Starting New Years Eve 2019 we had to evacuate 5 times from the threat of the massive bushfires.
Barragga Bay, NSW
Starting New Years Eve 2019 we had to evacuate 5 times from the threat of the massive bushfires. First to Bermagui for 3 days and then due to no fire dept or police or hospital in town we were told to go to Bega which is in a valley inland.
We left the coast for Bega and were then surrounded by fires for 3 days. Then the highway to Canberra opened up and cars did the 3 hour trip in 8 hours due to all the traffic congestion.
Canberra air quality was horrible so we drove up to Northern Rivers, which is where we had friends to stay with 1200KLM away. Not everyone has friends locally to bunk with.
We hope to never go through that again, but undoubtably we will.
Hundreds of people from across the country are sharing their stories to send a clear message to the Australian government - it's time for real action on climate change.
Every story appears as a point on this map. Click around to read how climate change is affecting our communities, and add your own story to the map.
We have spent a summer trapped in our home with heatwave after heatwave hitting our city in the longest and hottest summer of my lifetime (and indeed the city’s lifetime). I have had to stop my three year old son playing outside day after day and we have all had to stay in the same room as it is the only air conditioned one. Summer used to be a time of fun, of outdoor barbecues for dinner, of freedom. Now it has a feeling of containment and dread. My job requires me to confront climate issues and victims of bushfire and other disasters and their experiences and the flood of climate information leave me feeling deep grief, distress and helplessness. My little son loves animals passionately and i dread the day I will have to tell him about climate change and about how so many of the creatures that inspire him are threatened by mankind’s very existence. I fear he will grow into an adult in a time of increasingly frequent and severe natural disasters, in a country weakened economically and fragmented socially by these disasters. That by the time he grows up the Great Barrier Reef we describe to him will be dead and gone. Having him despite my fear for his future was an act of hope and defiance, but that hope is hard to maintain when our governments will seemingly not act to end the use of fossil fuels and replace them with renewables with the speed that will give my beautiful child the bright future he deserves. I hope and pray that this case changes the situation. And I thank these elders for bringing this action.
Read my storyPeople all across Australia are being harmed by climate change. These are some of their stories.
We're reviewing your story now. As soon as it's up on the website we'll send you an email to let you know. We need as many people as possible to share their climate stories - so we can show the government that Australians need urgent climate action. Will you spread the word by sharing this campaign on social media?
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It doesn't matter how big or small the impact you've felt - everyone's story is important.
Together we can show the government that taking real climate action is in everyone’s interest.
