Thursday 20 February 2020

fire feels

Recently I contributed to a new website, Fire Feels: Telling politicians how we feel about the 2019/2020 bushfires I heard about the site from one of the founders (and my colleague!) who led a climate grief workshop last month.

This important site was created in the wake of this summer's horrific fires as a means of communicating your grief, rage, horror and shock to our politicians. It actually originated between two friends writing to one another about how they were feeling, and then realising that our politicians - the ones who have the power to make the dramatic, systemic changes we need to decarbonise and to value nature - should hear how we feel. Instead of 'staying calm', we should tell them how we feel.

You can contribute, too, just visit the site for instructions. Importantly, if you need further support, please seek professional support - find more information here.

So without further ado, below is the letter I wrote to my MP, Zali Steggall

To Zali Steggall: I had hoped never to experience this fear and grief


I have been a climate activist and working in sustainable development for over a decade. The scenes from the bush fires have brought out fear and grief that I had been hoping never to experience – and fighting for others not to experience – for so many years. I attended a climate grief workshop to help me start to address these feelings, during which I drew the following two pictures.

One is the scene I just can’t get out of my head of standing on a fairly isolated beach in Broken Bay with my two year-old son as the sky was golden-orange and ash-flakes snowed down upon us. There were children in the water who were laughing and playing, trying to catch the ashes with a goal of catching the biggest one possible. Did they know what it was? It was a very apocalyptic scene. It was very hard to accept that it was really  happening, and we were not even in the worst of the fire zones.

CC-BY-NC-SA Lisa Heinze


The other is a representation of how I feel – sad and frozen, but also angry. I’m just waiting for that anger to thaw me out of my frozen state so I can start flowing and acting (and activisting!) again.

CC-BY-NC-SA Lisa Heinze


I know that you are committed to climate action, I voted and campaigned for you because of it. I am writing to remind you of how urgently Australia needs to take bold action. I will stand behind your climate efforts, but also push you for more brave and robust efforts for the sake of the future and younger generations.

From Lisa Heinze