Happy Earth Day 2020

Its been a tough start to 2020 in Australia with bushfires that devastated a significant portion of the environment and the fauna that live there, with the massive coral bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef, both events linked strongly to climate change and both with the potential to have significant impact on economies and communities which rely on them for their livelihoods. If that wasn't enough, the pandemic of Covid-19 has had such an immediate and profound impact on a global scale that it has pushed these disasters off the front pages fairly rapidly, hopefully not too rapidly that they escaped the attention of the broader community. We need to continue to do more to understand how climate change will affect the things that matter to us and develop ways to respond, and we must do more to reduce the levels of carbon in the atmosphere.

I agree with the many posts on social media about learning lessons from our response to Covid-19 and applying these to the forthcoming challenge of climate change that is not going away. Its essential that all levels of government, business and industry and the community keep climate change in their minds as we move forward. Stimulus packages can be huge influencers of change and if applied effectively can make a huge difference to our futures.

Days such as Earth Day are a reminder to pause and reflect on what we need to do collectively to ensure the future of our planet and its environment and the people who live on it.