2024-04-30
The climate crisis is a complex topic to succinctly explain. So, the Climate Crisis Working Group of Greens (WA) has been preparing a series of concise informative documents on various aspects
By Vivienne Glance, Co-convenor, Climate Crisis Working Group, Greens (WA)
We’ve lived with this crisis of climate change for many years. It’s a slow and dangerously powerful process of change, and we are beginning to see how it affects our lives in more and more concerning, if not terrifying, ways.
The bushfires and the associated loss of wildlife and threats to biodiversity, and the smoke and health problems these fires cause are some of the symptoms of this change. As are extremely heavy rainfall and the flooding that follows, or the droughts and the browning of old-growth forests; the rising sea levels, and the shoreline erosion, and there are many others. Even the novel and damaging viruses and other diseases that are beginning to appear could be traced back to our changing climate.
It's hard to think about, let alone talk about climate change, but we must speak up and help people understand what is happening. And more importantly, what actions we need to take as a community to stop things from getting far, far worse.
The GWA Climate Crisis Working Group (CCWG) has taken one small action to help with communicating the vast array of issues associated with climate change. We’ve spent many months creating short, easy-to-read, and informative Climate Explainers. The topics covered go beyond defining what climate change is and cover a range of issues such as ‘Urban Greening’, ‘What is the Safeguard Mechanism’, to ‘Distributed Energy Resources’ and ‘Water Management’.
These explainers are posted on the blog of our Greens State MP, Brad Pettitt [ https://www.bradpettitt.com/blog/category/climate-explainers/ ] and we’ve also worked with Brad to help explain many of the concepts connected with his Climate Positive Perth initiative, such as ‘Climate Ready Homes’ and ‘Effective House Design for Passive Heating and Cooling’.
We have written more explainers, and more are being researched. We’d welcome anyone with expertise in climate change or climate resilience and mitigation to join us and write even more. We have an easy-to-use template to help guide writers, and we follow a review process, so everything is checked and edited before publication.
As well as these Climate Explainers being published on Brad’s blog, we are also keen for people to use them to help inform themselves on these topics before campaigning, for example. We’re keen to support the election of Greens MPs in both the state and federal elections, and if you are planning a climate change door knock or phone bank, we’d love to work with your volunteers and share our work with you.
As a grassroots party, we must support and learn from each other to help grow our understanding of current issues, such as climate change and what to do about it. Our real-world impact as a Greens Movement goes beyond elections and campaigns. The CCWG hope you will use these Climate Explainers when speaking with friends and family, many of whom don’t have the time in their busy lives to really understand what we’re facing and importantly, the solutions that exist to help us in the future.
The best protection from climate grief and despair is being informed about the positive solutions we can advocate for. Once people are informed, they will feel more able to act from a position of knowledge. They may even consider joining us in our essential work as a volunteer, a member, or as a Greens candidate. We are hopeful that they will.
Please get in touch if you can help us, we’d love to hear from you.
Contact the CCWG Co-convenors:
Eddie Marynowicz – edmarynowicz1@gmail.com
Viv Glance – vivienne.glance@gmail.com