In rich countries we speak of climate change as a lifestyle choice or economic problem for some time in the future. For Pacific Islanders it is a life death and survival crisis happening right now, as they watch their islands drown.
I thought I knew the truth about climate change; but it was not deep knowledge. I hadn't seen its face and heard its voice, until I heard from an islander whose home is literally disappearing beneath the waters.
At an event sponsored by Friends of the Earth and Caritas, Ursula Rakova told how the sea that had been the friend of her people, was turning against them. It had crashed through and divided her island in two. Coconut palms were collapsing at the new shoreline.
Food gardens were lost, as the soil was increasingly rendered infertile by salty tides that washed over them. The land that had been handed from grandmother to daughter, would bequeath no legacy to the granddaughters. The homeland of generations was disappearing before their eyes.
Ursula spoke movingly of the collective loss. She is asking for the help of the rich countries whose fossil fuel based prosperity has been achieved at the cost of her people's survival. She represented the many poor and indigenous people who are suffering most from the warming of the planet.
Climate change and the danger it presents to our planet is something many claim to know. But do we feel it? Do we care enough? Do we comprehend the loss of displaced people whose land has been washed away? Do we see that there but for the passage of time, are all our futures?
The government continues to approve new coalmines and seemingly remains lighthearted about the plight of those affected by climate change. Remember the one about sinking Pacific islands? Caught on camera, the Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton quipped to our since deposed prime minister, Tony Abbott, that 'Time doesn't mean anything when you have water lapping at your doors.'
They chortled over that one.
"Do we comprehend the loss of displaced people whose land has been washed away? Do we see that there but for the passage of time, are all our futures?"
Imagine that being said with compassion instead of in heartless jest.
Listening to Ursula Rakova, the audience at Melbourne University sat in stunned silence. Ursula's task was to head the relocation of the inhabitants of the Carteret Islands and to raise Australia's awareness of the