<
https://www.abc.net.au/religion/dark-ecology-existential-weirdness-of-climate-change-era/104781622>
"I remember first hearing about climate change as a kid in the early 2000s. It
was in a small wooden hall, surrounded by towering greenery and bush so thick
you could barely follow the narrow creeks as a path in.
That room held two full grades of students at Karangi Public School — about
fifteen minutes inland of Coffs Harbour, in northern New South Wales — which at
the time enrolled about eighty children from grades K to 6. Here, the hills
surrounding the school were enveloping worlds of their own, cooler and often
much darker places: good for hiding, following dirt motorbike tracks, and
getting lost. Karangi village was mostly defined by a now dormant General Store
sitting near the school at an estimated centre of the crisscross of rural roads
and freshwater creeks.
Nature felt dominant — at least, it did for me and the other kids. We learned
this by the way our movements and activities were driven, organised and limited
by it. “Bush-bashing” to desired locations needed a solid stick and a companion
in forging new trails, but most often led to dead-ends and disagreements about
possible routes. Lantana or cattle made certain passes impossible. Some friends
were reachable by fence-jumping and fields, while others sat behind tangled
green walls. A tree shaken by a sibling above me gave me so many tick bites it
was mistaken for chickenpox. The river could, and sometimes did, flood the
bridge.
The scale and intensity of the non-human world around us gave it total power
and demanded respect. But, according to our grade teacher (who was also the
school principal), the thing called the “environment” was under threat, damaged
and dented by humans worldwide. We looked out at the trees. There was something
called an “ozone layer”, we were told, which chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were
piercing. Temperatures were rising, alongside overdevelopment and
deforestation. There was a book and a movie titled
An Inconvenient Truth,
which warned that things needed to change — sooner rather than later.
These big, scary shifts that were taking place on our planet — logging
companies and polar bears, climate scientists and US elections — immediately
felt like our business. The handsome, hulking trees that lined the school’s
entrance and bunched in its tributary creek beds were actually camphor laurels,
a toxic and invasive introduced species. The school’s composting and recycling
systems needed sorting out, and so did the veggie patch.
If the New South Wales education department sent out curriculum/class time
inspectors, they may have baulked at the time spent pottering in the bush
during hours set to maths or science. These civic enterprises felt tangible and
determined, if not defiant. We would pick up the rubbish. We would take care of
the plants. All we had to do was raise our voices, try our best, and they would
listen and turn it around. That “dent” was a concerning but healable bruise in
the environment — something that could be fixed by awareness, goodwill, and a
conscientious younger generation."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
