Australian Bushfires: What Australia Needs From The World’s Creatives

The celebrity world has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for victims of the Australian bushfires, including the $51 M raised by comedian Celeste Barber’s social media appeal. A half a billion has been raised altogether. Briefly, the bushfires in Australia in the past few months have destroyed 12 million acres (three times more than the 2019 fires in the Amazon), killed 25 people and killed half a billion animals.

We don’t need more money now. We need the continued creativity of the hundreds of photographers, painters, poets, playwrights and musicians to keep climate change front and centre.

We also need creatives to press their countries’ Ambassadors to Australia to demand our government gets serious about climate change globally. Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal. The coal areas are in marginal seats, meaning all political parties take orders from coal workers, a tiny portion of the population. The vast majority of Australians want us to transition these coal communities into other industries. This has been shown to be possible economically, but not politically.

I am asking the world’s creatives to write to their Ambassadors to Australia. Ask them to tell our government that transition is possible. Germany and Spain have done it; other countries are doing it. We’re not.

Please create your own letter to your Ambassador to Australia, or use this simple pro forma below. Here’s the list of the world’s Ambassadors to Australia

Thank you,
Carol Dance, Sydney artist and playwright

Read my recent article in TheatreArtLife about the world’s most remote theatre helping teens with eco-anxiety.

Dear Hon. __________,

I urge you, as our Ambassador to Australia, to encourage or demand that the Australian government transition its coal communities into other industries. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of this destructive rock. Many European countries have successfully begun transitioning coal communities. Many more countries have begun the process. The Attribution Scientists are clear that the recent horrific bushfires in Australia were caused mainly by climate change.

We ask you to do this not just for the sake of Australia, but for the world.

Please put whatever pressure you can on the Australian government and its recalcitrant political parties to act now.

Also by Carol:

Theatre Classics address Climate Crisis: Belvoir and STC

Has Netflix Homogenised Us? We Are All Watching The Same TV

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