Then on Black Saturday in 2009, shortly after my 18th birthday, a friend lost her home. I also started meeting firefighters who told me that ''mega-fire'' was a word they hadn't used when I was born. These firefighters are not professionals - they are brave local volunteers just trying to protect theirs and their neighbours' homes.

Every summer, friends who live in fire-risk areas tell me of their preparations - wetting towels, filling gutters. These are the mundane rituals that more Australians are getting used to. Rituals that sit strangely next to the horrifying spectacle of a 40-metre wall of fire that threatens homes and lives. We shouldn't have to become accustomed to these tasks. We still have a choice.

After years of being told climate change would lead to more - and worse - bushfires, the real price we pay for our addiction to pollution started to hit home. Now that climate change has that human face, the facts and figures I learnt in high school start to take on a new poignancy.

Since I was born in 1990, the world - and Australia - has experienced the two hottest decades on record. Since I turned seven, we have had all of the 10 hottest years.

Today I am 22 and those predictions are becoming a reality faster than anyone thought. No one is suggesting that some mystical climate change monster is running around starting fires, but when scientists tell us that there will be more fires and droughts, and I hear again about a ''once in a hundred year'' weather event, I become nervous.