Global warming presents immediate dangers not distant ones, according to an author whose new book's title sums up this urgency.
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In Body Count: how climate change is killing us. journalist Paddy Manning talks to survivors and families who have lost loved ones from extreme weather events in Australia this century.
Manning, a Write Around The Murray guest, said he had felt the climate change debate "got lost in a fog of facts and figures" around emissions reduction targets, energy bills and carbon dioxide concentration.
"That kind of climate waffle is obscuring the reality of the impacts that we face from global warming, not just as a threat to the natural environment or to future generations but to our health right now," he said.
The free, online Write Around The Murray begins on Wednesday, September 9, via the Border festival's website and Facebook page.
Manning will discuss his work with fellow author Jane Rawson on Sunday, September 13, the festival's final day.
He started Body Count early in 2019 unsure how people would react to his interview requests.
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"An event like Black Saturday or the Queensland floods, there's a level of trauma that is still there," he said.
"It's still raw whether it's a decade ago or, in the case of the Canberra bushfires, nearly two decades ago.
Of those willing to talk, some believed their experience was related to climate change while others did not.
"They have differences of opinion just like the rest of the Australian community does," Manning said.
"I just let all of those opinions stand respectfully and told the story absolutely straight down the middle."
Meanwhile Australia's most recent fire season caused devastation and at first political leaders fell back into the "now is not the time" response to climate change questions.
"Very quickly there was a reaction back from the people affected or from the emergency leaders for climate action going. 'Well, if not now, when?'," Manning said.
"I think it's the first bushfire season where we really have seen pushback from the ground from people saying 'No, we do have to talk about climate change, this is relevant and we have to talk about it now because look at the impact that it's having'.
"We can do a much better job of managing the risks and if we deny them, then one of the consequences is that we're constantly underprepared and on the back foot."
Manning said he took encouragement from the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with its focus on collective action, bolstering the public health system and flattening the curve.
"There is some similarity here that what we need to do is flatten that emissions curve as well and in some ways we're getting an opportunity to practise," he said.
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