Deborah Hart is an arts-focussed activist and writer based in Narrm (Melbourne). After 16 years working in development roles with leading Australian arts and culture organisations—as increasingly neoliberal government policies were forcing important public organisations to form ever-closer alliances with harmful industries—Deborah left her profession in order to devote more time to climate activism and her then young children. 

Deborah founded LIVE (Locals Into Victoria’s Environment, 2006) and later co-founded CLIMARTE (2010) and ClimActs (2013) to harness the creative arts and combine spectacle, humour and direct action to draw attention to the climate emergency, and the corruption causing it. Deborah is the author of Guarding Eden: Champions of Climate Action (Allen & Unwin, 2015) which tells inspiring personal stories showing how and why highly destructive, polluting industries that built immense wealth and influence last century are now using that power recklessly to protect their profits, and the inspiring actions ordinary citizens are taking to safeguard nature and humanity’s future.