“There is no doubt that the consequences of climate change are now playing out in real time across Australia.
Every Australian is being impacted by climate
change. Whether we’ve paid exorbitant prices
for produce at the supermarket, choked our
way through bushfire smoke blanketing our
communities, faced evacuations during
dangerous extreme weather events or lost our
homes in a bushfire or flood, life as we know
it is being disrupted in many ways.”
[Opening lines to Introduction, “Climate Trauma: The Growing Toll Of Climate Change On The Mental Health Of Australians”, February 2023]
Foreward to Climate Council’s report, Climate Trauma: The Growing Toll Of Climate Change On The Mental Health Of Australians, 28 February 2023:
On the last day of summer 2022, an ominous mass of red and blue was on the radar, showing a massive, slow moving low-pressure system headed straight for Lismore.
Like everyone else, I worked all day and into the night to prepare for the deluge. Our community went to sleep ready, everything was lifted and packed and we felt strong as we braced for a ‘normal’ flood. But the rain kept coming.
More than a metre of rain fell and the water poured down out of the hills. At 3am the flood warning was revised to a height we had never seen before and I knew that we were about to experience something unimaginable.
The flood inundated our city. Thousands of people were displaced and it left destruction so intense, even members of the Australian Defence Force described it as looking like a war zone.
The wounds this disaster has left on the Northern Rivers are a very long way from healed. our CBD is only at about 20% occupancy; hundreds of homes are still in ruins and houses in the hills have been totally swept away by landslides. We still don’t have common community facilities like a cinema or an indoor kids play centre.
Our major civic buildings are still out of action: our library, our City Hall and our town pool are all still shut.
We don’t have many places where we can gather and be together as a community.
Twelve months on and we still cannot live ordinary lives.
As shocking as it is seeing the physical damage to our homes, our city, and our landscape - the level of trauma and suffering across our community is even more significant.
The full report can be found at:
According to the report:
A national poll of over 2,000 people conducted by the Climate Council shows that the majority (80%) of Australians have experienced some form of extreme weather disaster since 2019.
Communities across Australia are reporting mental health challenges as a result of worsening extreme weather events. The situation is particularly tough for rural and regional Australians
People living in rural and regional areas are significantly more likely to have been affected by flooding at least once since 2019 (61%) than people living in urban areas (38%), and significantly more likely to have been affected by bushfires (49%) than people in urban areas (36%).
People outside of metropolitan areas are also more likely to have difficulty accessing mental health support and more likely to feel that their state emergency services and state governments are poorly equipped to deal with climate disasters.
People in Queensland and New South Wales are the most likely to have experienced multiple disasters since 2019. Specifically, 38% of Queenslanders and 34% of people in New South Wales reported experiencing flooding more than once since 2019. (National average of 24%.)
One in 12 (8%) of the nearly 500 Australians who shared their recent experiences of an extreme weather disaster said the event had severely impacted their home – leaving it destroyed or deemed uninhabitable.
Among the more than 2,000 respondents to our national poll, one in five (21%) reported having no insurance. Of those who did have insurance, nearly two thirds (64%) reported that their premiums had increased in the last two years. Most (81%) said “climate disasters” were part of the reason why.
One in 20 (6%) of those surveyed said they had cancelled their insurance coverage due to the increase in their premium.
Need support for your mental health?
HERE ARE SOME ORGANISATIONS AND RESOURCES
General information
Psychology for a Safe Climate
www.psychologyforasafeclimate.org
For advice on looking after your mental health following a disaster
Natural Disasters and Your Mental Health (Beyond Blue)
www.beyondblue.org.au/mental-health/natural-disasters-and-yourmental-health
For children and young people
I’m Worried About the Environment (Kids Helpline)
kidshelpline.com.au/teens/issues/worried-about-environment
Understanding Anxiety About Climate Change (Headspace)
headspace.org.au/explore-topics/for-young-people/understandinganxiety-about-climate-change
