Saving Australia's Special Places: The Natural Icons We Stand to Lose from a Weak Response to Climate Change. I read this report this morning...we were away for the weekend in Thredbo (the Australian Alps - though it is stretching the meaning of Alps!) for a music festival. It was so beautiful to be there in summer and take the chairlift up and walk where normally you would ski...But, it was also incredibly sad...CSIRO has estimated that by 2050 the average length of the ski season will be reduced by 15 (low impact scenario) to 100 days (high impact scenario)...the ski season in Australia is only about 110 days...But it is not just our Alps...the WWF estimates that by 2050 less than 5% of the Great Barrier Reef will remain due to climate change, unsustainable fishing practices and coastal development...In the Australian Bush the number of extreme fire days is expected to increase by 100 to 300% by 2070...our Wine Region, Wet Tropics, Kakadu, Murray-Darling Basin, Beaches are all at risk...as are Natural Icons all over the world...I couldn't help think about what Dorothea Mackellar would think...here is a small excerpt from her poem 'My Country'.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror --
The wide brown land for me!
What if we lost it all?...I sent a postcard to Kevin Rudd today letting him know how I feel about Australia's carbon targets...go to Who On Earth Cares (part of the ACF) and send your own postcard (it takes only a few minutes)...I would love to tell my grandchildren that we helped to save the snow. How magical would that be? xxx
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