Green Sages and climate action change groups urge seniors to be vocal

Green Sages is a group of older people who meet monthly at COTA Victoria's Melbourne offices to share information and explore ways to promote climate change action. Jan Lacey has been involved for 10 years.

"Older people bear responsibility for what's happening now," she said. "There are many ways in which our generation and future ones are affected.

"For example, as climate change impacts are increasingly felt it will be harder to grow things and food prices will rise. What will our grandchildren eat? What sort of world are we leaving for them?"

Bayside Climate Change Action Group president David Rothfield, 77, agrees.

"Baby boomers have been the beneficiaries of the economic boom since World War II, which has been driven by fossil fuel consumption," he said.

David's group started in 2006. "Kids at school were learning about climate change, and we thought it was time the adults took it seriously," David said. "But very little has changed and the situation today is far more dire than it was 13 years ago."

The group has about 700 members, two-thirds aged 55-plus. It says urgent action is needed to avert a climate emergency.

"We're close to the tipping point where the damage escalates and you lose capacity to stop it," David said. "Yet we live in a country that has an abundance of solar and wind energy - we could be a renewable energy superpower."

The group provides practical information to the community via bi-monthly forums and joins with other groups on major national campaigns. It encourages individuals to reflect on how their own lifestyles can be more climate-friendly.

Green Sages member Tony Gleeson, who co-hosts a weekly radio program on 94.7 The Pulse called The Sustainable Hour, said seniors might also have to make some hard lifestyle decisions.

"Maybe we reduce our carbon emissions by not taking overseas trips so readily," he said. "We need to live more simply, so others can simply live. We need to examine where we spend money, who we bank and invest with, where we get our energy from.

"There are a whole lot of choices we can make that impact on the type of world we leave our grandchildren. We have the means to make the world a better place; we just need the political will."

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