of life. I feel very fortunate to live in a country like Australia where our quality of life is a lot better, and our overall contribution to climate harm is not as bad as other countries. However, I feel very strongly that Australia needs to do better to set an example for other nations. We do still contribute a large amount of overall carbon emissions and this is something that we can definitely remove.
When attending the School4Climate protests I felt happy that so many others felt as strongly about climate change as me and that there was definitely a sense of unity. However at the same time I could not help but feel distressed because despite so many of us rallying together, I feel that the government is not doing enough to fight climate change. I feel like we are not being heard and it is very frustrating because climate harm is a very real and pressing issue. I am also anxious about my own future and even starting my own family because right now I do not feel comfortable with how things are going to proceed.
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I had never seen an Australian forest die due to drought. In the summer of 2019, I thought the fires had already been through our land, but it was the brown of acres of dead eucalypts. Then the creeks and the dams dried up and the platypus and the birds disappeared. We have had some good rain since then, but it’s sporadic, from drought to flood to drought, and the platypus didn’t return, and neither did so many of the birds that used to breed here. In the first flush of rain in 2020, there was too much rain, then too much regrowth in the bush. The creeks and dams were filled with toxic algal blooms and the last signs of life on the waterways were gone. Now, we are waiting for the inevitable fires to follow. Every month, we are fire-free, and it feels like we won the lottery. Our fire season has been extended, too, so it is very hard to feel relaxed. We are on constant alert. The increase in temperature has obviously stressed the insects, too. When I was a child and even as a young adult, our cars would be covered in bugs if we drove at night. Now, having a bug on the car is rare, and we haven’t seen a bogong moth for years. We have also noticed so many more snakes in this extended hot weather, and they are not entering their brumation (hibernation period) at normal times. This year, we have had them out and visible for at least six weeks longer than usual. This will be upsetting so many systems in nature here. Apparently, snake catchers around Australia are working very hard right now. Snakes have never bothered us, but now many of them are coming around our house. I wonder if they are running out of their normal food in the bush. How can the birds and the rest of the food chain survive? It is obvious to anyone watching that there are multiple systems collapsing so fast.
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