MAYORAL MESSAGE with Katie Milne

I HAVE just had an incredible experience attending a three-day Ecocity World Summit in Melbourne where hundreds of people from all around the world gathered to combat climate change.

Former American deputy president Al Gore gave a terrifying visual rendition of the multitude of natural disasters exacerbated by climate change that are already impacting our world, including our very own Cyclone Debbie.

He explained how increased temperatures and heatwaves, now five-times more frequent in Australia, are heating our land and oceans, causing mass evaporation, and creating what they now refer to as flying rivers in the sky and literally bombs of rain.

He showed people getting stuck crossing melting roads, vehicles sinking in the bitumen, fires in the Arctic, whole mountain sides and villages washed away, and a heart-wrenching image of a woman clawing her way out of a mudslide.

He spoke of the 20 million people in Africa now nearing starvation, and the rise of ISIS after the droughts in Syria that brought 1.5 million rural people into the city on top of the 1.5 million refugees from the Iraq war. The poor are being hit the hardest as always.

As Al Gore said, "Mother Nature is screaming at us.” Thankfully many people are finally hearing.

Solar jobs have become the fastest growing jobs in the US and green technology is coming on line exponentially faster than ever predicted.

Despite President Trump reneging on the Paris Climate Change agreement, American states are committed to becoming carbon neutral without him.

Trump was described as "the last shout out of the old world”. The Vatican has pledged to become the first carbon neutral country.

The Junior Lord Mayor of Melbourne said: "To be clean and green - that is my dream”.

Our economies are strongly biased towards growth rather than sustainable development.

We need to insist our governments develop much greener planning and stop wasting our resources on playthings instead of investing to keep our planet safe in this time of crisis. A clear message of the conference was that we must prioritise resources to protect our forests above our built environment to tackle this logically, and that we must green our cities.

Heatwaves cost Melbourne $10 million a week in lost retail sales alone and construction shuts down when it hits 35 degrees.

There was also a strong social justice message to not just combat climate change but to make a more just world for all with a more inclusive economy, "leaving no one and no place behind”.

We are at a momentous time in history. Out of this crisis we have the opportunity to create a much more humane and democratic world.

Communities need to organise and take responsibility in a big way if this is to happen though.

We are in for a hell of a journey and everyone needs to get on board and reprioritise.

* Mayor Katie Milne contributes a monthly column for the Tweed Daily News. She can be contacted at kmilne@tweed.nsw.gov.au