Above all else, bushfire survivors like me are fed up with shock jocks

Driving across the state to visit relatives and attend a family funeral, I saw for myself just some of the impacts this most recent series of disasters has caused.

I'm a disaster survivor myself, having narrowly avoided losing my home to several bushfires over the past six years.

Too many Australians like me know the terrifying wait for news of loved ones when power and communications are cut.

I've had friends and neighbours lose everything. For us, it's hard to watch as more families and communities begin the grindingly long, hard slog of survival and recovery.

There's the adrenalin that lasts for months and is replaced by an exhaustion that lasts for years. There's the loss of place, home, familiar things - your kids' school photos, your favourite recipe book, your great-grandfather's wristwatch.

There's the loss of autonomy as you surrender to the bureaucracies who do their best to support you but can never fill the void.

There's the mountains of paperwork, retelling your story again and again and again as you try to access help, replace your documents, find somewhere to live, and manage insurance.

But for me, the biggest challenge is watching the misinformation generated by people with dubious agendas designed to keep us from understanding why these disasters occurred and how the next ones can be avoided, or at least minimised.

Recently, images of crumpled transmission lines sent shock jocks and jills into a lather as they blamed renewable energy for everything from failing to fill the void to causing the problems in the first place.

But the truth is, if we had more dispersed wind, solar and hydro energy supplies, backed up by domestic and commercial battery storage, we'd have much more robust power supplies no longer reliant on old and centralised coal power stations.

Fridges, lights, communications and air conditioners would have stayed on in thousands more homes.

And that means we reduce the impact of emissions on our climate, reducing the frequency, intensity and extent of disasters like storms, bushfires and coastal inundation.

If this sounds like a win-win it's because it bloody well is.

So why should you believe me, rather than Sky News commentator Peta Credlin, or 2GB's Ben Fordham who come out swinging at every opportunity?

I'd rather trust my off-grid solar set up that's powered my home throughout every blackout and bushfire for 25 years.

I trust the thousands of highly intelligent, qualified scientists who issue warning after warning that we must reduce emissions urgently or see catastrophic escalations in climate related disasters.

I believe the bushfire experts who warn that fires seen during Black Summer are going to become increasingly regular events.

And I believe my own eyes and ears as I watch the landscape around me transformed by rolling fires, droughts and floods.

Communities everywhere are growing more ragged and fractious as they struggle to rebuild and recover in time for the next devastating blow.

What's in it for me, as I sit pounding out these words while I'm supposed to be on holiday?

Well, I just don't want my house to burn down - or yours.