It’sa rebelliousacttohavehope.
“It’sallfucked.”Yep.“Thesystem’sshit.It’sallover.
Theplanet’snotgoingtolastnow.”I hearthata lotfrom
peoplewhenI describetheworkthatI do.Maybeit’sa
wayforpeopletofeelokayaboutnotdoinganything.Whataboutthesatisfactionforyou,therewardfromthiswork?
There’sa lotofTVtowatch.Yep.
thatchance.Soyoujusthavetoact.Because what’s the alternative? Giving up? That’s not okay.
Especiallywhenyou’vegottensofthousands of school children marching in the streets for
theirfuturesallaroundtheworld.Evenif you’re having a day where you feel a bit pessimistic,
youhavetohavetheirbacks.Onethingthat gives me the hope and the courage to keep going
isthatweknowthingscanchangeandchange very fast. A community can decide it’s time
tochangeandmakeit impossiblefortheirpolitical leaders to keep the status quo going.
AndwehavethesolutionslikeI said.Weknow what to do. It’s just a matter of getting enough
politicalwillforgovernmentstostandupto vested interests. You know, you look at social
movementsthroughouthistoryandoftenthey felt like they were losing right before they won.
Andonethingaboutcampaigningisthatyou often don’t know the impact of your actions
untildecades,if nothundredsofyears,down the track. Vandana Shiva has a great quote about
beingveryinvestedinandattachedtotheeffort but not the outcome. I think we can just give
it ourbesteffort.Beasbraveaswecan.Challenge ourselves. Get out of our comfort zones.
Figureouthowwecanmakethebestintervention in the systems that we’re part of and then
justhope.Andlikeeventhedecisiontobehopeful, you kind of have to be brave to choose that.Likesometimesit’seasier just to give up and be pessimistic and...And maybe the reason hope is so hard is because you
get a bit of progress and then it goes back. You make
some progress on a campaign like stopping the Adani
mine and you get close to the ALP taking a strong
position against it, but then the next week they go
backwards.It’slikeyourheartisconstantly getting broken! You have this flicker of hope and
thenthefossilfuelindustrydoeseverything they can to extinguish it. But you’ve got to keep
showingup.AndthatI guessissometimesnot glamorous but it’s what needs to be done.I love it. I feel so privileged that I’m able
to spend most of my time building a
movementonclimatechange.I don’treally understand why people wouldn’t want to be
involvedinthis.I meanofcourseI dounderstand there’s lots of things going on and there’s
vestedintereststhathavemadeithardtocare.DoyouknowAustraliansspend on average 10 percent of our time watching
TV?Twoanda halfhoursa day! Imagine the progress we would make on
climatechangeifinsteadofwatchinganimaginary world on TV, everyone spent that time
savingtherealworldinstead.Youwon’tbeon your deathbed wishing you watched more TV!
Butit’sveryenergisingtobedoingworkwith people who are passionate about making the
worlda betterplace.IfpastAnnahadnotdecided to take that risk and politely decline that
corporatelawoffer,I can’treallyimaginewhat my life would be like. But it would be much
lessexcitingandprobablymuchlessfun!AnnaRosehasofferedtorespondtoquestions from Dumbo Feather readers looking for
adviceonhowbesttomoststrategicallyusetheir time, treasure and talent to solve the climate
[email protected] (include your age, profession and
location)andshareyourthoughtsandideasfor how you can take meaningful action on climate
change.She’llaimtogetbacktoyouwithina week of your email with some advice.36
ANNA ROSE
DUMBO FEATHER