DEAR News Of The Area,

LET’S look at this scenario.

A person has an illness which could be well managed if only they would adopt practices in their daily life which have been proven to reduce their risk of becoming ill.

Imagine if this person’s doctor took the attitude that their patient didn’t need to take steps to prevent the illness because medicine is getting better and better with treating the illness when it occurs.

Imagine further if this same doctor refused to change their attitude despite their patient getting much sicker and more frequently.

Surely, we would argue that this person should find a better doctor because prevention of illness is more desirable and cheaper for our economy.

Our climate is ill and is getting sicker.

We have known for a long time what is making it worse.

Weather events are more severe and more frequent.

We have so much information about the steps we need to take to address the problem but our government buries its head in the sand.

The best our PM could offer recently about “a lot of these natural disasters” that “we’ve all been through” was to say that “every single time we learn how to do it better the next time”.

I am not sure about you but I don’t want to keep living through floods and fires so the government can learn how to best respond to each separate disaster.

I don’t want to worry that every time it rains it is going to bring damaging floods or hail.

I want us to do all we can to reduce the chances of a “next time”.

I want an MP in Canberra who will take on the challenge of climate change and not put the money interests of big mining companies ahead of the public interest to act on climate change.

Regards,
Judith FLEMING,
Sawtell.