Climate change chat to canvass conversations

THE Central Victoria Australian Conservation Foundation Community’s budding Climate Cafe conversation concept returns to the Bendigo Library this afternoon with a topic that will appeal to parents and grandparents alike.

Parenting in a Time of Climate Crisis, helmed by well-known local climate advocate and mother of two Melissa Abel, will gently open up a chat about how to guide children through what is happening with our climate, how we cope, and how we build hope together.

Ms Abel, who has worked tirelessly for the cause on the frontline and behind the scenes over many years, said she was keen to put her hand up for the event because she feels eco-anxiety and climate anxiety is something that people are paying a lot more attention to now.

“There’s a risk of pathologising it, when really, if you think about it, it’s quite a natural response to what we’re seeing going on,” she said.

“Climate change is here – look at what’s happened this summer with the flash floods, heat waves and fires – we’re seeing it in real time.

“So it makes sense that we’re anxious about the future.”

The former Bendigo Sustainability Group executive officer said explaining the situation to children is “a really tricky balance to get right”.

“That’s what I’m wanting to get into in this talk, that yes, it is scary, and it is happening now, and we’re not seeing the action that we know we need to, but we can still prepare ourselves,” she said.

“We can think about what sort of skills we need, for example, what sort of skills our kids need, and how we keep ourselves and our families safe in a radically changing climate.”

Ms Abel believes that from a parenting perspective, “you need to be quite solid in yourself”.

“You need to have been doing that processing work for yourself to be able to hold your kids,” she said.

“You have to make sure that as a parent you’ve got support systems around you so that you can do that.

“Resilience can be a little bit of a buzzword, but you want your kids to know that some of this stuff is scary and bad things are happening, but we’re okay, we can do hard things, we can do this together.”

Parenting in a Time of Climate Crisis takes place this afternoon at the Bendigo Library from 3.45pm to 5.30pm.