The impacts of climate change have directly affected me with my recent move to Sydney and the weather that the city was subjected to earlier in 2022, and is continuing to be subjected to. Unfortunately as a consequence of the turbulent weather, the roofing on my house failed and my house flooded which posed an extensive financial burden on myself and my housemates as many of our household items were ruined as a result.
Sydney, NSW
My name is Laurence Young and I am an actor living in Sydney. I was born in the north east of England and moved to Australia with my family as a child where I grew up in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. I have always enjoyed making the most of Victoria’s natural beauty as well as other natural resources throughout Australia. My work as an actor means that I am travelling around Australia a lot which has given me great insight into how diverse Australia is in terms of the environment. I recently travelled to the Northern Territory which really opened my eyes to how amazing Australia is in terms of its environment and how deeply connected the land is to the indigenous culture of our first nations people. It has also given me a unique perspective into how climate change will directly and perhaps disproportionately impact the connection that first nations people have with their land as much of their culture is linked to the land which stands to be negatively affected by the impact of our contemporary western way of life.
On a personal level, the impacts of climate change have directly affected me with my recent move to Sydney and the weather that the city was subjected to earlier in 2022, and is continuing to be subjected to. Unfortunately as a consequence of the turbulent weather, the roofing on my house failed and my house flooded which posed an extensive financial burden on myself and my housemates as many of our household items were ruined as a result. I believe that such events are only likely to worsen in severity and increase in frequency as the impacts of climate change continue to be felt in Australia.
I am also concerned with the world in which future generations stand to inherit as a consequence of the worsening state of our environment due to the impact of climate change. As someone who eventually wants to start a family, I feel a level of anxiety about the issues that my children and their children will be compelled to deal with. This has instilled a sense of responsibility within myself regarding my carbon footprint and the overall impact I am having in terms of reducing the negative impacts of climate change. My hope is that as a nation, greater responsibility is placed on all individuals as well as our public institutions so that more meaningful efforts can be made in reducing climate change and the associated harms that come with it.
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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.
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