26/9/07
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Journey Reflection
Well, it is nice to be home and to have the achievement behind me. It has been non-stop since I got here and I have gear spread everywhere. Luckily the house is empty as Carol is in Europe until 8th October so I have a week to get the place into some sort of order.
So what did the trip mean? I have already thanked most people and have said that the highlight was the seven weeks with Jonathan. Dave Ryan, John Crocker, Kareen Crocker and for a few days Nell Tyson were all great and we did get a lot of kilometres done. Thanks to absolutely everyone who helped me to achieve my goal.
The following is a press release that sums things up.
Steve Posselt, 54 year old civil engineer and now perhaps an adventurer has arrived back in Brisbane after his epic journey towing and paddling his kayak from Brisbane to Adelaide via the Darling and Murray River systems. The journey was about 3,250km and included 1,080km of walking and it took 4 months.
Steve has been in the water industry all his life and has been appalled at some of the things that he has seen on his trip. These include deep animosity within communities, between communities and between states, all over water issues. Importantly he has been astounded by the lack of education in the bush about climate change.
He sees himself as a water engineer who believes passionately that enough is enough. If we do not learn to stop destroying our environment especially our water and air, then we are headed for big trouble. Somehow we must learn to utilise our water resources in a sustainable way. At present we seem to have created misery for a great deal of farmers through no fault of theirs. On the trip he has had the opportunity to spend many weeks looking at society from the outside and has had plenty of time for reflection. His key messages are:
If you are not talking about climate change you are not dealing with water issues properly, and if you are not talking about fossil fuels, and in particular coal, you are not dealing with climate change. It is all related. Governments everywhere are failing to connect the dots but in particular Steve sees the Howard Government's actions on climate change to be reprehensible.
Before the trip Steve had three main goals:
1.
To have an adventure and show young people that when you are over 50 there is still a lot of life left
2.
To learn first hand about the river system from top to bottom
3.
To make a difference, talking to school children and the media on the way.
He believes all of these goals have been achieved.
Steve will have his kayak at the West End boat ramp (where he started his journey last May) at 11.00am Tuesday 2nd October where he is available to discuss his trip and where he will make a major announcement on his future. He believes that politicians so far have failed us in crucial areas and we need to make major changes. There has not been one politician that he has seen who understands water, the technolgy and the decisions that have to be made in anything like the detail he believes is necessary. He will therefore nominate for the Senate in the coming election and see if Queenslanders would prefer a professional who is prepared to speak the truth, who is above party politics who has no obligations to anyone except all Australians and Queenslanders in particular. The ramp is in Riverside Drive between Boundary and Jane Streets.
If you wish to further your reading there are two books that I think are very important although there are others recommended on this site.
Scorcher by Clive Hamilton, & Last Generation by Fred Pearce.
Scorcher will give you an insight into the Australian Government politics and Last Generation compiles a lot of the science on climate change into something that clearly sets out just how significant it probably will be and how soon we can expect things.
For me, I think we have started to see the tip of the iceberg. I believe that climate will be much less predictable, more erratic and so utterly difficult to comprehend the awesome changes coming, we will see that people will struggle with belief until there is a catastrophe near to them. How do we tackle the issues given that the whole basis of our economy needs to change? Well, it is a bit like taking a kayak between Brisbane and Adelaide. It seems very daunting at the start but it's not really that hard. It just takes one step or one paddle stroke at a time. The important thing is to always head in the right direction. Currently all governments in Australia have failed to actually do that. They must be pushed by us, the people of Australia into the correct action.
Stay tuned and check the web site every couple of weeks for further action.
Steve