wo years ago, Anna Rose and I worked on a climate change issue of
Dumbo Feather together. I was completely impressed by the chord she
struck between intellectual rigour, unrelenting activism and genuine,
welcoming embrace on the issue. There were solutions, there was hope
and there was an accessible, energising and constructive way for everyone
to rise to the challenge. That’s not to say she didn’t get despondent. In the
face of the science, the rising sea levels, the increase in fires and flooding,
she was real. “I understand why people wouldn’t want to get out of bed in
the morning,” she told me. “We need courage to confront all of this.”
Anna is one of Australia’s foremost climate activists. In 2006, she co-founded
the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, which today sees more than 150,000
young people building movements for a safe climate. As a campaign and
communications strategist, she has worked for the Lord Mayor of Sydney,
Independent councillor Clover Moore, and been involved in the “Make
History Melbourne” campaign, which saw Australia’s first Greens member,
Adam Bandt, elected to the lower house. For Anna, there are four parts to
making progress on climate change: building the movement, changing the
story, changing the politics and shifting the money. She works with everyone
from artists to philanthropists to farmers, empowering them with skills and
knowledge to use the platforms they have to contribute to a healthier planet.
Last year, Anna came to me with the suggestion of doing an entire issue
of Dumbo Feather on courage. As she observed, we have everything
we need to tackle climate change and mitigate its effects. We have the
science, the solutions; we have the technology and know-how to get the
job done. So why haven’t we? Anna says it’s because most of us haven’t
learned to move out of our comfort zones—that we’re staying safe out
of fear and complacency. What we need, in fact, is courage. We need to
act on the impulses in us to move into our challenge zones—where we’re
doing things we might not have done before, where we’re getting creative
and feeling into our unique power to create change. Once we’ve had a
taste of that, Anna says, and seen that we can shape our surroundings
for the better, the comfort zone starts to seem less and less appealing.
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