“UNTIL WE SEE ACTION FROM OUR LEADERS, WE HAVE TO KEEP SHOUTING FROM THE ROOFTOPS”

THE BUSHFIRE CRISIS HAS SPURRED ACTOR YAEL STONE TO REDUCE HER EMISSIONS BY GIVING UP HER PERMIT TO LIVE AND WORK IN THE US. SHE EXPLAINS WHY

Actor Yael Stone isn’t afraid to make personal and financial sacrifices for the environment.

ihave early memories of driving through Bundeena in the Royal National Park [NSW], on a high as I looked at the miracle of tiny green shoots making their way through the ash of black, bushfire-ravaged earth. This time around, as I drove through the National Park at Jervis Bay further south, where logs were still smoking, I had chills again, but for entirely different reasons.

As Australians, we know that fire has been a healthy part of the natural ecosystem for millennia. Indigenous Australians have used fire as an essential tool in stewardship of the land. While loss of lives and homes is always a tragedy, the fire itself, acting in concert with the land, felt like a natural phenomenon. But the scope and ferocity of these fires has been very different from those of my childhood. Their catastrophic nature is the result of climate change. This is not a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of scientific fact.

I wish I didn’t have to write about this. I know you are exhausted from reading about deeply depressing facts. But until we see decisive and inspiring action from our leaders to turn this around, we have to keep shouting the facts from the rooftops. This is not normal. We’ve never before seen this scope of simultaneous destruction of habitat, wildlife, human homes and human lives. We’ve never before known such record-breaking dry, hot conditions that see us in a very serious drought, with water reserves at perilously low levels until only recently.

The year is 2020 but our vision has been obscured by blankets of smoke. We should be looking ahead with silly excitement about our future. We should be planning outrageous acts of creative endeavour and scientific exploration to reveal new horizons. We should be finding brighter restorative ideas on criminal justice, education and a healing treaty with Indigenous Australians. We should be engaging in dynamic philosophical ideas about national identity and the hopeful trajectory for humanity. Instead, in the year when our vision should be sharpest, we’re blinded by the haze and the foggy politics of side-stepping and diminishing goals.

So let’s keep shouting: “This is not normal and we want real action!” When we get real action, I look forward to going back to my real job of dressing up and pretending to be other people for your entertainment. I won’t have to think of myself as a heartbroken citizen worried for her child’s future. I can go back to the wonderful world of make-believe. When we get real action, teenagers the world over can throw off the incredible anxiety of having to fight every day for the fate of the world. They can go back to school and the drama of falling in and out of love. When we get real action, you’ll be able to stop reading articles like this.

Until such a time, I will keep trying to embody the transformation that leaders won’t bring to the table. So far, that has meant personal and professional sacrifice. Recently, I announced that I’ve decided to abandon my green card, which allows me to live and work in the US in an unrestricted way. I sought the green card to give me a better chance of getting work in the US, and giving it up almost certainly means I’ll have fewer opportunities.

Living across two continents and flying back and forth between the US and Australia costs the earth around 2,000kg of CO2 each flight. My country has been on fire with the impact of climate change, so I must put some skin in the game. I look at Greta Thunberg and understand that individuals must lead where our leaders won’t.

This decision will reduce my emissions significantly, but I can’t entirely eliminate my need to fly for work. So I’m also promising to put 50 per cent of my earnings from any job that requires international travel towards organisations aiming for radical CO2 reduction or reabsorption. The next time I fly internationally, I’ll be investing 50 per cent of my earnings into FEAT, a movement that allows people to meaningfully support the growth of renewable energy. Skin in the game.

This is just the start for me. I’m committed to positive action on my home soil, be it local community resilience, applying pressure on government or working with business. We’ve been given 10 years to act before the impact on our environment is irreversible. Let’s make wild 2020 visions about the world we want to see, and make those visions a reality in our own lives. Other people will follow you.

It’s possible that our children are the vibrant green shoots that emerge from the black ash after a bushfire. But it’s not a fairytale we can count on; it’s a narrative that we are going to have to write ourselves.