In recovering from our local spate of natural disasters, and now watching the horror unfold in New Zealand, one can’t help but feel nauseous about how soon the effects of the dozing climate change giant are upon us. Or, if you’re from the other school of belief, that the Mayan calendar seems to be a year out and it’s, Apocalypse Now !

We know that victims of recent, sudden disasters will be burdened with psychological scars long into the future, just as communities in prolonged drought live heavily under pressure to subsist. In fact, ‘solastalgia’ is a word coined by environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht to describe this deep feeling of dislocation and loss that occurs when one’s local environment suffers detrimental change. It was initially purposed to understand the link between ecosystem loss and mental health concerns within mining communities, but has since been applied to a broader range of community studies. (Read more on solastalgia here)

So what of those of us who live in relatively stable ecosystems – like BrisVegas – where it’s not so much a change in climate we are experiencing, as a rapid-onset, reconfiguration of our city’s landscape? The BrizVegas of today with its GO cards, and its farmers markets; its ferris wheel and its tunnel network; its yippies, its hippies and DINKs; is a far cry from the Brisbane backwater of old in which many of us grew up. Thus, in a genuine state of solastalgia, we may find ourselves experiencing an odd homesickness in our own backyard.

So, in answer to the question so often asked of travellers, “Are you glad to be home?”.

Well, in one sense, yes. Of course.

But in many ways it never feels like coming home, because so little of home exists anymore that it’s often difficult to recognise. In sync with the rest of the world, BrizVegas now consumes more but produces less locally, is more in debt, larger and more populated than ever before.

It’s not all bad news, though, because at least now we can drive the Clem7 to get from Bowen Hills to Woolloongabba 4.36mins faster than last year.