Finding Nature

Today’s episode is with Jane Rawson - an author, novelist and essayist whose new book Human/Nature On Life in A Wild World is just out and she’s on the show to chat about it. Jane has a diverse and brilliant background where she’s worked extensively as an independent writer, within governments supporting citizen communication initiatives and was also the Environment and Energy Editor for The Conversation in its early origins. Her work has focussed on bringing stories of climate change and environmental degradation to life, and how to think about both proactive chosen change and reactive forced change.

This chat and her latest book is a fascinating one. I was immediately drawn in by the title and cover of the book - I always like to judge them that way - thinking this would be an autobiographical account of her experience of leaving the big city to connect with a life on Country and connected to nature. How myopic that view was - we get into in this chat but the book is unlike anything I can remember reading before. Part vulnerable memoir, part historical analysis of humanity’s relationship to topics like extinction and species, part compendium of all that has been and is wrong with coloniser mindsets and relationships to ecosystems and the planet, but mostly a contemplation on the question - what is nature? How do we define it, what stories do we tell about it, what about nature is or isn’t valuable, and to who, how do historical perspectives on how nature inform opinions on how nature should be today. I came away realising the bewildering ways by which nature is understood and treated when it is all around us, when we are literally nature. It left me feeling engrossed in an idea that much of what I do when I talk about nature is placing a sentimental value on something I have almost no idea about how it was at some ‘better or more pure’ time.

We go well beyond the boundaries of Human Nature in this conversation though. From the magical thinking of telling more people more information as a theory of change, that the array of societal and environmental problems we face are a symptom of the same core issue - a disconnected, extractive and violent view of the world and others, the struggles of reflecting on a career of work only to see almost all measurable indicators in decline and how reading and working are outstanding ways to avoid difficult feelings like grief, rage and despair.

Human Nature: On Life in a wild world offers insights and poses many questions, I hope listening to this conversation with Jane does the same for you.

Jane is easy to find online at janerawson.com and on instragram at janebryony. I can’t recommend this book more highly, it’s a fantastic read and available at all the bookstores you like to go into as well as the conglomerate digital marketplace too. Go and grab a copy and let Jane know your thoughts. Supporting writers who are putting their wisdom and efforts into writing - especially books - is important to me, and I know many a listener out there who value the same thing.

The April Finding Nature journal hit inboxes last weekend on the theme of unity, and it’s a cracker as always. There are now 12 months worth of these, and something like 30-something different vulnerable and wise offerings from people just like you in the finding nature community. It’s available to read and subscribe to over at findingnature.substack.com.

This month, the theme of the newsletter is perfect imperfection. The notion that flaws and broken parts can also be beautiful and significant. Jane’s book, work over the years and this conversation remind me of a quote from Alice

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Jocelyn King is on the show today. Joc is a Bundjalung woman who over the course of her life and career has worked to develop her own understanding of and connection to traditional knowledge systems. She’s worked in and around finance for more than a decade, where today she is the Chair of First Australians Capital. At the same time, she’s building a farm in NSW’s Hunter Valley that reprises First Nations knowledge of caring for and re-awakening Country while adapting regenerative agricultural practices too. Jocelyn walks the talk as she seeks to advocate for First Nations justice, truth telling and self-determination, while also appreciating the limitations of working and interacting with capitalist neoliberal systems that do their best to erode equity, habitats and power dynamics.

I was very humbled and very honoured to spend this time with Jocelyn. The sharing she offered and wisdom imparted on me - a non-Indigenous ancestor of colonisers - was remarkable to experience. My efforts as a non-Indigenous man to act in allyship with First Nations people feels too limited for my liking, which I’m ashamed to say, but feels true. My efforts to support, listen and prompt questioning feels like an area I want to evolve and advance this year, which I’m hopeful to do through our upcoming project Eating Country to Save Country. As a white man I was genuinely enthralled and privileged to have this time with Jocelyn.

In this chat we cover a lot of ground - from reparations for past harms financiers have facilitated including the origins of banking in Australia to flipping mindsets and stories from extractive to responsibility oriented to the role of listening in truth telling. It felt like we barely scratched the surface but leaves me looking forward to speaking with Jocelyn again in the future.

Efforts to make good for the harms perpetrated on First Nations people in this country for over two centuries has a very long way to go. The struggle is sobering but the resolve of Australia’s First Nations people is a remarkable story of perseverance, unity and love, and Jocelyn does a beautiful job of offering her own experience, strength and hope here.

The April Finding Nature journal hits inboxes this Saturday morning and it’s on the topic of unity. Ina ll we heard from Jocelyn today and with that theme in mind, this quote from Tony Evans struck me in our combined efforts to seek voice, treaty and truth in this country: “Unity is oneness of purpose, not sameness of persons.”

Til next time, thanks for listening.

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Today’s show is with James Bradley - renowned Australian author who is returning to the show a year after releasing what was one of my favourite books of 2024 - Deep Water, Life in the Ocean. James’ books have been nominated and awarded prizes all over the country, and in 2021 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for "service to literature as a writer’. He’s written for the Guardian, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper and The Conversation. His work is incisive and always brilliantly written, and at a time when it’s difficult to keep up or fully appreciate what is happening in our world, I always enjoy seeing James’ work appear whether in book form, his essays or newspaper contributions.

James is on the show today to talk about his upcoming book - Landfall. A return to more familiar territory for him of fiction after his first non fiction effort in Deep Water, this is anything but a normal read. Blending the science of climate change in a radically altered Sydney landscape in a medium term timescale, Landfall is a crime story where impending disaster, omnipresent surveillance technology, social dysfunction and forced migration are all background characters. This is a story of kindness, heartbreak, fear and hope. I loved reading it and I’m looking forward to getting to the launch of Landfall in Sydney on April 29 - search for James Bradley Landfall and Gleebooks to get your ticket too.

James is a brilliant story teller. Landfall is another contribution on how we can think about time and futures, story and the stories we tell ourselves about the future, the practice of writing, writing as a tool and what all of this means for any and all of us who think in or use words as a medium of attempting change.

Speaking to James and how he weaved kindness into Landfall, and with April’s substack being on the theme of unity, this quote from Marielle Heller is very apt - “With all of the bad things that are happening in the world right now, I think we need a message of togetherness and true unity. I believe that starts with personal reflection and then we can find kindness toward each other.”

Til next time, thanks for listening

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Hello out there, this is the Finding Nature podcast and my name is Nathan Robertson-Ball. I started this show with the intent of creating the types of conversations that I knew I needed but also thought people that work in the broad tent of sustainability wanted to hear too - combining discussions on the issues and problems our civilisation and planet face with the optimism of what has and could be done but also getting into the mindsets and philosophies of the people who have been on the frontlines of attempting and succeeding in this work. I wanted to have conversations that blend cognitive stimulation with emotional nourishment and spiritual enlightenment with the intent of helping me and hopefully you grow and evolve as a person and support our shared aspirations to contribute to a safer, more just and equitable future.

Today’s guest is Michael Bones, and when I invited him onto the show I thought maybe we’d have a chance of hitting those dimensions and the overlap between them, and it didn’t disappoint. I absolutely loved speaking with Michael, as I have every time I have over the last couple years when we’ve connected over our shared love/hate of trying to work out how financial services entities and government can be far more proactive and take actually meaningful action on the dark shadow a changed and changing climate means for everything everywhere. Under Michael’s cognition is an awakened spirit and loving human. We get through much on the climate risk and adaptation side, policy and the risks of capital flight in addition to the physical degradation of a stable climate. We chat about Michael’s own grief and challenges when confronted with the breadth and depth of a changed climate, his own journey to reclaiming his own sanity and health, and he also manages to get a lot of me and my own despair and life meltdowns.

April is about unity at the finding nature substack this month. Nick Lowles founded Hope not Hate in 2004 as an anti racist and anti fascist movement and this quote from him resonates after learning from Michael “It is in unity that we find strength; in unity we find hope, and in unity we can stand firm as the darkness approaches. Land us stand together - and stand firm - against many faces of hate”

I absolutely adored this conversation. Michael is a special person, a gift to all of us as we navigate our own journeys. I hope you enjoy it and find your own story in parts of his. 

Til next time, thanks for listening. 

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I’m very pleased to bringing you a chat with Victoria Whitaker. I was really excited to chat with Vic - she’s another of the originals of the Sydney and Australian sustainability crew like Lee Stewart and Nicolette Boele I’ve had the chance to chat with on this show. I did some work with Vic the best part of a decade ago when she was at The Ethics Centre, and it was immediately evident how thoughtful, well regarded and insightful she was.

Vic has held a number of different roles in various organisations over time. From being involved in the earlier days of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership and running Al Gore’s Climate Project in the UK, to joining Choice, working on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in the initial Kevin Rudd prime ministerial years, she brought the Global Reporting Initiative and UN Global Compact to Australia, spent time at the Ethics Centre and was recently a partner at Deloitte doing all sorts of sustainability, human rights and social licence work.

Vic represents the required breadth of knowledge, skills and capabilities of the sustainability professional. under that though is a person driven to make a difference. She has Always been looking to find a way to alter the trajectory of a problem or an organisation’s contribution to it. It was a pleasure having Vic on the show to chat about the history of this work, her own stories and then the fundamental role of ethics, values and principles in decision making that is often the missing factor in a corporate sustainability machine that is now fixated on mandatory disclosures, mandatory ESG assessment and mandatory e-learnings. Change doesn’t happen when you try to force it on people, and as we hear from Vic here, the reprisal and spreading of the original ontology of sustainability needs work, stretching back to what Rachel Carson’s seminal Silent Spring from 1962 helped reveal.

Chatting to Vic was illuminating. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the pursuit of more sustainable futures without different ways by which decisions are made which value and prioritise ethics, values and principles. 

The April newsletter is on the theme of unity, and in crisis it’s easy to feel isolated and alone. Together though, we are far stronger, our unity is where our power lies. With Vic in mind, and the theme of unity, here’s this quote from Thomas Paine which to me represents the situation of the sustainability professional “It is not in numbers but in our unity that our great strength lies.”

Til next time, thanks for listening. 

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Brian Schmidt is absolutely one of these extraordinary people - a normal person who’s lived an entirely abnormal life. Besides being awarded a Nobel Prize, Brian was also the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University for eight years, including during the Covid pandemic. He’s a physicist, astrologist and astrophysicist by training, receiving his undergrad from the University of Arizona then his PhD from Harvard. For more than 30 years he’s called Australia home, making the move here and becoming one of the most significant figures in the history of humanity’s understanding of the universe and our extremely small place in it.

This was a brilliant conversation - covering everything from Brian’s research to his time at ANU, his views on Australia’s education system, the role of universities and how we can all approach learning, education and lifelong development. As well, we chat about how Brian thinks about hard problems, his own calculus in making a difference today on some of the world's greatest challenges from food shortages to nuclear proliferation.

This was a real honour. Brian is a global leader in his field - one of the greatest that’s ever lived - so to spend some time with him was remarkable, and I hope you take from this how within reach the extraordinary is. 

The newsletter is out this week on the theme of choice. With Brian on the show to explore and understand cosmology, astronomy and physics, the great Carl Sagan is appropriate this week - “We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us. Or we can squander our 15 billion year heritage in meaningless self destruction.”

Til next time, thanks for listening.

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Today’s guest is someone I’ve wanted to bring on the show for a little while - Kaylene Langford. The reason why I wanted to have Kaylene on is because her job is all about helping people take their hare brained schemes or half concocted ideas and turn them into businesses. This matters to me - both because I’ve done it and experienced a remarkable transformation in how I understand and can exercise my agency in attempting to make a difference, but because I know just about everybody listening today does harbour ideas and visions of starting their own thing.

Part of what I set about undertaking this year was finding voices that are adjacent to or completely outside the world of sustainability and to bring their knowledge and wisdom into ours. People who are creative, who are creating. At a time of planetary crisis and societal unrest, we need something new. More corporate disclosures won’t reverse greenhouse gas emissions. More parliamentary inquiries won’t deliver more trust in democratic institutions. New action is needed for new outcomes, and Kaylene is a master at helping you, me and anybody else get after that problem addressing idea you’ve got tucked away from sight. I wanted to speak with and learn from Kaylene - the role of story telling, the necessity of starting and the paralysis of fear.

Kaylene is a business starter and owner of Start Up Creative, she’s an author, a coach, a speaker. She writes, she hosts courses and workshops, she shares her lessons through podcast. Most of all though she’s the type of unique and valuable voice I think those in the Finding Nature community need to hear, and it’s such a joy to bring this conversation to you today.

Til next time, thanks for listening.

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Today’s guest is a larger than life personification of that change - Kal Glanznig. Kal is a force - animated, enthusiastic, humble, curious and as a youth climate leader he’s entirely committed to doing all he can to avert a climate catastrophe.

Kal’s successes to date are plenty.- from activating a school solar installation to launching a community anti-plastic platform, to scaling and changing a retail business to becoming one of the youngest local government councillors in this state to now driving a national youth eco anxiety mental health initiative. His list of achievements is extraordinary for a 24 year old though it’s immediately apparent when you meet and speak with Kal how he’s managed to get so much done already.

Kal came into my orbit at the AdaptNSW conference last year where he made a pointed remark from the stage that he couldn’t see any younger people in the audience - something that struck me then and we chat about today. I also learnt in preparing to chat with Kal that two thirds of young Australians experience eco anxiety and fear of the future of the planet. Two thirds - that is an incredible and terrifying number. I wanted to chat to Kal as I know my life is not as full of folks in their 20s these days, and this generation is both who are often driving so much action globally, but are also entirely dependent on all of us getting our act together and being effective in what we do whether its addressing climate change, plastic pollution, avoiding the impending threat of deep sea mining or being an advocate for the ocean.

I hope you’re as moved, inspired and in awe of him listening as I was speaking with him. 

Til next time, thanks for listening.

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Today’s guest though is someone I was very excited to spend some time with - Digby Hall. Digby is a renowned architect who for more than three decades has played a leading role in shaping and delivering versions of sustainability and resilient projects. More than that though, his thinking, influence and understanding of complex dynamic systems and being able to make sense and create practical actions that are necessary for adaptation is outstanding. To go with his registered architect label, He’s also a Ted Speaker, advisor, PhD scholar and entrepreneur who has helped me appreciate that adaptation isn’t just an abstract concept or something relevant only for the most at risk places and people around the world, but a notion that everything, everywhere will need to be evolved and changed to deal with a new climate reality. From the obvious like homes and coastal infrastructure, to food systems and how government procurement processes operate.

Digby is a deep thinker and pragmatic operator, blending high quality research with his own extensive experience to now be one of Australia’s - if not the world’s - most astute purveyor of the necessity of adaptation.

Alright Digby. As I think becomes immediately apparent in this conversation he has a legitimate understanding about the scope, scale and urgency of adaptation. Efforts to decarbonise haven’t progressed as they’ve needed to and a result we all have an enormous amount to do in making the physical, cultural, social, political and economic changes required to avoid the very worst of the losses and damages that are now locked in from a changing climate.

The March newsletter is going to be on the theme of choices. And don’t we have some to make at this moment. To fight, to freeze or to fly. This conversation with Digby - and the choices regarding adaptation - reminded me of one of my favourite quotes from Jerzy Gregorek: hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.

Til next time, thanks for listening.

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Emma Bacon is the Executive Director of Sweltering Cities and she’s on the show this week to talk about and share more on the terrifying reality of what she describes as the personal tragedies of a hotter everywhere world.

My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and welcome to the Finding Nature podcast. I started this show nearly a year ago and the broader endeavour that is Finding Nature as a response to my own disaffection and distress over the trajectory of so much. In that time we’ve had another record year of greenhouse gas emissions, heat records just about everywhere have been smashed again and the election of - and my favourite description so far - a useful idiot in the US has emboldened authoritarianism, emboldening dumb binary politicking and a massive retreat from organisations who a couple of years ago were all rushing to commit to play their part in the avoidance of planetary calamity. What halcyon days they seem like now.

So Finding Nature is a response to that disaffection and distress. I have this show where each week I get to go longer form with the people on the frontlines of change making and impact creation, over on Substack I write about the Encroaching Apocalypse or a Glorious New View and also collect the views and contributions of many others in our community. Lastly - Finding Nature holds events that bring life and atmosphere to this whole thing. Like a refuge for the people who often feel like mutants in the environments they spend their time in. Finding Nature is easy to find on Substack, Humanitix, Instagram and LinkedIn, and then we’re on all the podcast platforms including the one you’re listening to this episode on now.

OK so Emma Bacon, Sweltering Cities and heat. This topic legitimately terrifies me. As a civilisation dependent on a goldilocks climate zone for our stable existence, what happens as we enter a new climate era - defined primarily by not only more frequent and intense disasters - but by the ratcheting up of heat everywhere. From average temperatures and the ways by which that affects the delicate cycles of life in specific locations, to blasting furnace heat waves that obliterate heat records and cause widespread suffering, loss, death and damage. So much of the climate crisis is esoteric or abstract for the regular person - but everyone knows heat. It’s inescapable, and it’s arrived and arriving. Emma outlines plenty in this chat - the despair over how decisions makers at all levels can’t hide behind plausible deniability as a valid reason for inaction, how vested interests lock in structural inequality and worsen conditions through inappropriate building standards and the ways by which everyone everywhere is at risk of heat.

We cover a lot of ground in this chat, and I hope you come away not only more informed but ready to action.

Events are live and more are coming - follow on Humanitix.

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Today's show is delivered with Econome. Check them out and add your application for their next Climate Stream starting March 17. 

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