CATE BLANCHETT

Oscar-winning Australian actor, artistic co-director of Sydney Theatre Company (with her playwright husband, Andrew Upton), stage director and ambassador for the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), Cate Blanchett has been a long-time advocate of the environment.

“We all know the facts about dangerous climate change,” she says. “It’s very easy to shift from despair to suicidal depression in the wake of that information.

“In 2006 the inspirational Al Gore came out to ignite the Climate Project (TCP), which is generously supported by the ACF, where citizens from all walks of life in Australia are indoctrinated and empowered with the information [and a version of the slide show featured in Gore’s documentary film] An Inconvenient Truth to go out into their communities and spread the word.

“He trained 70 people then [in Sydney]. My husband and I went. We went as citizens and we went as concerned parents. We wanted to do something with our anxiety and to turn our anxiety into action. We were so inspired by the passion of the people doing the training, who were obviously inspired by Al Gore himself. It was the individuals [attending] who were then asking pertinent and specific questions about climate change and had the passion to go back and communicate to their communities.

“I think there is an opportunity in climate change. We all know the depressing facts but there is also the opportunity to re-ignite that sense of community. We are a very big, vast country and we forget that we have individual concerns in our communities, which are made up of individuals who all vote and all consume. We are all consumers and if we change the way we consume and think in our communities we can have an enormously powerful effect on governments that need to be lobbied and on the big polluters who need to be shamed into action. But it is the grassroots action where the real opportunity in climate change lies.

“We are in the process of greening the Sydney Theatre as a first step but we have much more to do.”

ALEXANDER KANAAR

Alexander Kanaar is a former professional rugby union player. Growing up on a farm on the south coast of New South Wales with a father who utilised passive solar principles in house design, Kanaar was inspired by and became passionate about the environment from an early age.

“The Australian Rugby Union put out a few feelers to see if anyone was interested in being a part of the Climate Project,” he recalls. “I had some time on my hands, as I was injured, and I’ve always been passionate about the environment so I put up my hand.

“I’ve always been motivated to take actions to save the environment. After watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth I realised I wanted to make a difference in helping to tackle climate change. I have a Masters in natural resources management and I knew it would be something I’d love to do. Growing up in the country, I know first-hand what has been lost through climate change. I know climate change is something that is worth the fight.

“I’m now concentrating on recycling as the Environmental Sustainability Manager at Visy. I’m also still spreading the word through the rugby community.

“People know the science is there, there’s no doubting it 
any more. They just need to know easy steps to take to make 
a difference, such as signing up for green power, only purchasing products that can be recycled and doing the right thing with them by putting them in the right bins.”

VANESSA MORRIS

Former ABC broadcaster Vanessa Morris is a mother of two. 
She broke down after seeing An Inconvenient Truth.

“I think I let the busyness of life and adulthood and work and children block my awareness of the reality of climate change, until An Inconvenient Truth came along and shocked me back to the science,” she reflects.

“When I saw the film I felt like I had been slapped very, 
very hard. I was devastated that I’d allowed myself to neglect the subject, that I’d allowed myself to be manipulated by the sceptics and by the powers that be who funded and maintained the sceptics’ voice.

“I had always been interested in environmental issues but not on an active level. I’m a newbie to the field. There are so many people I’ve met who have been fighting for 15 or 20 years to save the rainforests in Tasmania, really inspiring people, that it feels odd to have arrived so late on the scene, but better late than never.

“When I was in the media I had to maintain a certain impartiality to things, as the observer rather than the participator, but then I decided I wanted to be a participator rather than tell people what was happening.

“I’m now working for a project in Canberra called SEE-Change. We’re working on the idea that together we can do incredible things. I find that everyone wants to help but doesn’t know how.”

Morris and her SEE-Change community group have organised a solar bulk buy initiative that will see 60 households across Canberra install solar panels. see-change.org.au

MARK WATSON

An established face on the international comedy circuit, UK comedian Mark Watson has a unique way of spreading the word on climate change. In 2007 he launched his own online “Crap at the Environment” project with the intention of “saving the world, despite not being very good at it”. It developed a following of more than 1000 members and in 2008 Hodder Headline published his book, Crap at the Environment.

Watson delivered his first Climate Project presentation to 1500 people at the 2008 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. He now he delivers his environmentally focused comedy act to audiences in the UK.

“It’s not an easy thing to do by yourself, so it’s a galvanising experience to be involved with a group that has 
a common goal.

“Comedy is another way of spreading the message. It’s always a challenge to incorporate the message into my act because people come for a comedy show. The danger is you lure people in with the offer of comedy and then you start getting slides out, but mostly people have found it an interesting side thing.

“I do my best to make it entertaining. It’s important for people to have access to the message of climate change in other ways. A lot of people don’t watch Al Gore’s stuff because they think it will depress them too much, so if I can get people to watch my show, that’s good enough for me.”

JOCELYN UIBO

Jocelyn Uibo is a school registrar employed by the Northern Territory Government Department of Education. 
She is also an elected member of the Numbulwar Numburindi Community Government Council. She plans to disseminate the climate change message to the Numbulwar, Ngukurr, Borroloola 
and Groote Eylandt communities, Nhulunbuy township and surrounding indigenous communities.

“People are very aware around here that things are changing in the environment. They are noticing things that are not quite right at the moment. The elders of my mum’s generation have noticed a lot of changes with the coastal patterns, which have affected the seasonal hunting and gathering.

“Being involved in the Climate 
Project has changed my life. Having 
a full-time job and being a mum, 
it’s always hard to find time to commit 
to the project, but I’m focused on doing more presentations, particularly for 
high school kids.

“My young daughter, Zelda, who 
is seven, is now more interested in 
doing things since I started the project. 
My community doesn’t have recycling and she said, “Mum, why can’t we 
get recycling?”

“That’s what I’m now doing: getting the shire council to look into recycling 
for the community.

“I’m also keen to get solar power for the community rather than the diesel generators we use. Where we live is hot, so it makes sense.”

LINH DO

Linh Do is a secondary school student who lives in Maidstone, Victoria. She hopes that her being a Climate Project presenter will not only educate others about climate change but also dispel negative assumptions about generation Y.

“Sometimes it’s assumed that young people don’t care, that we’re all apathetic because we’re from gen Y,” she says, 
“so I definitely think my role as a Climate Project presenter is working towards changing those negative connotations.

“In 2020 I will be 30. I will either be living in a world that is horrible or a world that uses renewable energy and is green and eco-friendly. I want to be a part of that.”

Do’s main project is Change and Switch (C&S), an environmental organisation based in Melbourne, which Do created and coordinates.

“C&S is a really cool project I’m working on at the moment. It’s probably the biggest thing I’ve ever done, but also the most exciting.”

The organisation tackles issues such as climate change and poverty, treating them as inseparable, and has run campaigns such as “100%, Just Say No!” and “Change a Million Light Bulbs”. About 100,000 standard light bulbs have already been changed to energy-efficient globes through the effort of that campaign, which is an ongoing project for C&S.

NICK TOWLE

Dr Nick Towle typically covers between 75km and 100km a week cycling to work in northwest Tasmania. His route not only gives him spectacular views of Bass Strait but also a unique perspective on the impact that humans are having on the environment.

“It’s a fascintating ride, as I pass so many features that cause me to reflect on the way our society currently operates,” he says. “There are the denuded cliff faces, symbolic of our thirst for resources; the huge Impact Fertilisers depot; the looming challenges of peak oil; and the Burnie mountains, also known as the woodchip piles – evidence of our most valuable stores of carbon being sold off for toilet paper.”

Dr Towle is not only conscious of the ways humans change the landscape, he is also concerned about the influences of a changing climate on human health, such as the increase in tropical diseases in Australia as the temperature rises.

“Every day we make choices around the amount of water we use, the clothes we wear, the food we eat and the way we get to school or work,” he says. “For each of these we can take positive actions that will improve the lives of thousands of others and help to maintain our environment so it will continue to support the quality of life we currently enjoy.”

JIM THOMSON

Jim Thomson once worked on oil rigs and is now an electrical contractor in the outback city of Kalgoorlie–Boulder in Western Australia. He was involved in Kalgoorlie’s Solar Cities bid and is 
a member of the Chamber of Minerals 
& Energy reference group.

Thomson is a father and grandfather who is actively involved in his chosen field of renewable energy. His company, Outback Energy Supply, became accredited in the field of renewable energy in 1999.

Thomson says the documentary An Inconvenient Truth brought about the realisation that he had personally contributed to the increase in carbon dioxide levels recorded since 1958 and he wanted to do something to rectify that.

On being told that An Inconvenient Truth wouldn’t be shown by the cinema 
in Kalgoorlie, Thomson personally funded a screening of the film to ensure Kalgoorlie’s citizens had the opportunity to hear the message. It was so popular that a second screening was needed, which covered Thomson’s out-of-pocket costs.

“Please bear with me, I’m not 
Al Gore. This is presentation number three and it’s not getting any easier,” Thomson says in the documentary Telling The Truth. “You can’t change the [whole] world, you can only change a little bit.”