Climate change, ecology and human survival.
Auckland Sky turning orange
A trip to Southern Hemisphere in December made me reflect on the changing nature of our climate, a huge theme in the media in 2019. With reports on a no-snow show in Moscow, freezing temperatures in India, fires in Australia and in the Amazon, changing, volatile weather is now constant front page news.
Our stay in New Zealand began with the volcanic eruption on White Island, followed by news of a deadly typhoon on Christmas Day in the Philippines, and worsening fires in Australia. The second two at least being natural disasters that science tells us could be mitigated by less man made activity. These events are akin to the earthquake in Lisbon in 18c that caused Voltaire and his contemporaries to reflect on the great scourges of humanity, suffering brought on by man made and natural disasters. But our immediate challenge is not loss of faith but how to take action. We know this is a problem we have caused.
During our time in New Zealand we visited many sanctuaries, lonely spots of lush native beauty in a treeless landscape, where the fragile ecology of a once densely forested tropical island is being painstakingly restored through fencing and new technologies and approaches for mammal elimination – part of a growing awareness of the pressing need to restore balance.
Here is a link to a short film trailer on Hinewai Reserve on the South Island. An amazing story.
The unique ecology of the NZ islands has been devastated by man made deforestation. This is a relatively recent event – the great kauri forest which covered many parts of the North Island were logged almost to the brink of extinction only 150 years ago – yet another reminder of how human activity is wrecking the environment and driving climate change. In spite of government initiatives for planting trees for subsidies (albeit non native pines) and the extensive milk industry being challenged for polluting practices, the competition between man/farming/population growth/ growing suburbs and planting native trees will not be easily won.
At the end of our stay, we set off in the early morning for the airport to begin our long journey home. We drove through the Waitekere mountain range towards the west Auckland suburbs, glimpsing the morning sun through the native bush, an unnatural, pale red sun, perfectly round, with wisps of cloud filmed over it. Smoke particles from the Australian fires, my husband said. We later read that the snow in the South Island mountains had turned brown from the Australian fire smoke and that scientists were predicting this would escalate the glacier melt. It was reported that people could smell smoke in Christchurch, 1200 miles from the coast of Eastern Australia. And then the skies turned an apocalyptic orange in Auckland.
Can we learn to live in harmony with Nature, to change our relationship with flora and fauna, before it is too late? With these events heightening our awareness of the fragility of our planet, the themes of our relationship to nature and human survival, which I explore in my novel Badland, suddenly feel more urgent.
My protagonist Esther lives in a place where the climate is drying, crop yields are down - as a consequence incomes for the poorest are increasingly unstable. This impacts on her family life, precipitating the drama which begins with her father’s disappearance. Esther has to unravel the mystery of what happened to him, and then find a way to navigate the dangerous situation she and her siblings find themselves in. Her Grandmother hands her the key to her personal survival, in the form of a book on plant lore.
‘Understanding plants helps us to maintain our relationship with the earth. Get to know their names…If you give something a name it’s a kind of respect, just like naming a person gives you intimacy with that person. If we respect the earth, like we are taught we should respect other people, we learn our place in the world. Finding the right word, naming things is a step in learning to see.’
Her grandmother’s wisdom helps Esther to grow, to discover her autonomy, and to survive her ordeal at the hands of her stepfather.
But that is just a story.
Our governments seem more interested in bringing down taxes for the rich than ensuring the poor are fed. In a world held hostage to greedy corporations devoid of pity and hell bent on taking for themselves the earth’s resources, how do we survive?
