At the height of the Black Summer bushfires, Emily Townsend burned her bridges.
It was January 10, 2020, a few minutes to midday. Sitting at her desk at News Corp's Sydney office, she scanned the email she had typed in a flurry of anger and anxiety that morning.
Not yet sent, it sat in her drafts mailbox like an unexploded bomb.
"I find it unconscionable to continue working for this company, knowing I am contributing to the spread of climate change denial and lies."
That was one line. Another read:
"Anxiety and disappointment are the feelings that have been occupying me over the last 24 hours, to the point where I am finding it incredibly difficult to focus on my work and do my job."
In fact, Emily had already resigned. Several weeks earlier, she'd handed in her notice, giving no detailed reason for why she was abruptly leaving the company where she'd worked for five years.
She considered leaving it at that. Keep her accusatory email unsent. Gather her things at five o'clock and make her polite goodbyes.
Around her, colleagues tapped away at their keyboards. A printer hummed in the open-plan office. Someone drifted by to ask about a meeting that afternoon. The clock ticked down to midday.
She had diligently addressed the email to everyone at News Corp, including the chairman and every last executive.
She clicked send.
And all at once, the room fell eerily quiet.
Emily and Alex's big goodbyes
This is a story about what led up to Emily's decisive moment, why she acted as she did, and what happened next — the fallout of clicking send, blowing everything up and then walking away.
It's also about another Australian, Alex Hillman, who made an equally momentous decision to quit because of climate change.
Although their jobs and ways of leaving varied, Alex and Emily were in similar situations: Each felt powerless within their organisations, but also partly responsible for what their respective employers were doing, or failing to do, on the issue of climate change.
And each had a tipping point — a single event that made them quit.
In an extraordinary time for the climate, they decided they had to take extraordinary action.
The summer Australia burned
Emily's moment of crisis arrived with the bush smoke of the Black Summer.
Environmentally aware but not what she'd call a "greenie", Emily had joined News Corp five years earlier and steadily scaled the corporate ladder within the finance department.
She didn't have a say in news coverage and was verbally encouraged to keep her views to herself.
In the summer of 2019/20, ash from millions of burned hectares and billions of cremated animals darkened the skies over Sydney, settling on heads and shoulders and seeping into sealed offices.
At night, Emily would study the online fire map and watch the fires encroach on her partner's beloved farm property in the Hawkesbury region, north of the city.
And in the morning, she would drive to work. Crossing the harbour bridge, she found her city transformed: the skyscrapers looming out of the smoke like blank tombstones, the ferries cancelled due to visibility and the famous view barely recognisable.
With every news cycle, she was seeing her employer with new eyes.
News Corp Australia, a subsidiary of the US-listed company controlled by the Murdoch family, is one of Australia's largest media organisations, the owner of Sky News and publisher of The Australian, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun.
Subsequent studies found that News Corp's publications regularly pushed a climate denialist narrative during the Black Summer.
In particular, they helped spread a false narrative that arson — and not climate change — was largely to blame for the fires.
"Bushfires: Firebugs fuelling crisis as national arson arrest toll hits 183," read one headline in The Australian, on January 8, 2020.
Picked up by Donald Trump, the story was then repeated to millions of Americans by Fox News, also controlled by the Murdoch family.
It was largely inaccurate. Many of the 183 arrests were made before the bushfire season started. Others weren't for arson at all — but for breaching a fire ban or tossing a cigarette. When asked, Victorian police said there was no evidence any of the bushfires in the state were caused by arson.
For Emily, the series of arson stories was a tipping point.
Up to then, she had seen herself as an innocent — though frustrated — bystander to what her company published.
More than two years later, she remembers the shock and anger she felt, seeing the freshly printed headlines on display.
"My career is supporting the destruction of the planet and supporting polluting the airwaves with propaganda," she said.
"I was like, somebody needs to call this out. Somebody needs to do something about this.
"And for probably three nights I remember not being able to sleep at night thinking, I have to do this, I have to do this, or I'm going to regret it for the rest of my life."
Changing Woodside from the inside
On January 10, 2020, in Perth, Alex Hillman saw the headline: "News Corp employee lashes climate 'misinformation' in bushfire coverage with blistering email."
"I remember thinking it was amazing," he said.
A carbon emissions analyst at Woodside, a WA-based major oil and gas producer, Alex also had deep misgivings about what he did for work.
Just under two years later, like Emily, he would quit his job because of climate change.
But Alex's story is very different to Emily's.
Instead of gradually becoming aware of his employer's contribution to climate change, and then acting, Alex joined Woodside with a plan to change the company from the inside.
He knew he was out of place, but that was the point. He thought he could make his voice heard.
And instead of a climate-fuelled natural disaster precipitating his departure, it was a single sentence in a book-length industry report.
Down the corridors of power
Alex joined Woodside in 2013.
"It did seem like a reasonable proposition that working for oil and gas was a great place to make change," he said.
And he had cause for optimism. In 2014, he was made the company’s climate change advisor.
Two years later, the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius was ratified. That same year, Woodside said it recognised "the scientific consensus on climate change and the challenge … of reducing emissions in line with the Paris Agreement".
Alex was invited to represent Woodside at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), a lobby group that calls itself "the voice of oil and gas", with access to high levels of government.
If he was going to change things from the inside, this was the perfect place to be.
"It's kind of like a club … It has incredible political reach," he said.
Being in these high-powered discussions, talking about how the fossil fuel industry would cut its emissions and support the targets of the Paris Agreement, at first "felt really empowering".
But over time, Alex's optimism drained away.
Instead of action, he said, he encountered delay and obfuscation.
"It was always reasons that industry should do less and they would do it later."
And then the 2019/20 Black Summer arrived.
Click send … and blow it all up
After sending her bridge-burning reply-all email, Emily did nothing.
She sat at her desk, "shaking".
"I could see a lot of screens and I could see people opening the email," she said.
At that stage, she thought it would cause only a "ripple".
"It's going to be talked about internally. And they'll escort me out the building."
Then her desk phone rang. A reporter from outside News Corp was "talking really fast and asking lots of questions".
The email had already been leaked externally.
In silence, she packed her things.
Her manager caught her at the door. He was bewildered, as though he had trouble believing she had meant to send the email to everyone. This kind of thing simply wasn't done. No-one knew how to react.
They had an awkward conversation.
"He said, 'Emily, can you just wait? I think HR wants to talk to you.'"
"I was like, 'Yeah, OK.'"
"He was like, 'You sent that email to a lot of people.'"
"And I was like, 'Yeah, I know.'"
A 'ripple' becomes a wave
Emily's big goodbye would go around the world, appearing in major news outlets like the BBC and America's NPR.
Over the next few days, News Corp employees, including "senior people" and journalists, privately shared their support.
"I got messages from all over the company saying, 'Congratulations, well done, thank you for saying that.'"
And there were stirrings of change from the very top of the company. Within a week, News Corp announced it would donate $5 million to the bushfire relief effort. James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch's son, issued a rare public criticism of News Corp publications for their climate denialism.
"It needed to be done. Those words needed to be said," Emily said.
"And I'm really proud that I was the one to say them."
At the time, News Corp Australia chairman Michael Miller issued a statement in response to Emily's resignation, saying the company stood by its coverage of the bushfires and that it did not agree with Emily's views:
"Our coverage has recognised that Australia is having a serious conversation about climate change and how to respond to it. However, it has also reflected there are a variety of views and opinions about the current fire crisis. The role of arsonists and policies that may have contributed to the spread of fire are, therefore, legitimate stories to report in the public interest."
The ABC received a response from News Corp Australia after this article was first published.
"News Corp Australia has no single editorial position. Individual mastheads work out their own editorial position on issues in relation to the audience and markets they serve," a spokesperson said.
"The fact is our titles have recognised climate change for almost two decades … We have covered the issue from all sides of the debate and continue to do so.
"Regarding the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 we dedicated more resources to covering the emergency than any other commercial media outlet."
Alex's final straw
Alex's frustration with Woodside boiled down to a simple question: How can a company that makes the lion's share of its money from selling fossil fuels be part of a future without fossil fuels?
For Alex, the answer hung in the balance. Maybe gas had a role to play as a "transition fuel" between coal and renewables.
Then, in May 2021, the world's pre-eminent energy modeller addressed that exact question in a 224-page report.
It answered Alex's question in 21 "crystal clear" words:
"Beyond projects already committed to as of 2021, there are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway."
The International Energy Agency (IEA), an authoritative Paris-based intergovernmental organisation, had looked at what it would take for the world's energy sector to reach net zero emissions by 2050, which was consistent with limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C.
It found there was a "narrow pathway" between the world's demand for energy and the need to rapidly reduce fossil fuel emissions.
The planet could not afford the extra emissions from new oil and gas fields, but, fortunately, there were substitutes and the world didn't necessarily need these extra fossil fuels either.
Months after the IEA report, Woodside made its final investment decision to open up a massive new gas field off the coast of Western Australia.
If built, the $16 billion Scarborough project would be Australia's largest new fossil fuel project.
In October 2021, Alex handed in his resignation.
"I just couldn't see how you could justify continued oil and gas developments."
In response to questions from the ABC, a Woodside spokesman said they "strongly disagreed with Mr Hillman's opinion" and that the company was reducing its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30 per cent by 2030.
These are emissions that are controlled by the company (eg produced by extracting gas) whereas scope 3 emissions are a consequence of the activities of the company (ie burning of gas sold by Woodside).
The ABC asked Woodside about Alex Hillman's accusations of greenwashing, specifically that their emissions reduction targets don't include any of the fossil fuel products they sell, but the company declined to respond to that question.
Woodside also argued that its gas has a role to play in decarbonising in Asia, by replacing coal and supporting renewables.
Also in response to questions, APPEA chief executive Samantha McCulloch said the oil and gas industry was "a major investor in decarbonisation technology and renewables", and "is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the economy to net zero by 2050".
'Something you can be proud of'
Unlike Emily, Alex quit quietly.
But months later, he spoke out, appearing in the news to criticise Woodside and claim its public commitments to curb emissions were at odds with its business plans, including the Scarborough project.
By then, he was working for the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a shareholder advocacy group that pressures companies to do more on climate.
"It's so liberating," he said.
"I'm much more impactful as well. So I love it."
Emily, meanwhile, has decided to keep a much lower public profile.
Up to now, she's spoken little about the events around her quitting News Corp.
Instead, she's co-founded a co-working facility in Sydney as well as a sustainability-minded e-commerce software company.
Most of all, she feels relieved. Both Emily and Alex felt they were powerless within their respective organisations, trapped by what they saw as corporate machines they could not change.
"I was just one voice amongst many … Even if I was effectively doing as much as I could, it wouldn't be enough," Alex said.
Their way out of this bind was to quit and find work where they believed they could have a positive impact on the climate.
For many, quitting because of climate change may be a luxury they cannot afford.
But for those who can, Emily only has words of encouragement.
"Life is short and careers are even shorter.
"Be part of something you can be proud of, because you can."
Emily Townsend and Alex Hillman were interviewed for the podcast WHO'S GONNA SAVE US? a collaboration between triple j Hack and the Science team at RN.
News Corp Australia statement / APPEA statement / Woodside response
