Finding Nature

Two weeks to go! Sport offers built in communities where conversations and actions towards addressing climate change are possible. FrontRunners Athletes has been doing brilliant work in recent years raising awareness as to how a changing climate threatens sport at all levels - lost games at the grassroots and community level, heat stress and even deaths for the professionals in training and games, the implications on the ability to exercise and be with others due to frequent unnatural disasters and dangerous weather conditions. Sport also has a unique opportunity in the Australian psyche to be a place where action is possible. Local clubs with solar, opportunities for players as role models to share their own passion and calls to action, even creating energy cooperatives and new models of community ownership. Much can be done. Join us for a night of insights from Nicola Barr - what climate change means for sport and the opportunities from action, and Jorge Chapa - how to greenify your clubhouses and stadiums. Then - it's pre season time! Goal setting and the creation of your sustainability program with the illustrious Lee Stewart, Ellie Moss and Richard Griffiths! Great food, great drinks, great company, real insights and take home something to get into action the next day. Tickets in comments below 👇🏼

📣 Friend of The Pod Announcement 📣 Dr Vanessa Pirotta joins the show and we get into whales - whale research, humpback population recovery, the perils they face now and the magic of being in their presence. Vanessa also shares the ups and downs of life as a scientist, the role of role models and creating what hasn’t existed. Vanessa is a whale scientist, an author, an educator, an entrepreneur and a social media sensation. I read Vanessa's book recently - Humpback Highway - and was captivated by the stories of her work and research in the presence of these majestic and remarkable creatures. I remember visiting beaches in Sydney as a kid during the humpbacks migratory seasons and being amazed by catching glimpses of their existence out at sea. Over the last thirty years humpbacks have continued to recover their population numbers right around the world - a rare species conservation success story. Vanessa is one of Australia's most recognisable scientists through the work she does both on social media and regular tv appearances. In the last couple of months she was awarded the Winner of the Emerging Leader in Science category of the 2024 Women’s Agenda Leadership Awards, hosted the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science for the second time and was a finalist in the Celestion Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science. With all the chat recently in corporate and government circles about the great utopian vision of nature positive, I couldn't help but reflect on the depth and quality of Vanessa's knowledge of a few species that call the ocean home and its relevance to these other conversations. The work done to recover some whale populations here and around the world hasn't come through fantasy nature repair bills or biodiversity markets, but the role of science based protections and restrictions on human behaviour supported by effective enforcement mechanisms. Vanessa's work in helping us better understand whales, their health and their lives points to a broader opportunity for how humans by in large need to get out of the way of non human species and focus on these types of initiatives as opposed to the financialsation and commodification of nature on a species by species basis. What an experience this was. Vanessa is clearly a rising star, and to hear about the radical transformation her life has undergone in just five years was remarkable and testament to her tenacity, passion and strength. It reminded me that it's important to step back and contemplate not so much what we can achieve just today, or this week, but over the course of an entire year, five years, a decade. This path is a long one, one without end, and Vanessa is forging one that hasn't existed before. 

🎟 Finding Nature Find (Blue Green) Nature at Yarranabbe 🎟 On the first Saturday of each new season Finding Nature Finds Nature. This time around, we're exploring the potential for blue green infrastructure to enable the revitalisation and transformation of Yarranabbe (Rushcutters Bay). Colin Finn will help us understand the myriad challenges the area faces - sea level rise and flooding, unaffordable housing, pollution, strained services and the unequal distribution of benefits gentrification brings. Colin has been working to help Sydneysiders re-imagine the Harbour if we were to reprise First Nations knowledge systems, adopt logical economic and planning decisions (oh, the utopia!) and make science based climate impact decisions (radical!). Gus_tronomy is on lunch, and we'll have homemade kombucha to quench thirsts. $15 for all of this in eastern Sydney in 2024 - you read that right! Get in quick, tickets won't last. Tickets in comments👇🏼

A Banquet of Consequences: Implications of Inaction In The Decisive Decade Sooner or later, everybody has to sit down to a banquet of consequences. Sooner or later, everybody has to sit down to a banquet of consequences. As Satyajit Das and I delivered a “bold provocation”, a “sobering, but accurate”, “a gut punch” that tied together and built an honest picture of the polycrisis we face, it was devastating yet apt that at the exact same time in Spain catastrophic flash floods killed more than 200 people, upended entire towns and left the latest region in a growing list of regions devastated by another unnatural disaster. What is left to say that hasn’t been said? What elaborate plan is yet to be written and not implemented? What inquiry is still to inquire and move immediately into a bureaucrats bottom drawer? It can feel desolate and hopeless, but maybe it needs to. Maybe only in a total surrender - when we realise just how desperate the situation is - will we move from pleading for better stories, celebrate another pilot programs that (probably) won't scale and individual acts that offer personal hope but don't address systemic and structural barriers to what bold imaginations desire but fearful hearts hold us back from. Here’s a little snippet from the plenary, on what is to be done… "Simply, are we willing to do whatever it takes to avoid the worst of a worsening climate emergency, to limit the extent of the damage? Can we simultaneously undertake the most significant industrial, economic, political, cultural and social transformations in human history to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the time frames science tells us we need to, and that each of our organisations have likely publicly committed to? Can we action the hundreds and hundreds of recommendations different Royal Commissions and inquiries have laid out? Can we action our adaptation plans and climate risk strategies? And can we fund it? All of you here have your own wish list and common sense to-do’s. Construction code uplift, fit for purpose planning and zoning decision processes in a climate changed world, buyback and relocation schemes that are grounded in justice and equity for affected and innocent people, squillions in a nation asset upgrade and adaptation program, improved data sharing and visibility, politicians and corporate leaders that want to address the problem before it worsens into a disaster, honest conversations as a society as to what scenes of unprecedented disasters and the suffering of human and non-human will likely involve and necessitate. Are you, are we, really willing to do whatever it takes?" The full talk will be online at some point, if you want to hear the whole thing from Das and I, reach out. Finding Nature will be bringing more thoughts from this talk here in coming weeks. Thanks to the Purpose & #adaptnsw teams - the faith to give this a go was an honour Sally Hill, Holly Horne Catherine Kerr Ciska White Natasha Ritz 

Listen up! 🏏 Sports fans, sports administrators, sports doers 🏉 The Need For, Potential Of & Making Real Sustainability in Australian Sport Tickets in the comments 👇🏼 On November 21 Finding Nature is bringing together sustainability leaders with the Sydney-based sports communities to get on with actioning meaningful climate action. Sport has been circling for a number of years in truly committing to playing its role in addressing the climate crisis. Not only is there a necessary duty for clubs, codes and competitions to decarbonise rapidly to avert the worst impacts of climate change, it holds a compelling place within the cultural psyche of Australians - that is, the general Australians love of and interest in sport and its athletes. Meaningful action on climate change has been hindered for decades by a shifting political, cultural and social debate - we must act and we can't act now. As effective actions become increasingly accessible and affordable for the general population and business community, sport could become a leading platform by which to encourage and support a faster transition to a net zero future. People from sports clubs & organisations will come away with their first sustainability action plans - informed by our COACHES on the night (and more to be announced) - Lee Stewart Ellie Moss & Richard Griffiths. All while Jorge Chapa will be making his Finding Nature event debut to offer insights and practical advice on making sports assets more environmentally friendly. This is an interactive night, Gus_tronomy is on the food, Grifter Brewing on the drinks. Come, & share to those who are in sports!

📣 Weekly Friend of The Pod announcement 📣 Ann Austin joins the show today, and it's a great pleasure and a lot of fun. Ann is someone I've known for well over a decade now, and she's been plying her trade and craft in the corporate sustainability field for more than two decades. From when saying the word was met with either confusion or scorn back in 2004 to where things are at today. I like to think the scorn is now largely gone, but the confusion certainly remains for many - what do you mean sustainability means changing? Ann and I get into that today, her dedication to attempting to be and being a change agent, learning the art and science of what that involves and how her commitment to building healthy relationships has been a critical component of her working philosophy. I have come to anticipate and enjoy these types of conversations with people who have been in the field and on the frontlines of internal organisational change efforts. I find solace and relief in their experiences as it allows me to better appreciate and realise that it hasn't been and isn't just me in a state of what feels like constant struggle to get these enormous systems and machines out of states of inertia and towards positive and hopeful action. I learnt plenty from Ann in this chat, much like I did in similar ones with Lee Stewart, Cameron Tonkinwise and Jess Miller. So much of my experience this year has been in the imperfect and unique ways by which everyone in this community is attempting to do different versions of the same things - attempting to get others on the bandwagon to go from unsustainable daily practices and dangerous futures to sufficient daily practices and healthy futures.

The Finding Nature feed was swamped with nature positive summit posts couple weeks ago. Nice photos, nice looking venue, nice words. Blah blah. One thing that stood out though was that every post referred to THE TIME FOR ACTION IS NOW. Luckily, Plibo has given you all the great opportunity to do that. 1. Follow Sustainable Investment Exchange 2. Sign up. 3. Buy shares - as many as you can afford but as little as one is all that’s needed. 4. Sign up to and get involved with Climate 200 - we get the politicians we deserve. 5. DO. WHATEVER. ELSE. YOU. CAN. AND. ACT. NOW. TO. STOP. AN. EXTINCTION. And if there’s another nature positive summit, and you didnt act personally for a nature positive future, you can’t go!

Looking forward to the AdaptNSW conference this week which also doubles as a Finding Nature guest reunion! Tickets are sold out - congrats to the organising team Holly Horne Ciska White Catherine Kerr Kate Hurst Sally Hill Natasha Ritz & many many more. Das and I are plenary'ing on The Banquet of Consequences: Consequences & Implications in The Indecisive Decade, & here's a little snippet "This is ‘The Decisive Decade’. The last chance for substantively changing the trajectory of increasing global emissions. The last decade for the last generation who can make a last gasp effort to prevent runaway climate change, a future of unprecedented yet foreseeable impacts and threats and risks to every person, community and nation on the planet." Chris Andrew Sam Kernaghan Kate Cotter Cameron Tonkinwise (sorry to forget your lovely image)

🗞️☕️ Saturday read for your cuppa ☕️🗞️ The next edition of the Finding Nature newsletter is available - ‘Letting Go By Letting In’. The theme is help, how much we need it, how difficult it can be to accept that and tormenting to ask for. Sarah Patterson Poppy Sykes Teik-Kim Pok and Katie Troutman offer heartfelt contributions from their own experiences. See the link in comments below 👇🏼 Read, subscribe, comment and share 🙏🏼

📣 Weekly Friend of The Pod Announcement 📣 Today's guest is the greatest personification of the sustainability change maker I've met - Chris Nunn. Chris is what many of us likely aspire to be as professionals - deeply knowledgable, remarkably driven and incredibly hard working. It's easy to be impressed by the sheer depth and breadth of what he knows. But the more I've come to know Chris over the years, the more I've come to know him as a person. Warm, compassionate, generous and grounded. With a career spanning law, consulting and large scale property businesses, Chris has also dedicated a large part of his working life to serving on many, many professional associations and industry groups as part of his own mission to enact meaningful and urgent change in the built environment. Beyond that though, Chris is a loving father and husband, passionate mountain biker and crossfitter, and a faithful friend. To learn from him, tune in wherever you get your pods by searching Finding Nature. Subscribe, rate & share 🙏🏼