Words Kate Duncan, Charlie Hale & Terry Robson

David Attenborough

Sir David Frederick Attenborough is one of Britain’s most beloved figures; a broadcaster, natural historian and, at 93, a global superstar, his reign in the public eye has been defined by environmental benevolence.

Attenborough’s epic series about the natural world have been broadcast around the globe, making a name for him as the father of our planet. Travelling from the icy Edens of Antarctica to the momentous plains of Africa’s Serengeti, his documentaries established a new genre of wildlife film. It is now almost impossible to imagine a time when Attenborough wasn’t on our screens, narrating — in his signature comforting drawl — the epic fight between bison or the silent stalk of Africa’s biggest cats. At its finest, his storytelling reimagines the affairs of the natural world into awe-inspiring tales that have captured the imagination of the globe. The migration patterns of albatross and the reign of a queen ant in her colony are crafted into stories that sparkle and delight in a way only Attenborough has mastered.

Over the last 15 years, Attenborough’s stories have shifted from a natural history perspective to an environmental one. Initially peppered with conservation issues, they are now a rallying cry for a planet cracking under the weight of human impact. The arrival of Blue Planet II in 2017 ushered in a new urgency to Attenborough’s blockbuster epics and transformed popular attitudes towards single-use plastic and pollution. He is, on all accounts, credited with making the plastic straw the single most unfashionable accessory in the UK.

In his most recent films, no stunning sequence of animals is without Attenborough narrating the precariousness of their continued existence. Images of turtles tangled in plastic and polar bears stranded on a lone piece of ice explicitly tackle environmental harm caused by humans.

Aside from over seven decades in television, Attenborough has devoted much of his time to campaigning for radical action to tackle biodiversity loss and the climate crisis. He addressed leaders from almost 200 countries at the UN climate change summit in 2018 and last year, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he warned that “the Garden of Eden is no more” as he urged political and business leaders to tackle climate change before it is too late. “Growth is going to come to an end, either suddenly or in a controlled way,” he explained; only “a madman or an economist” would cling to the notion of infinite economic growth.

Greta Thunberg

Swedish climate youth activist Greta Thunberg certainly deserves a place as one of WellBeing’s favourite climate revivalists. After gaining worldwide recognition for her efforts to fight climate change, she has inspired a movement of school-age activists all over the world. At just 17 years of age, Thunberg is our youngest climate revivalist.

In 2018, at age 15, Thunberg skipped school and sat on the cold cobblestone pavement outside the Swedish parliament to protest climate change. Holding a hand-painted banner that said “skolstrejk för klimatet” (school strike for climate) she sat from 8.30am to 3pm — a regular school day — and bravely met the eyes of bemused onlookers and classmates with passion and urgency. On that first day, she sat alone. The next day, however, people started to join her strike. Today, Thunberg is a household name and it’s safe to say she’s anything but alone.

That first brave act inadvertently kicked off a global movement known as Fridays for Future or School Strike for Climate and quickly spread all over the world. Now, over 100,000 school children strike for the climate. Described as “the Greta effect” and said to be one of the biggest environmental protests the world has ever seen, Thunberg has inspired schoolkids to strike in Japan, Canada, Australia, Iceland, USA, Germany, UK, India, France, Italy, Finland, Pakistan, Uganda, Russia, Argentina and many other countries.

The wide-eyed, pigtailed teenager is celebrated across the world as a model of determination and positive action. No longer are children staying quiet; Thunberg has given kids a platform to speak up. This has sparked new ideas and initiatives that see children presenting business pitches to schools on how to be greener, while pupils are begging their parents to stop engines running outside the school gates. Plastic bottles and straws are a thing of the past at some schools after student-led campaigns for the environment.

But “the Greta effect” doesn’t just stop in schools. She has been invited to speak all over the world. Her powerful address at the 2018 United Nations Climate Action Summit has been watched by millions online. In it, Thunberg criticises world leaders for their failure to take sufficient action to address the climate crisis: “You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.”

Known for her straightforward speaking manner, both in public and to political leaders, she was included in Forbes 2019 list of The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, TIME magazine named her Person of the Year and she has received two consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (2019 and 2020).

Not even the COVID-19 outbreak is stopping Thunberg. Although she intended to strike outside parliament every Friday until the Swedish government’s policies are in line with the Paris climate agreement, she is now taking action online and holding digital strikes. Thunberg, who tries her best to live a low-carbon life by following a vegan diet and refusing to fly, is the leader kids (and adults) need right now. By encouraging children to speak up and ask questions, she has inspired a movement that is not only unifying humanity but making a real difference.

Thunberg, along with her supporters, has fought hard to create the urgency and action we need in our fight for the climate. It is for these reasons that Thunberg is our youngest climate revivalist.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Uniquely placed as a household name, DiCaprio has leveraged his A-lister influence to raise awareness for climate change and sensitise a global audience to change their behaviour.

Actor, philanthropist and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio founded his environmental organisation, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF), in 1998, just one year after he starred as Jack Dawson in the blockbuster movie Titanic. The then 23-year-old star set out to address some of the globe’s most pressing climate concerns, including ocean preservation, wildlife conservation and global warming, and has since funded more than 200 projects and initiatives dedicated to securing a sustainable future, awarding over $100 million in grants across 50 countries.

LDF works both at a grassroots level, partnering with localised projects, and at a global level, working with international organisations including the World Wildlife Fund, Oceana and the WILD Foundation.

Uniquely placed as a household name, DiCaprio has leveraged his A-lister influence to raise awareness for climate change and sensitise a global audience to change their behaviour. The actor has conceded that his celebrity status is a somewhat double-edged sword, affording him the spotlight while allowing naysayers to suggest he is simply a superficial movie star riding the climate change trend wave.

After years of “near misses” at the Oscars, DiCaprio dedicated his 2016 acceptance speech, which he won for his portrayal of Hugh Glass in The Revenant, to the urgency of the climate crisis. “Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating,” he said.

“We need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people out there who would be most affected by this. For our children’s children, and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed.”

The actor has become a fixture at events focused on global challenges since 2014, when he raised his voice about the urgency of climate change at the United Nations Climate Summit as a UN Messenger of Peace. The speech garnered a record-breaking 1.6 million views on the United Nations channel and was broadcast around the globe. The star was in attendance at the Paris climate negotiations in December 2015 and dropped into the Davos economic forum to pick up an award in 2016 for the work of his eponymous foundation.

In addition, DiCaprio sits on the boards of multiple organisations dedicated to climate issues, and last year co-founded Earth Alliance alongside businesswoman and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs and investor and philanthropist Brian Sheth. The organisation is dedicated to combating biodiversity loss, and just one month after forming pulled together an emergency fund of US$5 million to help protect the Amazon against the fires that raged there last year.

Through his foundation, DiCaprio has produced a number of documentaries that sound the alarm for a fraying planet. His latest documentary, Ice on Fire, was released on HBO last year and is resoundingly hopeful in its shift from the urgency of the data to fully operative climate change solutions, including engineers working on carbon sequestration and global wind power. The documentary follows a number of DiCaprio-produced films, namely Cowspiracy, Before the Flood, A Plastic Ocean, Virunga and his marine conservation documentary, Sea of Shadows, which won the Sundance Audience Award last year.

Brinkley Davies

Brinkley Davies was born in 1993 and raised on the isolated coastline of South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula. A true waterwoman at heart, Davies is a surfer, marine biologist, freediver and environmental conservationist. In 2016, at the young age of 22, Davies founded Balu Blue Foundation, an Australian non-for-profit organisation protecting the natural environment and wildlife.

Brinkley Davies’ strength of character and courage can be attributed to her growing up on the beautiful, rugged and remote coastline of South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula. Davies’ love for the ocean and its marine life started early; she began surfing at four years old and surfed competitively until she was 18.

Davies, who now calls the pristine blue water of Exmouth in Western Australia home, uses social media as a platform for raising conservation issues that are close to her heart. With over 200k followers on Instagram, she has inspired a younger generation of activists. With her posts often featuring whales, kangaroos or koalas, Davies’ photos are as captivating as her deep blue eyes.

Reflecting on her favourite moments under the water, she speaks of freediving with humpback whales off Tonga and alongside whale sharks on the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia.

Naturally, with so much time spent in the water, Davies developed a deep curiosity and respect for the ocean. This unwavering passion for the environment led her to complete a degree in marine biology and, soon after, she jumped straight into a world of preservation and protection.

In January 2014, the Australian government introduced baited drum lines near popular Western Australian beaches to reduce the number of potentially life-threatening sharks. Baited mid-water hooks designed to catch and kill great white sharks, bull sharks and tiger sharks were implemented, yet whales, turtles, rays, dolphins, dugongs and other marine life were harmed and killed in the process.

This outraged Davies, who labelled the baited drum line program “one of the stupidest and most barbaric things the Australian government has ever decided to do.” The drum lines were also opposed by other marine scientists, animal rights activists like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Greenpeace Australia, the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority, and celebrities like surfer Kelly Slater, golfer Greg Norman and entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson. As a result of the public outcry, the cull was subsequently abandoned.

This community groundswell of activism further propelled Davies. Looking for a platform to share environmental conservation in the form of research, education and projects, she founded Balu Blue Foundation in 2016. Balu Blue Foundation’s campaign Clear Tides has seen the not-for-profit remove rubbish from the foreshores of South Australia and other states, worked with educational programs and schools and developed awareness for the environment. In 2017 and 2018 Davies was nominated for the Australian of the Year award, an accolade that further recognises her unwavering commitment to the ocean.

Davies, a confident, intelligent and brave woman, uses her voice and influence to inspire a younger generation. This makes her one of our favourite home-grown climate revivalists.