Chance for change

I feel compelled to make some observations on the current status of the world and the possible outcomes once this traumatic period is over.

I do this on the basis of what my generation has endured over the past 88 years.

It all started with the Great Depression in which the unemployment rate hovered around 30 per cent for years. During this period we suffered diseases such as diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, mumps, poliomyelitis, boils and, once a child turned five, then our tonsils were removed so as to save our lives.

This was followed by World War II — that meant even more belt-tightening including government controlled rationing of petrol, clothing, meat, sugar and butter.

Most able-bodied men went into the armed forces with women filling the jobs usually the domain of males.

This period was followed by our forces being involved in conf licts in Korea, Malaya, Borneo and Vietnam where I was fortunate enough to dodge ‘the bullet’.

We survived all this and now we are in another stoush, on two fronts. The obvious one is the coronavirus which has united the world in order to beat this scourge. The other, that I would nominate as the most dangerous, is the continuing change to the world’s climate.

This will not be beaten while the world’s nations remain divided.

There seems to be a general acceptance that this is a critical time of change for our world and there is no doubt the grounding of the world’s aircraft and the greatly reduced motor vehicle traffic should mean a dramatic slowdown in emissions.

This opportunity should not be wasted.

We have to change from the chuck-away society (so much waste) to a more frugal way of living.

A living example: when my old man built a new chook house he used second-hand timber and I had the task of going through all the second-hand nails he had saved so as to straighten them so he could use them again.

And he was not alone.

Letter by Bill Brown from The Shepparton News.