New member Gabija recently asked the question “What do you do about all the information you read and talk about? How do you put these ideas into action?” While the group agreed it isn’t an activist collective it is clearly made up of individuals concerned about climate change and the environment. Members talked about the practices they follow individually which work towards sustainability, practices including installing solar panels; reducing use of single use plastic; retrofitting homes, and more. Other answers related to sharing or disseminating ideas during conversations with friends and families; writing newsletter reports about the ideas we discuss; and in the case of retired CSIRO scientist Frank Dunin, writing a paper on an area of interest, ‘Fire reduces water harvest from Melbourne’s water supply catchments’ .
Most of us are members or on the mailing list of the Benalla Sustainable Future Group (BSFG) and many are members of the Benalla Food Cooperative.
With only two more sessions to go this year, we are fully aware that while we have been deliberating and discussing issues over the past year, the first nine months of 2016 have been the warmest on record, at an astonishing 0.99°C above average, and 2016 is likely to become the warmest on record globally, for the third year in a row. We wonder what next year will bring.