On Sunday night, a group of Greenpeace volunteers, including myself, took to the streets of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to take a stand against the coal industry and its place in causing mass coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef.
Using a high pressure hose, and a stencil, we were able to wash the image into the streets, mostly in iconic parts of the city.
Our aim: to get as many people as possible to understand the detrimental effects the coal industry has on one of Australia’s most iconic and beautiful marine environments.
It took a few hours of a cold, rainy night to spread our message across the city. But I couldn’t help but smile as we pressure hosed the footpaths, thinking about the time I made the brave decision to close my eyes and jump…
It’s not an easy thing to do at age 5, making the choice to jump into the endless blue ocean not knowing what was below your feet. What if there were sharks? Or any number of underwater monsters that existed in my overactive imagination? As the water settled around me and the underwater oasis came into focus, I knew that the Great Barrier Reef and myself would be linked for the rest of my life.
How could one not be enchanted by the cities of vibrant corals that seemed to rival the great metropolises of the world, or be in awe of the schools of fish and sea creatures bustling around far busier than anything in the world above? This was truly a world and wonder in its own right.
We have managed to reverse billions of years of global climate patterns in a mere few hundred years since the industrial revolution. We have managed not only to change the parts of the world that we directly interact with, but almost every corner of this planet. One by one the wonders of this world are losing their ability to be beautiful and sustainable. It is so important that we all stand up and act on our beliefs. That we say the way we are treating the environment is not okay, and that we will not stand for it anymore.
I hope you’ll stand with me and send a strong message to our politicians.
