Page 31 - EarthHeroes

The Prime Minister got out of his car and posed in the sunshine, waving and smiling to photographers. There were cheers and jeers from the crowd on the pavement, some carrying placards. Amelia was excited and anxious. She’d been waiting for two hours and was hot inside her orange and white Nemo fish costume. In front of her she held a sign which demanded ‘Reef not coal!’ As the Prime Minister passed her, Amelia stepped towards him. “Prime Minister!” she shouted. “How are you going to protect my home, as a clown fish in the Great Barrier Reef?” He looked at her briefly, frowned and then carried on.
It was August 2013. Teenager Amelia Telford, known as Millie to her friends,
was following then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on his campaign trail before
the Australian elections. Amelia is the leader of the charity SEED – Australia’s Indigenous youth climate justice network. She and the other young people dressed up as characters from the animated film Finding Nemo were protesting against plans to enlarge a port on the coast of Queensland in north-eastern Australia to be used by the proposed Carmichael coal mine. The country is the world’s biggest exporter of coal, which releases the most greenhouse gases of all fossil fuels. Dredging the coast to expand the port there could damage the nearby Great Barrier Reef – one of Australia’s most precious ecosystems, or living environments. And greenhouse gases from burning the coal would cause the oceans to warm and become more acidic, which could eventually destroy the reef.
Climate change is affecting Australia in other ways too. The country is suffering rising sea levels, and in recent years has experienced severe droughts and its hottest temperatures on record, with summer heatwaves of almost 50 degrees Celsius. Bushfires on a scale never seen before have devastated large areas, destroying homes and killing wildlife, including already endangered species. Indigenous Australians – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – are particularly badly affected. Mining is threatening ancient Aboriginal lands while
31
I