Last Monday our own Lorna Pettifer won the equivalent of the Brownlow when she was announced as Australian Environmental Educator of the Year.

And though Nat Fyfe is surely good at footy in this time of climate emergency it could be a wise move to reallocate the red carpet from the fella with the most hard-ball-gets to the teacher who can equip us with tools for planetary salvation.

Lorna leads a team of over 80 educators helping people experience and understand water, waste, energy, biodiversity, food, cultural awareness, sustainable living and permaculture to over 300,000 children and adults every year.

Her job description is something like – using the twin powers of education and training you shall practically manifest Ceres’ mission to help people fall in love with the Earth again.

So over the last ten years as our politicians have squabbled over what climate change, the dying reef and out-of-control waste Lorna and her team have been hard at work helping around 3 million people take action in our everyday lives.

From running a state-wide sustainable schools program to helping asylum seekers begin sustainable food businesses Lorna has achieved all this while raising twin girls, playing in an eighties New Wave band and possibly doing competitive roller derby (I could be this making this bit up but I wouldn’t be surprised for a second).

But there’s more Lorna says so much more. Lorna has a vision she’s dubbed The School of Nature and Climate.

Lorna believes that if we’re going to keep under 2 degrees warming we need do everything we’re doing but a whole lot faster, a whole lot deeper and with whole lot more people.

Drawing on indigenous knowledge and connection to the land, regenerative agriculture, circular economy and mixing education with campaigning for change it’s a school of thought, a learning framework and learning institution all in one.

Got my three votes.