Our nature movement has a long history of saying no. No to damming the Franklin River, no to Adani’s coal mine, no to dumping in Ningaloo Reef.
But we’re now at a critical point where the future of the communities, nature and people we love depends on us saying yes to some things. Like saying yes to well-designed solar panels and wind farms necessary for increasing renewable energy to power our lives.
We as communities across the country must loudly say yes to these projects because the alternative, burning more coal and gas, is the gravest threat to our oceans and forests.
We face an urgent threat that demands an urgent solution. Burning fossil fuels is warming our atmosphere, acidifying our oceans, fuelling heat waves, intense rainfall, extreme fires, storms and floods, wiping out homes and habitats and pushing threatened species to the brink.
- Warmer temperatures mean less ice cover and food for Humpback and Blue pygmy whales when they migrate to Antarctica in the summer, and uncomfortably hot breeding grounds when they move to Australia's tropical waters in the winter.
- The 2019-2020 Black Summer fires are estimated to have killed or displaced three billion mammals, birds, frogs and reptiles.
- In the wake of tropical Cyclone Jasper, thousands of reef fish, plus tropical birds, wallabies, echidnas and other animals washed up dead on Far North Queensland beaches.
Ramping up wind and solar solutions in all our communities will let us phase out coal and gas and provide critical relief to wildlife across Australia.
But it's a big task and renewable energy can only succeed in kicking out fossil fuels if people across Australia unite loudly and urgently to welcome it into all our communities.
If Australia's renewable build stumbles, we will be forced into burning fossil fuels much longer than we can afford to.
Climate impacts have no boundaries or jurisdictions. The consequences affect us all. We must welcome renewable energy into all our communities now – to protect all our communities and the places we treasure.
It's time for all of us to say yes to renewable energy.
Write a quick message in support of renewable energy that’s good for people and nature and build the momentum for a cleaner, brighter future.
And every new renewable project must be kind to nature.
On our over-cleared continent, there's no need to knock down even more rainforests or destroy more threatened species' habitats.
Building on already disturbed ecosystems, close to cities and regional industrial precincts should be the priority.
A great example is the under-construction Calliope Solar Farm in Central Queensland. It is being built on existing agricultural land and will be Australia's biggest solar farm, generating enough energy to power 300,000 homes.
And of course, every project must pass thorough environmental assessments and mapping.
Saying no is very often the correct response to new developments – we’ve said no to many that our communities didn't need! And there are plenty of new, nature-wrecking proposals we need to oppose, like Walker Corps' plans to pave over Toondah Harbour wetlands.
But in the bigger picture, our living world needs us to say yes to renewable energy in our communities now.
Our best way to end destructive fossil fuels is to urgently build many new projects in all our communities to ramp up our renewable energy supply.
For nature, our climate and our future – say yes.
