It’s summer.

It’s hot. Very hot. Smashing records hot.

And it’s dry. Very dry. We’ve had no useful rain for over 2½  months.

And it’s bushfires. And that means more heat. And smoke. And burnt grass and trees…and houses…and animals. 🙁  But, thankfully, no burnt people (so far, the summer in Australia at least… fingers crossed). 🙂

And there’s more to come.

Because what we’ve been experiencing this summer in Australia hasn’t been caused by a normal summer weather patterns that generate hot weather.

It hasn’t been caused by the occasional weather patterns like El Niño or a positive Indian Ocean Dipole that set us up for drought…and they are often accompanied by very hot weather.

Our normal summer weather and countryside is being ‘enhanced’ by climate change.

And that means we are having more of the hot, dry, windy conditions that set us up for bushfires.

Luckily, there’s quite a lot we can do pretty easily to make things better:

• turn up the heat on our leaders to demand the dramatic transformations that are needed to seriously tackle climate change

• remove your money and social licence from the banks that finance the coal, oil and gas projects that are making climate change worse (not to mention damaging our oceans, ground water, soils, landscapes and people’s health and a lot of other things)

• ask your superannuation or retirement fund to divest from fossil fuelsensure that your electricity comes from renewable sources by:

• installing your own solar, wind or other renewable power generation
• supporting community-based renewable energy generation (like that by Solar Share and Citizens Own Renewable Energy Network Australia
• buying ‘green’ power from your electricity provider

• avoiding using coal, oil or gas for other uses wherever possible for example by:

• leaving your car at home (or switching to an electric vehicle powered by renewable energy ;)) 
• growing your own food or buying it from local farmers markets

In the meantime, there’s quite a bit you can do easily to reduce feeling the effects of heat and fire, especially at home.  For example:

• Wearing a moist cloth on the back of your neck, or wiping yourself down with a wet cloth periodically, is a wonderful quick way of cooling yourself.

• You can also keep your home cool – without air-conditioning.

• And you can cool your house and deflect hot winds by using appropriate landscaping and plantings.

And, with so many fires this season, it’s timely to remember to use fire resistant plants if there’s even the remotest chance of your house being threatened by bushfires. Appropriate plants and landscaping have actually helped save houses in bushfires.  Just type ‘fire resistant plants’ or ‘fire resistant landscaping’ into your search engine.

What is the next thing you are going to do for surviving summer savagery?  Just leave your comments in the Reply box below…or send me a voice message by clicking on the tab on the right.

Till next time…be gentle to yourself and our world!

[UPDATE: Canberra Clean Energy became Solar Share. Links updated September 2016]