'the hill I'm prepared to die on'

For the past few years I have been campaigning, with many others, to stop the WA government from deliberately destroying the SW of WA with its 'prescribed' burning program. Recently we had a small win. 

Thanks to a forest blockade in Walpole, Mt Clare - the home of some of the relatively few remaining Tingle trees - was taken off the burn list for this season. I remember one of my campaign friends saying to me one day: the Tingles are the hill I'm prepared to die on. We think the government had little appetite for a full blown showdown with 'greenies' who were prepared to occupy a forest to protect it, so they acquiesced - temporarily anyway. 

I only had a small role in this mercifully short campaign. I posted on social media via my partner's account (Facebook cancelled me midway through 2025). One of my posts had 15,000 views, which indicated how mainstream the issue of burning the Tingles is.

We know this department very well. They are an old enemy - a very, very old enemy for some who have been fighting them for more than 50 years. We haven't won. DBCA* will carry on their destruction somewhere else - most probably some other forest ecosystem they know we are very keen to protect like peats or granite outcrops. That's how they work. They will not be happy their power has been challenged so successfully, so God knows what they are planning. 

It is so very wrong that citizens are forced into constant vigilance, and must work so hard for no pay, to protect what our well paid government officers should be managing responsibly for the future of the environment and humans. Where is the government's 'duty of care'?

*DBCA refers to the Western Australian Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions

I need to ask a question

I think about climate change ALL the time. I constantly hear that we have passed this or that tipping point. The latest is that by 2030 there will be no summer ice in the Arctic. I despair for all the animals who rely on that ice, but ultimately, that includes us humans. 

I need to ask a question and I honestly don't know who to ask. But here it is. 

Has any government or local council carried out modelling for how they/we are going to deal with the impacts of climate system collapse? 

From where I'm looking most people are blindly making plans for a future based on what has been achievable in the past. It is highly unlikely anyone will get to execute plans for any normal kind of life from here on. We don't know how things will unfold, but they will unfold, and the only outcomes I can predict are catastrophe and chaos. 

My new age 60s hippy generation was told in no uncertain terms we must love everyone and not regress into tribalism (reinforced by my time as a Rajneesh sannyasin). But I predicted long ago that to have any chance of survival, humankind would be forced back into tribalism. Empires always collapse at the outer fringes because they grow too big to control. One united expansive world was never going to be possible. It is too unwieldy for most people to hold together in their minds. The logistics are impractical and unreasonable. 

Individuals and prepper couples won't survive climate system collapse because they won't be able to defend their hoard from the plundering hordes. It's why I rejected the idea of becoming one. I figured if I took that route, I would have to get a gun and be prepared to shoot people.

Humankind is in a mass stupor of self-distraction, hurtling blindly towards self-destruction - to an unknown and almost unimaginable future. This thought drives me quietly insane. Not because I think we can fix it, but because most of my fellow human beings are pretending it's not happening. 

And that makes me feel very alone.

Photo: NSW Rural Fire Service crews fight the Gospers Mountain Fire in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, Australia, Dec. 21, 2019. (EPA Photo) 

https://www.dailysabah.com/environment/2019/12/31/one-step-closer-to-climate-apocalypse-the-year-in-climate-change