Jay Smith

Hometown: Mildura
Occupation: Local Government
Area of Interest: Urban greening/urban cooling

How is climate change impacting your community?
In Mildura, you can really see the impact of reduced rainfall, higher temperatures, and more frequent sandstorms on our farming community. Households are ill equipped to deal with the climate changing, some houses don’t have any passive cooling measures or air-conditioning installed. Climate change is going to impact our lives in so many ways, even walking down the street will become a challenge as changes continue.

What are you passionate about changing?
Urban cooling is one small part of the solution that I’m passionate about changing. Mildura is one of the hottest parts of the state and we need to start planting trees and planning our town to be cooler and greener.

Community engagement will be an important aspect of any actions to address climate change, we need as many people as possible on board to be successful.