Hear Cate Blanchett’s Call for Change

Cate Blanchett has been engaged in environmental activism for years, but a recent family trip reaffirmed her passion for helping to save the planet.

“I was driving home with the kids and there was the most extraordinary sunset,” says the Oscar-winning actor. “My daughter said, ‘It’s so beautiful! The world is sooo beautiful!’ And when your 7-year-old says that, you think, ‘Yep, it is, and I’m going to help protect it.’”

That ecological drive is the reason she created Climate of Change, her new Audible podcast with her longtime friend Danny Kennedy, a climate entrepreneur and activist. Focused on interviews with experts, newsmakers, and personalities including Prince William, director Adam McKay, and musician Imogen Heap, the six-episode series aims to present solutions to an ever-growing problem—one that, Blanchett admits, can feel daunting.

We talked to Blanchett and Kennedy about Climate of Change—and how they hope to inspire others.

What did you want to achieve with the podcast?

Blanchett: Climate of Change connects the dots of disparate, community-based activities to reveal a whole network of people working on climate initiatives. When you add up all those seemingly tiny changes, they’re monumental. And when you learn about the changes happening, you start to wake up with a spring in your step, thinking, “We can do this, we can change things.”

How do you avoid being bogged down by eco-anxiety?

Kennedy: We learned from a psychologist that one of the best ways is to take a first step. After that, the next step gets easier. The smaller actions lead to bigger actions and help you feel confident enough to try something, even in this period of volatility and uncertainty.

Blanchett: You have to negotiate with your heart and your mind, find a way to look at the situation, and engineer a way out of it.

What’s an example of those smaller actions?

Kennedy: Putting the recycling out. Choosing the meatless protein. Not taking a plastic straw. Those are all important individual actions that can help you feel like you have agency. But the most important thing we can do is band together in collective action, because that’s how we create consumer demand on a scale that changes markets—and how we get politicians to pass better environmental policies.

The series explores solar energy. What are your thoughts on its potential?

Kennedy: Some cities in Australia are now 50 percent solar-powered on some days. I remember politicians pooh-poohing solar 15 years ago, but we know it’s viable and growing. We talk in the podcast about how that growth could surprise us in the same way cell phones replaced landlines. We’re going to go through a technology disruption and wake up one year and say, “Remember when we used to burn stuff to boil water?”

What message do you hope people take away?

Blanchett: No one action, no one person, will make a permanent mark of change. But change is happening. Whether you’re talking about the climate or systemic racism, it’s all about trying to shift the system so that it services the great many rather than the privileged few. I always come to Danny feeling defeated [about the climate emergency] and I always come away energized, inspired, and enlightened. I hope that’s what the podcast gives listeners.

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