Australia needs to decide how much worse we want these disasters to get and take the climate action needed to keep people safe
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In Lismore we have experienced floods forever. But this is not a flood, this is a catastrophe. This is extreme. This is a giant, angry river in the sky. This is climate change. I’ve seen people sitting on their roofs, panicking, screaming in fear – hoping their lives will be spared.
My friends are in tinnies, the same friends that always jump in their tinnies during floods. Usually, they go from veranda to veranda to visit and check up on the families, sitting there with their chooks, dogs, cats, rabbits, sometimes a goat or a sheep. There is always a place on the veranda for the wildlife too. They have a beer together and talk about how long until the river unswells, the clean-up, and ask if everyone has got what they need. They talk about how this flood is different from the last one. They talk about the big one in 1974. Even if they weren’t there.