Transcriber: Lam Nguyen Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
If you indulge me,
I want you to take five seconds to think about a nature place
such as the bush or your favorite beach,
or an animal that you have connection with.
Okay, got it?
Now, I want to share three of nature's wonders with you
that I have a connection with and that I cherish.
So migratory seabirds, like this little Arctic tern,
are incredible!
Researchers at the University of Newcastle recently tracked this little tern
which weighs a mere 100 grams,
and it flew the equivalent distance of going around the world twice
in just ten months.
This is a giant cuttlefish, one of my favorite animals.
Can you believe that they are colorblind,
yet they can camouflage with their surroundings
by changing the color and the texture of their skin?
Amazing research by a woman by the name of Suzanne Simard
has shown that trees can actually communicate with each other,
and they do this by an underground network of threads of fungi called mycelium.
Whilst our knowledge of the natural world is greater than it has ever been before,
we continue to put it last,
we continue to destroy it, even though we know how important it is.
The Climate Council, which is a crowd-funded scientific body
that was previously known as the Climate Commission
before our charming Abbott government abolished it three years ago -
they found that 2015 was the hottest year on record globally.
Now, yes the climate is variable,
but this is part of a long-term trend with 2015 being the 39th consecutive year
with above average global temperatures.
"So what," some of you might say, "I get to go to the beach more."
And yes, while this is true,
hotter temperatures mean more wildfires,
it means warmer oceans,
it means more extreme weather events,
which means more flooding, disease, drought, food security issues,
strain on ecosystems ...
It's not really a good thing.
Now, with a warmer climate comes a warmer atmosphere,
which is better at holding moisture.
New South Wales just experienced the third wettest winter on record,
and I could only find a handful of reports on it.
It was resulted in a 30% loss of our food crops.
Are we getting so blasé about the impacts of climate change,
that the thing that affect our communities, rivers, livestock,
they're not even worth a mention anymore?
Now, this is hurricane Mathew.
It developed on the 28th of September and ended on the 10th of October.
The latest figures from the United Nations
show that it has killed around 1,000 people.
It has left 1.4 million people in Haiti in need of assistance.
It is causing cases of cholera to rise.
This is now the lowest latitude Category 5 hurricane on record.
A warmer climate means these storms are becoming more intense
and more long lived.
Now, back home, March and April saw the worst bleaching event
in the Great Barrier Reefs history.
Now, the recent environmental and an economic asset:
it employs 69,000 people;
it absorbs the carbon dioxide that we have been relentlessly pumping out
after decades of knowing about climate change;
and not only that,
a third of all marine life spends at least part of their life cycle on a coral reef.
So they're pretty damn important.
Now, the Australian government tried to censor information
about a UNESCO report
that was investigating the impact of climate change on world heritage sites.
At around the same time, the Australian government
approved what would be one of the world's largest-ever coal mines,
the Adani Carmichael coal mine,
that's going into the Queensland’s Galilee Basin.
Now, bear with me,
this coal mine is going to export coal
directly through the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
So, not only that, the size of the mine
is going to equate to the size of seven Sydney Harbors;
it's going to clear tens and thousands of hectares
of threatened species' habitat; First Peoples' land and heritage;
and the amount of carbon dioxide produced by this mine
is estimated by Greenpeace to exceed the annual emissions of countries
such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Hungary, and Norway.
I think that's going to be pretty devastating to the reef, don't you?
More than our UNESCO report.
Now, the habitats the migratory birds like this little tern rely on.
They store more carbon
than a lot of other ecosystems on the planet.
Our coastlines, they're our favorite place to live;
we've destroyed a lot of these habitats.
The sea level is rising,
and there is very little room for these habitats to retreat to.
We like the giant cuttlefish.
We rely on the ocean for our food.
So, in 2013,
fish accounted for 17% of the global population's intake of animal protein.
These trees that communicate with each other much like we do -
basic primary school lesson, right guys?
They provide us with oxygen, and they absorb carbon dioxide,
so they're kind of essential to our survival
as well as most other species on the planet.
Now, the New South Wales government this week is presented a bill
that is trying to roll back our environmental protection laws
at a time when we need them more than ever.
I just - and of course, now, we've had Trump come in, so ...
I asked you to think about those nature places
and those animals that you have a connection with,
because this is a call to action.
We need to act now.
We can't wait tomorrow, we can't wait next week,
we can't wait five years.
We are really lucky.
We live in the developed world, a lot of us live in luxury,
so we are able to focus on these issues.
Now,
you might ask me: What can I do?
I provided a really rookie brief resource list in your pack,
so it just gives you a few tips about what you can do day-to-day
and some groups that you can connect with
if you want to make a little bit more of a longer-term impact.
We are polluting this planet;
we are warming it up;
we are causing extinction of species at a rate never before seen
in the 4.5 billion years that this planet has existed.
It's going to take a mammoth effort
to minimize the damage that we are doing,
but if we all take responsibility and we work together, it is possible.
I want to leave you with a quote by a guy by the name of Guy McPherson.
"If you think the economy is more important than the environment,
try holding your breath while counting your money."
Thank you.
(Applause)