We talk with local residents who have embraced environmentally friendly lifestyles and practices, and invited them to give their tips on how you can do the same!

Barbara, inspirational great-grandma and climate campaigner, Burwood

Meet Barbara our very experienced Green Living Champion, and although she is in her 90’s, she hasn’t let age get in the way of doing everything she can for the environment and to be a champion for our future. She’s an inspiration to us all!

“I have learnt so much about climate change and the main cause are emissions from humans burning fossil fuels,” says Barbara who introduced the topic of global warming to her graduate students in the 1990s at RMIT. “The increasing heat of climate change then causes extremes such as heat waves, intense bushfires, and floods”. 

Born in Melbourne in the 1930s, she loved growing up in the outdoors before spending time living and working around the world with her husband. She has several qualifications including a PhD in education and social sciences. She’s been a teacher, wine grape farmer, a member of various environmental groups and writes regularly to editors (mostly about climate or environmental matters) with one recently published in The Saturday Paper on 4/2/2024. She used to live in the tree-scaped Eltham before moving to a retirement village in Burwood to be safer after her “GP son lost patients and his home in the devastating Black Saturday fires in Marysville in 2009”, says Barbara. 

“To solve the climate crisis, the whole world, led by the United Nations, must transition rapidly to clean energy preferably solar, wind and water with back-up from batteries and pumped hydro. We also must restore and protect the natural environment upon which we depend for almost everything - oxygen, water, food and so on”.

“Everyone needs to take some science-based climate action because it is a world problem. Climate change isn’t going to solve itself and Australia must transition away from fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) very largely within the next six years. Our Climate Council scientists urge us to achieve our target of 82% renewable energy by 2030”.

Barbara’s tips for people wanting to take climate action:

• Electrify your home and transportation as much as possible; and choose to have local holidays, as these usually have lower carbon emissions.  Get solar panels or buy green-power electricity. “Unfortunately, my unit's roof is too small for solar panels, but I buy green-power electricity. Our retirement village is gradually changing all units off gas”, says Barbara.
• Join a local climate action group such as Lighter Footprints and learn more by reading newspapers; watch a film such as David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet; and read a book such as Dr Karl’s Little Book of Climate Change Science.
• Eat more local plant-based food, instead of meat and dairy; and wear more cotton and wool instead of polyester and synthetic fibres.
• Talk with family and friends about climate change.

Barbara’s heartfelt hope is that “humanity urgently reforms both our energy source and environmental care; and establishes a happier, healthier, fairer world for all humans, animals, and plants”.