There were species of trees along the Katherine River that all died in unison, and huge areas of native forest perished. It was all because of the heat.
Alice Springs, NT
My name is Simon Quilty, I’m a long term Northern Territorian and I’m a specialist doctor. I have an interest in the health effects of climate change in the tropical North.
People in the Territory are focused on how to survive the next stretch of hot day in the build-up when temperatures soar for months on end into the 40s. When there’s an extended period of really hot weather, it feels calamitous. Since 2015, the summer heat has been excruciating, with much longer summers and much hotter peaks. The summer of 2019/20 was the hottest ever recorded. That heat season was so severe that meteorologists who I have been undertaking research with were lost for words to describe how unprecedented the heat was that summer. The last year has been a La Niña, and was supposed to be cooler, but even this year was well above average.
Everyone talks about the Great Barrier Reef, but it is all ecosystems in the north that are teetering on the edge of collapse. That summer of 2019/20 was catastrophic for the savannah country. There were birds falling out of the sky, dead. There were species of trees along the Katherine River that all died in unison, and huge areas of native forest perished. It was all because of the heat. There wasn’t much attention being paid to the heat event in the north because the Black Summer bushfires were happening down south. But I was living through it. My children were living through it, I had to explain to them why the birds and trees were dying. It was existentially sad, I realised that this summer would be one of the cooler ones that my children would experience in their lifetime.
In extreme heat, your body cooks from the inside. From a medical perspective, the heat denatures your proteins, damages your organs and you die. It’s a bit like a frog in a pot of boiling water – at some threshold, people will start to die. A few years ago, the temperature reached 49.9° in Tennant Creek. Those kinds of temperatures are unsurvivable without adequate shelter.
Once the body reaches 41.5°, that’s what we call heat stroke – you’re on the edge of death, all the mechanisms that your body naturally has to cool you down have been expended and physiological systems have reached tipping points, your insides start to cook and you’ll die pretty quickly. I’ve experienced this a couple of times myself but was fortunate enough to make it to a cool place and water. Your head pounds with pain, you get strange cold shivers even though you are burning hot, your arms and legs are weak, and you feel off-balance and confused as the neurons in your brain reach temperatures incompatible with normal function. It’s the beginning of the end, and if you don’t find shelter and water to cool your body, you won’t last long.
But extreme heat doesn’t just affect the body, it also affects the mind. Suicide rates go up significantly during extreme heat. In the Top End, it’s called Suicide Season. Extreme heat causes impulsivity and impairs the capacity to make rational decisions. I have felt it myself, it’s a sense of despondence, that the heat is never going to stop. Every year, these periods of heat despondency are creeping south.
The reality of what climate change is doing in the NT is a lived experience for me. It’s deeply concerning and there’s not nearly enough being done about it.
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I am surrounding by an ocean of drowning trees. They are not drowning in water, they are thirsty for it. Brown as scabs and waving like flags throughout the forest, on roadsides, and in backyards, Endlessly and silently gesturing to all of us. You can see them out of the corner of your eye, Niggling at the edge of our thoughts, As we relentlessly drive on without changing lanes, slowing down or coming to a stop. If we did that, we would have to turn and look. Like properly look, Noticing something for the first time that has been there all along. The forest that is, which has existed and perfected its survivorship over thousands of generations. We call it the Jarrah forest, and it is found nowhere else in the world. It has loved and nurtured the people of the south west of WA, Without question and without asking anything in return. It has given breath to our lungs, pure water for drinking and sacred footpaths to tread. It could have lasted forever if we had chosen to tread carefully, And looked after it like we would our own kin. The least we could have done is look after it. The sheer number of dying trees is new, and that’s what’s waving to us, As they are drowning in the hot, dry air; New saplings that have germinated after a brutal ‘controlled’ burn, Right before the rain stopped in spring last year. It’s barely rained since, And the tender young plants cannot reach water in time to survive through summer. We are nearly two thirds of the way through autumn, And still it feels like summer. We will get rain soon, And we will enjoy the lush, earthy smells and green tones, That will please our eyes and calm our minds. The new brown scabs will remain, Reminding us of the groundwater that we can’t see, That has been depleting every year. It will remain out of reach for the old, old trees, Not just the young saplings; The grandmothers of the landscape are dying. First you see the grey-green crown start to fade, And then turn yellow, And then brown, like weak tea. Without the elders and the saplings, What is left? And what will come next? Not air for our lungs. Or water for our bodies. Or shaded footpaths. The forest will no longer be safe. Just one word, and you will know; Fire. Everyone who thinks that we don’t need the forest to survive, Will realise too late. Or perhaps they don’t think at all. Or perhaps they know, and they choose to ignore. Or perhaps they think that we have dominion over the forest, And it is there to take from what we want, And the consequences are too far in the future to worry about now. Except they are not. Those poor, drowning trees. Not drowning in water, thirsty for it. Not waving, but drowning in the hot, dry air.
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