circle for younger philanthropists who want to learn more about climate change and get
involved in a peer group of people who are growing the amount of giving into that area.
So the idea is you give a thousand dollars a year or more, depending on your income and
your capacity to give. Then people in the giving circle will vote on a few different grant
rounds each year. And that money will go to climate change advocacy organisations.
And everyone will recruit their friends. You don’t have to be mega rich to be part of this
either. You can just be earning a salary that is more than what you need to live on and
decide to put some of it into climate activism.I think of it as a transformative experience that gives
people the space to make decisions about what their next
steps on climate change will be. I am on the advisory
board for Global Change Institute at the University of
Queensland which runs the Heron Island Research
Centre and had filmed two documentaries there. It’s a
very special place. The idea to take a group of philanthropists and influencers came about
when I was doing an innovation fellowship with the Myer Foundation in 2016. I just knew
it would be a powerful thing to do. My friend Amanda, we used to run the AYCC together,
is now the CEO of the Climate Council and they agreed to come on board and organise
it with us, and Tim Flannery came along with the UQ scientists. Clare and I didn’t really
know what the outcome would be and it’s one of those things that is hard to measure. But
you can look at each individual who came on the two trips we’ve now done, and how it has
transformed them. And they’ve all gone on to do amazing things on climate change in their
own lives and in the public sphere. We had an author, Clare Press, inspired to write a book
called Rise and Resist. We had Kit Willow, a fashion designer go on to create a line of “Save
the Bees” t-shirts. Heidi from the band Cloud Control is launching an incredible project to
help musicians use proceeds from their concert tickets to build renewable energy, which
their fans can be part of building. And we’ve had lots of philanthropists who’ve learned
more about climate change and are starting to fund more in the area. I wish I could take
everyone in Australia to Heron Island but I can’t, so we have to figure out other ways to help
people have those transformative experiences that get us out of our comfort zones to act.And life is hard. I mean, I have been struggling with some health
things. And I have a three-year old who is beautiful but very
exhausting. And we’ve just moved cities. There’s a lot on my plate and
on everyone’s plate. So to add things like “worry about climate change” to your to-do list,
it’s not really an appealing proposition for most people. So we need to find ways that we can
integrate it into people’s lives and help them connect with people in their communities to
make it easier to be part of this movement.Yeah the last five months I’ve been in an interesting
place. I started writing this new book actually on
climate change and courage in October. I was really
excited. I’d just come back from Heron Island and
before that I had spent time in central Australia where I was learning about the impacts
that climate change and gas fracking is having on the Northern Territory. So I was really
pumped. I was going to write this book, I was going to have it done by January. And I was
going to keep doing all my other work as well. Then suddenly I got really sick and had
to step back from most things really. And it was very hard because one thing that I haveI’d love to talk about the Heron Island trips you’ve
been doing actually. ’Cause they’ve been super
powerful for a lot of people that I know. Tell us
about the potency of those trips and what the
experience looked like for the participants.We don’t tend to have those
opportunities in our everyday lives.Through these challenges you’ve been
experiencing, how have you stayed connected to
the work and to the cause? Or maybe you haven’t?30
ANNA ROSE
DUMBO FEATHER