Children provide inspiration to act on issues like climate change

It's tasteful. She's side-on. The colourful curtain that separated us from the sick toddler in the next bed provides a nice backdrop. Because it's a photo on a phone it gives the time and date it was taken - 2.58am on December 23 - so we have proof of what happened the night the two of us spent together in a paediatric emergency ward, while I followed her with a test cup for several hours in the hope of getting a urine sample.

Not a scenario you're likely to find in the Better Homes and Gardens Good Grandparents Guide, I grant you, but not completely beyond the realms of possibility either. As we proved that night.

I'm writing this on Thursday morning. The terrifying and tragic nature of fires this week in Victoria, the south coast of NSW and Western Australia I don't need to describe. We're a country accustomed to summer bushfires. But this week and for the past few months we've been a nation confronted by the reality of the catastrophic nature of fires in a warming planet.

It's difficult to write about the everyday against these events, and particularly for this weekend of predicted extreme conditions.

But the everyday goes on. The task now is to still live the everyday, but factor in and talk about what's required for the long-term to respond to a warming planet and limit that warming. And there's nothing as long-term as a commitment to children and their future, when that future is facing an existential threat.

So to the everyday. There we were, my granddaughter and I, on the floor of the paediatric emergency ward filling time by pulling the contents of my backpack and wallet apart at 2.58am, while her kidneys and bladder did what they should do and I waited, bleary-eyed, with a test cup.

The last few times I actually stayed up by choice until 3am were always deeply regretted by about 3.05am, and for the day that followed until I could crawl into bed and sleep. This time was no different, save the addition of a slightly prickly toddler.

The story started with my son and pregnant daughter-in-law heading to Sydney for the night to have some quiet time before the new baby is due in a few weeks. What could possibly go wrong?

My granddaughter, 16 months, had a very mild temperature the previous night, but because she was clearly cutting big teeth and had a slight cold it was readily dealt with.

She was happy through the day. The relative who was looking after her overnight said she was fine when she put her to bed. But at 10pm, when my phone rang, things were not fine. The baby was screaming and her temperature was just over 40 degrees.

Hence the hospital paediatric emergency unit.

There are many things we can be grateful for in Australia. Spend a few seconds today reminding yourself of some of them. The freedoms we take for granted. The security that can come from being an island nation. The good fortune of being resource-rich. The beauty of the landscape, despite how inhospitable some of it can be.

But of course we can, and should, stand up for change on a lot of things.

Action on climate change and inequality. A true reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, starting with recognition in the Constitution. An education system that actually delivers what we should all hope for - the best and fairest start to life for each and every Australian child. A more humane welfare system. More humane treatment of asylum seekers. Much greater government transparency and accountability. A law banning Barnaby Joyce from posting video selfies.

A public health system that delivers when children are unwell is one of the things we should be grateful for - and I acknowledge the many times that system has tragically failed in individual cases.

It delivered the other night for my granddaughter and the half-dozen or so other toddlers and their families who arrived just as bleary-eyed and miserable as we did, and left still bleary-eyed, but on the mend some time later.

A child with a very high temperature can have a febrile convulsion. I've witnessed only one, when one of my brothers had a febrile convulsion, aged two, in 1974 while we were camping at what was then Ayers Rock. It was horrifying and terrifying. I don't ever want to witness that again.

My granddaughter was assessed within a minute of us arriving in emergency, after we were directed to the new paediatric emergency ward. Tests were done. A bed had her name on it. Drugs were given to knock off the temperature. We went through the protocols. Then I was handed the test cup and told I had to get a urine sample from the toddler to rule out a urinary tract infection as the cause of the temperature.

I'll spare you the details of that part of the evening's entertainment. Let's just say it's about as simple and straightforward as getting a fractious baby to sleep.

It occurred to me, some time through that night, that the last time I waited hours for someone, or something, to pee in a cup was while researching an article about how racehorses have to be drug-tested by peeing in a cup after winning races.

It was just me, the horse, a photographer, a horse handler of some kind, a horse whistler - a dear little man famed for his ability to get agitated, overheated racehorses to pee in a cup by whistling - and the horse whistler's apprentice - who was taking lessons with a speech pathologist because he couldn't whistle - in a shed until the deed was done.

These thoughts flitted through my mind in the early hours of December 23 as my granddaughter acted like the most flighty of fillies and refused to pee, until she finally did. The mad scramble for the test cup on the other side of the bed was in vain, of course.

She's fine. On Christmas Day a dusting of spots showed the spiky temperature and irritability had a viral origin, a doctor said.

And as we brace for another difficult weekend can I make a suggestion. Governments will act on climate change when we make them. Take the time to find the Doctors for the Environment and Veterinarians for Climate Action websites for respected viewpoints to get us started, and read a devastating article by Inverell veterinarian Gundi Rhoades on December 26.

Then think about the long term - how we wouldn't hesitate to act today if there was an emergency involving our children or grandchildren, and apply the same thinking to the future we're leaving them.