DEAR News Of The Area,

THESE past days, thousands of people in Lismore have lost everything in record breaking floods.

Three months ago, households across our own region suffered thousands of dollars’ worth of damage from a freak, supercell hail storm.

A week before that, Armidale was ripped by a tornado.

Is there a person in our region who hasn’t been directly or indirectly impacted by these events?

Sadly, I doubt it.

Storms, floods, heat waves, bushfires; these events are getting more frequent and more severe.

Effects are snowballing on top of each other and we have little time to recover and reset before the next catastrophic incident devastates our communities.

We’ve lost more than a decade to fruitless debates that put our ‘faith and devotion’ to the economy, over the clarity and possibilities offered by science and policy.

Some solutions are still within reach, but we have urgent choices to make.

We can choose whether we proceed on a high emissions path, or we can switch more immediately to a reliance on low emissions energy sources, dominated by renewables.

The markets understood this years ago.

Our local Federal member, Pat Conaghan, has consistently voted against the government taking urgent action on climate change.

He ignores the compelling evidence and he misreads the concern of his electorate on this crucial matter.

There will be real opportunities for change at the next Federal election; candidates who will insist on decisive action on climate change on our behalf.

The choice will be ours to make, and we must hope it’s not too late.

Regards,
Suzie Holbrook,
SAWTELL.