History of a changing climate in Mt Resilience

From the history sequence through to the bushfire and severe storm weather events, Mt Resilience is both informative and emotive. Users can immerse themselves in audio stories of survival from the series Big Weather (and how to survive it), as well as uncover artwork by Reg Mombassa and Blak Douglas — capturing just how important artistic expression and Indigenous knowledge are to community resilience.

In playing the Mt Resilience experience, you will learn about the following topics and how residents can prepare, respond and recover from impacts of climate change in Australia.

First Nations people are raising awareness of the benefits of cultural approaches to controlling fire and caring for the land and continuing the practice of cultural responsibility.

Low-intensity burns, carried out with detailed knowledge of a place, support vegetation and wildlife and are able to reduce the scale of bushfires, ensuring less damage, less carbon released into the atmosphere. Cultural burning is part of a complete system of care of country.

Australia is experiencing more extreme weather events due to climate change.

• Drought: Since weather records began in the late 1800s, Australia has experienced a few episodes of extreme drought: the Federation drought, World War II drought and the Millennium drought. As climate change progresses, it makes drought conditions worse in Australia.
• Rising temperatures: The global average temperature has risen 1.1°C since 1910. In Australia, the average rise is a little over 1.4°C. The number of days that break heat records has doubled in the past 50 years. Heatwaves are of particular concern: they are occurring more often and are more intense than in the past. In recent decades more people have died in Australia in heat waves than all other natural disasters combined.
• Rising seas: Rising sea levels add to the intensity of high-sea-level events and threaten housing and infrastructure.