Something’s Wrong Here: We Hug the Coast in Packed Cities

When I grew up, I got to visit my cousins on their farm every few years. I treasure my memories of those times.

My parents would relax while we were there. It was so different.

There were wide and open flat spaces. There were cars to drive and motorbikes to ride. There were vermin to shoot and yabbies to catch. There was the structured freedom that came from being away from mass society, while still with family and friends.

To check the letterbox required riding for a kilometre on a motorbike. The easiest way to have meat for dinner was from the livestock, so we learned how to slaughter and butcher. There was a constant stream of hard physical work, but this work was rewarding in itself. You knew you were contributing to something worthwhile.

I realised later in life that these were rare opportunities for many kids. The world too many Australians are living in is increasingly isolated from these physical realities, cut off from the sources of our own earthly existence. This cannot be good for us. And it cannot be good for our future.

Australia’s packed cities dotting our coasts are not helping us materially, psychologically, or spiritually. Concentrating people together like this can only result in sensory overload, heightened stress, and an increasing disconnect from the messy realities of life.

I cannot imagine what it was like for some people who were locked down during the covid pandemic for extended periods, especially in the concrete jungles of Sydney and Melbourne. They were deprived of the relief of green spaces. Artists were particularly oppressed in that time. I still see evidence of the hopelessness and the anger people felt.

We have also been witnessing for decades the rise of an urban environmental movement high on hope and imagery and low on experience and practicality. This is nothing like the older environmental movements or the stewardship and land-management practices of indigenous peoples the world over. Instead, we have a weird amalgam of libertine capitalism and secularist revolutionaries trying to tear down the world order to replace it with, well, no one is quite sure.

The drive behind the appeal of these movements is not something wicked. These are people who want to save the beauty of the world – but they do not know how that world works or what steps must be taken to really do something about it. A farm visit or two would help.

The Movement has always highlighted the need to be stewards of creation. Earth is a gift from a loving God. We need to preserve and protect the gift. But we cannot destroy ourselves in the process. To help the world we must first help ourselves, and to do that we must learn how.

By the time you read this, our annual YPAT intensive course will have finished. Through YPAT, we provide young people with the ideas and networks to work out how they can make the world a better place. We have been running YPAT for many years now and have made a real difference, with over 270 alumni and counting.

Help us help them make the world a better place. Please consider donating towards this work.

Luke McCormack is national president of the National Civic Council.