As humans, what we do, and what we fail to do, has an impact worldwide—no matter where we live. Our actions are connected across the world. This is especially true for climate change and its unmanageable consequences. To communicate this interconnectedness, Shifting Values is launching the crowdfunding project for ‘The book that needs to be written’.
The book will be authored by a seasoned wildlife activist, Margi Prideaux, who, together with her husband Geoff, lost her farm, wildlife refuge, and home, when at 17:03hrs on January 3, 2020, a firestorm tore across the landscape of Australia’s Kangaroo Island, taking 89 homes and farms in its path.
The connection between Shifting Values and the Prideauxs is a personal one. Nicolas Entrup and Margi and Geoff have fought together on many international wildlife campaigns over the past 20 years. Nicolas is also a Board Member of Wild Migration, the wildlife conservation organisation Geoff and Margi run from Kangaroo Island.
Margi and Geoff have spent much of the past eight years campaigning on behalf of their community against the planned oil exploration off Kangaroo Island, which would endanger the marine ecosystem, wildlife such as the Australian sea lions, and the livelihoods of local fishermen. Apart from the immediate impacts of exploration, they have warned of the climate change consequences of continuing to burn fossil fuels. It was exactly these consequences that befell them, their 4000-strong community, and hundreds of thousands of animals on January 3rd.
The island’s inhabitants now must rebuild their lives from scratch while planning, as a community, for the inevitable truth that the firestorms will be back. Climate modelling predicts the weather conditions that fuelled the firestorm will continue to escalate in this region in the coming decades. This small community now lives in the full furry of climate catastrophe and has to learn how to adapt to survive.
Margi has set herself the goal of chronicling her community’s dramatic journey from climate apathy to frontline witnesses of a global climate crisis. Drawing on her decades of experience, she’ll narrate how this local catastrophe ties into the global context of laborious negotiations and failed promises. Her book will reveal the changes we must all make to survive. This is a book that needs to be written!
We want to support her with a crowdfunding campaign. With your financial contribution you make it possible for Margi to write and publish ‘17:03hrs: A Preview of Climate Catastrophe’ and to distribute it widely. The crowdfunding target is 8.000 Euro. On the crowdfunding platform you can also share your personal experiences with climate change.
Visual idea: Many heartfelt thanks to the PR agency SPRINGER & JACOBY for developing and providing the visual idea “So far and yet so near” pro bono!
Read further:
- Margi and Geoff Prideaux also work with and for the marine conservation organisation OceanCare, whose underwater noise programme is managed by Nicolas Entrup.
- The publishing house Stormbird Press, founded by Margi and Geoff Prideaux, is dedicated to the publication of books that defend nature and empower communities.
- Blog article by Nicolas Entrup, January 5th, 2020: Fire
- The Guardian’s Frontline: inside Australia’s climate emergency https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/the-frontline
