I had the fear of being conscripted for Vietnam, but I had a feasible plan for that. I used to have nightmares about squadrons of Russian bombers overhead in the night sky. But they were so far away when I woke up the next day the angst went away.

There was the threat of nuclear war, but when the Berlin Wall came down, I can tell you the whole world let out a long breath and it seemed like we had entered a time of forever calm.

Summer was a time of incredible joy, no school, running around with friends in shorts and thongs, swimming, jumping off bridges, it was just wonderful.

But it's so different for the kids today.

Summer is something to be feared. Heat waves. Bush fires. I never had to worry about bush fires until I was 43. Now it's every other year the threat appears or traumatises us all with some area or another being scorched.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Climate change is truly an existential threat.

If you study and understand the danger of crossing tipping points and having runaway climate change creating hell on Earth ... the predictions of scientists are truly terrifying. Making it worse is that it is so hard to control. We know what to do, but the dominant perpetual growth economic system is so deeply entrenched it seems immovable.

On top of that we have the frightful challenges of getting a mass of global citizens and their governments to cooperate together, when we prefer to bicker about who has more or less than someone else.

I get why Greta Thunberg and others are so angry. I can't imagine what it feels like to have that joyous, forever fun and opportunity, childhood vision of the future taken away. I am not saying that there is no joy for young people. I am saying there is now an all-permeating knowing that the future is precarious, even dangerous.

I never had to deal with anything like that. Not like that. There is a battle of ideas for the future of all life on Earth and it's on right now. Choose where you will stand. I choose Earth, her creatures and the biosphere. I choose Extinction Rebellion.

It is quite simple to sift through so-called climate denialists false claims on the internet and collate them into a fallacious argument re climate change.

Regardless of how any writer wishes to twist knowledge, 97 per cent of accredited world scientists all agree that man made climate change is a threat to the world and if we don't take measures now we are leaving a terrible world for our children and grandchildren.

Temperature rises have been noted since the late 1800's. Climate change has been noted for decades.

There really is no argument and there is no excuse for not trying to create a better world for our progeny.

We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by cleaner air and less carbon dioxide. The attempts by climate denialists have been very effective in the recent past but that is changing and even our politicians are admitting finally that climate change is a very real problem.

Can we please move forward on this matter?