By Philip Wilcox
Sustainability UniSQ Student Senator
Climate change has been one of the biggest global issues for many years. For a large part of that time, the global scientific community has worked to understand the impacts of changes in the climate and educate the community about those impacts.
Friday 5 June is World Environment Day. This year’s theme is climate action.
Universities play a key role in promoting climate action. They undertake the vast majority of research in Australia, educating the future workforce about the impacts and opportunities of climate change. University students can also act as powerful voices that can educate and escalate issues to the wider public.
The University of Southern Queensland’s Centre for Applied Climate Sciences conducts a wide range of climate research, including identifying alternative income streams for agriculture and improving climate models.
However, while ongoing research is fundamentally important for understanding the effects of climate change, there is also an immediate need for action. Overwhelmingly, research into climate change has shown the world is being negatively affected by climate change, economically, socially and environmentally. The faster the community acts to mitigate climate change, the better it will be for everyone.
But given the sheer scale of the issue and how pervasive it is in everyday life, it is easy to wonder what we can do as individuals. We can’t build power plants in our backyards, can we?
A recent article I read predicted that power prices would fall in South-East Queensland largely due to the uptake of solar batteries. During the evening, when energy demand peaks, batteries provide enough power to reduce consumption from coal and gas power plants, reducing power costs.
In Australia, a significant proportion of these batteries have been purchased by individual homeowners. The Australian Government has offered rebates to reduce the up-front costs, but the scheme is entirely voluntary. People are actively choosing to purchase solar and batteries because they can see the benefits.
Many people installing solar panels and batteries are doing so to reduce their own power bills, rather than explicitly trying to reduce emissions. But there isn’t anything wrong with that. It’s key to understand that climate change will make the world a worse place to live for us. There will be more extreme weather, less food security, and less diversity in the environment, and this will make it harder for us to survive.
Innovative technologies can be economically beneficial as well as environmentally beneficial. There’s no denying that when given the opportunity, Australians are willing to take matters into their own hands and embrace innovation. The solar battery rebate is partially successful because the government put in place a way for people to act themselves. While there may be legitimate debates on whether this is the most cost-efficient way to reduce carbon emissions, there is also a cost for inaction. By not innovating now, we are reducing our quality of life in the future.
What the battery rebate scheme shows is that everyone can make a difference, and this can flow onto others. The cumulative impact of thousands of people acting together makes a difference. Not everyone is a homeowner or can afford to buy a solar battery.
Not all actions will have such an immediate and quantifiable payoff as a power bill reduction, but small actions add up. Perhaps by choosing to eat less red meat, you might adopt a more vegetable-rich diet that improves your health over time. Maybe by choosing to walk to work instead of driving, you can save on gym fees.
So, on this World Environment Day, I encourage you to consider something you can do, no matter how small, to reduce your impact on the world. You don’t have to have a PhD in climate science to make a difference; small actions can make a lasting impact.
