Yael Stone has found her new purpose

In January 2020 actor Yael Stone posted a video on Twitter announcing she was giving up her green card, which allowed her to work in the US, to stay in Australia and focus on climate change. Though at first unsure of what that might look like, taking action felt urgent and stepping up was a way of embodying the leadership she felt lacking at the time. Fast forward a few years and Yael’s launched Hi Neighbour, a community led energy transition project, which recently won a Groundswell grant.

Yael Stone lives on Dharawal Country
In conversation with Jess Bineth
Photos by Stephanie Simcox

Yael Stone, Founder of Hi Neighbour. Photo: Stephanie Simcox.

Can you tell me a bit about yourself and where you belong?

I live down on the coal coast, on Dharawal Country, south of Sydney. I feel like I belong right here, right now. Which I haven’t always felt. I lived in the US for seven years, and sometimes I told the story like it was a sacrifice. But now, living and working in Australia, the place where I was born, where I have all my childhood connections, is really powerful and inspiring.

Hi Neighbour is a newly formed organisation. Can you tell me a little bit why you started it?

Well, I had a bit of a climate anxiety breakdown during the bushfires of 2019 and 2020. In my existential frustration, I helped paint this crazy Extinction Rebellion climate change mural, which I got arrested for. When I went to court I realised, that's actually not my way, that's not how I want to be using my time. My grandfather worked in steel until he was 76 years old. It felt deeply wrong to me, to be doing something that might bring shame on the folks in this area who work in mining and steel. I realised that they do the work they do because they ultimately have the same vision for their kids' future as I do. They want stability for their families, they want them to be safe. But the politics around the climate wars has nourished deep divisions in communities like mine. I'm way more interested in unpicking these divisions that have made enemies out of our neighbours, so we can move forward and have communities that understand each other and look after each other, because we're going to need each other. We’re on the frontline of climate change, we’ve already seen it with floods and fires. Our neighbours are the ones who will ultimately be there. We started Hi Neighbour because we believe that the future can be better for the environment and for people.

What’s the role of Hi Neighbour and your intentions for the organisation over the next few years?

Hi Neighbour is about funding solar projects to finance training scholarships for locals to move into low-carbon jobs. I’m inspired by Indigenous systems thinkers like Tyson Yunkaporta, so it’s about addressing our CO2 challenge on many levels, because when it comes to emissions reductions, it’s not just an energy transition we need to go through, it’s a human transition too. A big thing that underlines our work is having empathy for folks who are staring down the barrel of losing jobs at a seriously high rate and understanding that if we invest in those people rather than demonise them, we're going to have a better chance of not only transitioning more successfully to renewable energy, but also of keeping our communities together. On a very practical level, it’s about investing in our coal and steel workers, our champions of change, because how else are we going to make wind turbines and solar panels? We need people to work in those industries who have very specific skills that you or I might not have.

The Hi Neighbour team (L-R): Scott Hamilton, Yael Stone, Catherine Moyle, Cate Doosey, Tanya Van Der Water with bub Reign and Jennifer Owens (Parul Pungabi Jagdish, not present but proud board member). Photo: Stephanie Simcox.

How do you plan to use the funding you’ve just received from Groundswell?

We’re creating ten solar scholarship positions up front, so this funding is immediately going out into the community, helping us support people who want to upskill or continue their education in domestic electrification. This will help us build relationships and gain trust by being authentic about what we're going to do. Most importantly, it will allow us to create some really positive case studies of what investment in new jobs looks like. This support from Groundswell comes at a really critical time too because our region has long been an industrial wonderland and it's now being rezoned as a renewable energy hub. Change is coming and there are going to be all these amazing job opportunities, but if we don't upskill our workers in time it will be socially devastating, because what we’ll see is new people coming in and taking these renewable jobs, and the people who have lived here for generations, who have built this place, will be squeezed out because they’ve been retrenched and can’t afford to live here anymore. I’d be devastated if that had happened to my grandfather, and if it happens to my neighbours.

Zooming out, what's your big vision for Hi Neighbour?

 It’s all about repeatability. Once we crack the model here, I'm really excited to share it  with other communities who want to do the same thing. I want to be able to be generous and hand it over and actively share, ‘this is how we did it, this is how you can make this work in your community.” But for the moment, the focus is the Illawarra, Dharawal Country homebase, we’ve got alot to learn and a hellova lot to do.

Why do you do what you do? And what gives you hope?

I've always wanted to be useful, but I felt insignificant in terms of my ability to create positive change in the world. And I used to be really cynical about this kind of stuff, to hide the fact that I was ashamed, that I wasn’t doing anything all that meaningful. But now I'm not afraid to be like, okay, I might be a novice, but I'm going to give it a go. And even with my limited skill set, which I'm trying to grow as quickly as I can, I finally have this feeling of utility that is so satisfying to me. And that's what gives me hope. That someone like me, an actor by trade, can engage with the potential of the moment and do everything I can with whatever time and energy I've got. And it’s important to say that I'm a volunteer and I'm able to put hours into Hi Neighbour that maybe other people can't, so this comes from a place of privilege. But if you are feeling anxious about climate change I have found that the best antidote is action. Just put up your hand to help and follow through on what you say you’re going to do. Those contributions, big and small, add up and are always so meaningful.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity's sake.