September 17, 2025 • 47 mins
Even in an age of extinction, conservationist, social justice activist and entrepreneur Natalie Kyriacou (OAM) thinks the story of nature is far from just the final chapter in a slowly unfolding tragedy.
Here, she shows there is still so much to be in awe of, to hope and work for, and even to laugh at.
In this conversation, you'll hear:
- What the devastation that ensued in the wake of the loss of a vulture population tell us about our connection to other species
- Why our economy isn't working and what a better one could look like
- And how Barnaby Joyce wanted to give fish herpes (yep, you read that right)
Check out Natalie's book Nature's Last Dance: Tales of Wonder in an Age of Extinction here
Get Osher's new book So What, Now What? along with tickets to the live show here
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I focus a lot on tales of joy, both of
people and their efforts in nature, but just how cool
nature is, how funny nature is. There are so many
amazing stories of wildlife just doing the kookiest things. So
there is so much more to our world story than loss.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Did I welcome to better than Yesterday? Useful tools and
useful conversations to help make your day to day better
than yesterday? Every episode since twenty thirteen, Mine, johnsh Ginsberg,
I'm glad you here. Have a question for you when
you think about nature? What do you think? How do
you feel? Do you think of nature as separate to yourself,
(00:44):
to us as humans? Is nature a problem we need
to solve? Is it a slowly unfolding tragedy? Do you
feel loss or guilt or heaviness? What do you think
about how beautiful it is to hear the song of
a magpie? How credible it is. There are so many
plants that nourish us in food, medicine, give us air
(01:06):
to breathe. Do you think of the people devoting their
lives to saving species and ecosystems? Do you feel joy,
a wonder or hope? I know in twenty twenty five
thinking about nature can be hard, it can also be delightful.
With my guest today, we're going to think and talk
about nature in all kinds of ways. My guest today
(01:27):
is Natalie Kiriaku, who is an environmentalist, social justice advocate
and social entrepreneur. She is the founder and the CEO
of My Green World. She was awarded the Medal of
the Order of Australia for her services to wildlife and
environmental conversation conservation well, they can't currently have one without
the other. In twenty eighteen. She's on a numerous board.
(01:48):
She's a bunch of plenty of organizations. She was named
as one of Australia's Top innovators by The Australian Newspaper
and has just written a book, Nature's Last Dance Tales
of Wonder in an Age of Extinction. Grim title, But
don't worry, it's funny because in many ways the book
is not what you think it is. I mean, for
a start, it mentions the sexually transmitted diseases of fish
(02:08):
way more than you may expect. Yeah, I know right,
you'll hear about that, as well as some of the
other incredible tales of nature that are featured in the book,
as well as so many other insights that nature can
offer us to help us solve the very problems that
we humans have created. We'll get to Natalie right after this.
(02:39):
Thanks to listening to the ads. Thanks for helping me
pay the bills. His Natalie Kiriaku, thank you for coming
in today.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Nat, thank you for having me. I'm good.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
When did you first start to kind of have an
idea and get an interest in your part in the
world and the other organisms that exist so you can exist?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, I mean I've always been I've always loved just
being outdoors and in nature, and grew up we used
to go camping. I used to go camping with my
mum and dad and sister every second weekend. So we
spent I spent a lot of times outdoors and a
lot of camping. Yeah. Even when we weren't going camping,
we my dad would picture a tent in the backyard
(03:19):
and hit camp with my sister and I and we
would pretend we were in a like a forest and yeah,
so I was outdoors and playing with frogs and always
loved nature. Yeah yeah, wow.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So when you're camping in I group from Queensland, so
bring your flannels it'll be cold, like you can actually
have to wear cold stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it was cold, but really really fun.
And so I've just I've just always cared. I've just
always I've loved being outdoors. But also I just saw
species and animals and the environment as something that brings
us joy, but that they just have a right to
exist on their own. I don't want harm to come
(03:59):
to them. And also I know how dependent we all
are on each other, so and I just felt it
was an issue that people didn't really understand. And as
I got older, especially my late teenage years, the way
that we spoke about nature, I just thought it was
so odd to me that we talk about it as
something separate, or that if you talk about the environment,
you're a tree hugger. And I would just think, this
(04:22):
is the thing that allows you to breathe and to
eat and provides your medicine, and is you know, nothing
exists without nature. We do not exist without nature. So
I just thought it was a really odd way to
look at nature as something as oh, it's for you know,
the tree huggers that are divorced from reality. So I
just saw nature as being the source of everything, of joy,
and inspiration, and I wanted to find ways to, I guess,
(04:48):
help other people realize that.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I think it was a big leap at some point
where knowledge was able to be shared and pool were
able to understand that they could manipulate or at least
influence physics or at least even you know, the way
that cows got domesticated or dogs. Mykviudal was once a wolf,
(05:13):
all right, where people understood that, oh, we can we
can work within the parameters of this, and because we're
in control of it, we're better than it, and we're
separate from it, and we can do what we like
with it. We're only able to live because of our
control over this thing. And I guess we've always thought
that no matter what happens, we'll be able to control
(05:34):
our way out of it. But we're really starting, like
we started to really butt up against this and we
started to understand our impact on this. It was pretty
early in the Industrial Revolution, wasn't that we started realizing,
Hang on a second, here, this isn't good. This isn't good. Yeah,
not just everyone can't see because of a fog in London,
but we're changing animals.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean they had the great I
think it was the Great smog in London and where
I mean funeral service providers would basically just at capacity.
You had cows just dying in the paddic because the
smog and the pollution was so bad. And that was
when they said, okay, we might need to clean air
act here. And there is there is something here to
(06:18):
do with the link between industrialization and the environment and
that being linked to humanity. So yeah, we did make
the link quite early. We're still arguing over it today though.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Because we've set ourselves up where the incredible utility and
benefit for humanity in as far as food production and
healthcare and medicine and infant mortality and economic growth, and
you know, desperate people do desperate things. So if you're
(06:52):
economically doing okay, you've probably unlikely to go and start
a walk because it war was expensive. So the better
people got economic people started to become much more peaceful.
And so it's all been kind of tied together in
this thing that people are just afraid to unravel, afraid
to touch it.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, But what I find funny is when we talk
about the economy and politics, these are systems that are
meant to serve humanity, to ensure that humanity is healthy
and well and can eat and feed their families and
(07:27):
be happy. But those systems don't We're seeing that they
don't work for the majority of people. The economy is
not serving the majority of people. It's not factoring in
well being or happiness or joy or family or community
or nature or any of those things. And so, but
the way we talk about it is that this is irreversible,
this is just the way things are. And I'm like, no,
(07:48):
we made these things. These are human constructs. We made
them up, and often they were made up to serve,
you know, a certain interest or a certain interest group.
And so I mean, maybe I'm naive, But the way
I think, if we made these things up, we can
remake them to better serve humanity and nature and to
prioritize things like well being and health and nature. So yeah,
(08:13):
I think these things are changeable. They are not. They're
not like laws of physics.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yes, but the laws of physics part is the thing
that is waiting for everybody. Yes, thermodynamics doesn't give a
shit where your stock portfolio is. Yes, exactly, at some
point that beaks so properly that you bought with all
those fossil fuel stocks is going to go. Yeah, diving
into this book, I mean, even just researching to getting
to chat with you, I was kind of into I
(08:40):
was reflecting a little bit about it about upon a
few things. One, Yeah, it's a gigantic situation that we face,
gigantic problem we face. And two that there was a
time where I was so paralyzed by a climate anxiety
that I couldn't have even considered having this conversation. That
I would be absolutely unable to even look at the
(09:01):
cover of your book because I would have and I
would have been gone for a week. You I wouldn't
been able to talk to anybody. It would have been
fucked right. But through a lot of hard work, I
was able to get to a point now where I
can do it. And you know, I've got strategies around it.
Diving into this knowing what you already knew, but then
doing the research for this book. How did you keep
(09:22):
yourself upright? How did you keep yourself upright making this book?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry you went through that. I've
saw I felt.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I kind of feel everyone kind of has to it.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, it's tough. I focus a lot on tales of joy.
There is so much more to our world story than loss.
There are the most I mean, I think i live
in a bit of a bubble, but I'm surrounded by
some of the most remarkable people who are just going
to extraordinary lengths to protect nature. And there are so
(09:54):
many success stories that we don't hear about. I mean
humpback whales, the fact that we live in Sydney and
we can watch hump back whales who were bordering on
extinction in the eighties and are now rebounding. We have
the Californian condor. There's so many species that have been
brought back from the brink of extinction. There are so
many people, incredible people, twelve year old forest defenders who've
(10:15):
interviewed that are teaching adults about forests. I've met women
that have dangled themselves upside down inside a drain to
rescue lower keets. People that are just incredible, and so
I get a lot of inspiration and joy from them,
and a lot of hope from just being around them.
(10:36):
But also I think it's this balance. Yes, we need
to be aware of the severity of the situation, but
it is not over yet it is so not over.
There is still so much we can do, and nature
is incredibly resilient. We have seen nature being knocked around
a huge amount, but if we do give it time
(10:56):
and space to heal, it will it does regenerate. So
I just make sure that throughout this book it was
a combination of tales of joy and tragedy and humor.
So I have a sort of like a dark humor
throughout a lot of it, because that was how I
was able to talk about the ridiculousness of this sort
of these mass extinction events. But at the same time,
(11:20):
I was highlighting a lot of these incredible stories both
of people and their efforts in nature. But just how
cool nature is, how funny nature is. There are so
many amazing stories of wildlife just doing the kookiest things.
So that kept me going a lot finding trying to
find these fun, interesting stories that I felt could appeal
(11:40):
to anyone and everyone. And I also just it's important.
I cared, and I just I couldn't stop honestly writing
It was like it was one of the greatest joys
of my life. I loved it.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We live in an incredible country with so much wildlife
and people might think, why would you dangle upside down
in a storm trying to rescue a rambo LORICU loriate?
There's squillions of them, what's one more? But we just
don't know. And we still don't know. We don't know
which one is the keystone species. We don't know which one,
(12:13):
which extinction is going to be the one that sets
off the domino.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, and they all have a role. Oh, can I
tell you about the vultures.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I want to know about the vultures. Tell me about
the vultures.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
So in India, their vulture population started plummeting and went
from basically, they lost ninety nine percent of their vulture
populations in a really rapid amount of time, and they
couldn't figure out why, and it was causing. Vultures are
basically nature's clean up crew, so you know, they feast
on the dead, the carcasses of animals, and they helped
(12:48):
mitigate any disease and so on. And so they ended
up figuring out that what had happened was the vets
were giving the cattle this particular type of medicine, and
when the vultures were eating the dead cows, it was
killing them from this medicine. So the Indian and Pakistani
governments quickly changed these laws and outlawed banned this particular drug.
(13:11):
So ve stopped using it immediately, and that was that
allowed the vulture populations to start to rebound, but an
extraordinary amount of damage was already done. So the loss
of vulture populations in India ended up resulting in the
deaths of half a million people and it costs something
like ten billion dollars to their economy.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
How does a vulture dying kill a person.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Well, because they there was a build up of the dead.
Essentially the carcasses of the animals. Carcasses of animals would
spread and things like this spread diseases and so diseases
transmitted to humans it and also yeah, so it caused
(13:59):
as in India just because of the vulture. And then
you think, okay, one species, Well, what does the vulture
eat or what does the vulture rely on? It relies
on other species to exist, So then if that species,
so there's always it's a domino effect. One species that
might not seem important to us is actually incredibly important
in its own web. And so we never I mean,
(14:22):
it's same like chocolate industry that's dependent on one tiny
little insect called a midge that's a pollinator. All of
these and we don't think of these things, but we
already we have a perfect system in place. Nature was
a perfect system of balancing, a balancing system that allowed
humans to thrive, but that also meant that other species
have to thrive. You knock one domino and everything starts
(14:44):
to wobble.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
It can be incredibly overwhelming once you start to consider
the pace of change and the steaks, once you really
start to think about what's at stake and what we
are f today. Yeah, let alone five, ten, twenty years
from now, it can absolutely flatter you.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah all right, Yeah, when.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You get hit by something like that, I don't know, say, know,
you finish this interview, you open up your phone, and
you know, because you're you, your algorithm will feed you
something about you know, a chunk of ice the size
of the Southern Island of Fiji has slid off of
Greenland and nothing we can do about that. What do
you do with that information? What do you do in
(15:31):
that moment?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I mean it depends. Sometimes I just check out and
I don't want to engage with the news. I don't
want to engage at all, or I'll read some sort
of trashy book and try to find escapism. But then
other times I'll call my mentor, who's sort of become
like a best friend to me. She's just this person
(15:54):
that's worked in wildlife conservation for a long time, and
she's just a joy and help each other. Other times
I just go outside and see what we still have
we still have. I mean, we're so privileged to be
able to go outside and see the ocean, or walk
through a forest, see wildlife, to still breathe in relatively
clean air, all of those things we still have that,
(16:15):
so as long as we still have it, there's still
so much work to be done, and there's still so
much hope. And also talking to young people, I mean,
even when I go and talk at schools or how
to do workshops with kids, and the ideas that they
have to protect the future and solutions they have to
protect nature just remarkable. The way they think about things,
(16:37):
the curiosity they have, how they just see the world
so simply and clearly and accurately. That sort of thing
that lifts me up a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
How do you talk to young people kids about where
we are, what we face and what needs to be done.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
With the kids I've worked with, I haven't really needed
to outline the problem as much as I would with adults.
Kids get it, Kids know that it's bad, They understand it.
It's adults that I actually have to make the case
too of why this is actually bad for them and
their children.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
So what do you say to them?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Well, so it would depend on the person. So if
it was an adult, I would talk about that has
a house of let's talk about rising insurance costs, what
this act when we've got the insurance industry, major players
in the insurance industry saying we cannot continue to ensure
homes anymore because of the risks of nature destruction and
climate change. Or if it's a farmer, we can talk
(17:33):
about just an individual. Your chocolate is at risk, your
wine is at risk, your coffee is at risk. So
I try to depending on the audience, I would try
to find different stories or anecdotes that are relevant to
them that might make them care. Because with a lot
of people, you say climate change and they just they
check out. They're not interested. They know it's bad, but
(17:54):
they're not interested. But that's why I think finding this
language of let's talk about specific story is not just
climate change. Let's talk about with kids. I'll talk about
whale pooh because whale pooh is essentially a climate change solution.
So we can talk about climate change not just as
greenhouse gas emissions, but let's talk about this whole system
where of wildlife and how different animals, different species are
(18:17):
all dependent on each other. And so I think it's
about finding the right stories that's going to resonate with
that particular person. And I don't think that in the
environmental movement we've been very good at that. At times
we've probably just said the same climate change is bad,
but not being able to find these stories that's going
(18:37):
to resonate with somebody like my ninety year old grandma
or a farmer or a teacher.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So tied to something that you like coffee, like my
coffee is a threat. Wait what h if I start
making changes that make more coffees? Okay, I'm saving whales,
I'm saving crill, but I care about the coffee. But
everything I do to change that will affect all of it.
So you really only have to care about one thing.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yes, yeah, absolutely, it's all connected. You can find a
connection anywhere. To me, it's not controversial, it's not political.
It's just we want to be able to swim in
our oceans, We want to be able to have clean air.
We are proud as Australians, be a proud of our
species like koalas that and even our snakes and reptiles
(19:20):
and people. People come to Australia because we have these wonders.
These are things that we are proud of that make
us Australia. Don't we want to keep them? Or do
we really want to be the nation that sent its
most iconic species, the koala, to extinction. So there is
a national pride in these things as well and a
community pride. It's whether do you like going forward driving?
(19:40):
Do you want national parks? Do you want to go hiking?
These are things that I think we all appreciate and
we are all dependent on.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
To go outside, whatever sub you live in, to go
outside and I don't know, go for a walk for
ten minutes and notice how many different birds you saw?
Yeah right, just just look straight away. Oh, hang on
a second, I don't just see birds. There's that, there's that,
there's that, And then the next day like why is
it different? What is that doing differently today? And what's
(20:13):
that one doing differently today? And they do different things
at different times a day, like it or not. We
might live inside a house that's got you know, duck
the air conditioning and great internet, but we're not separate
from that. We're not separate from those things. Watching. There
was an open day at my son's school and there
were some kids from the older grades doing a dance
in the middle of the quadrangle thing there, and there's
(20:33):
this glorious, kind of really mature eucalypse growing along one
side of the school boundary, but they are so tall
they reach above the buildings. And the magpies magpies are
doing their dance and I'm like, ah, that's the baby,
that's the magpie baby making dance because I know it's
(20:55):
going to happen in six weeks from now. Walking my
son past those trees, it's swoopy time.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, yeah, a passage.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
That is amazing, Like just yeah, I don't like getting
sweet by magpie. Nobody does, but it's pretty freaking amazing
that there is this creature, this tiny creature that is
smaller than one of my shoes.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, that I'm terrified and still sphere in the masses
in all of this, the.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Enemy of every cyclist, that is nature. And if for
some reason the magpies as swoopy as they are so
swoopy in my area, we have signs, there's council signs
in the park going don't hang out here and think
it's gonna be fine, because it isn't. So it's pretty swoopy.
There's big bag. Like if the magpies went away like
(21:44):
bad time, Yeah, that's a bad time.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
We would miss them.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I would miss that sound of that warbling thing that
they were in the morning, because it's very happened to
the sound that make in the afternoon. Matures all around you.
And if you just take a second to be as
amazed by that as a video you just saw on
your phone of some doing do doing something dumb on
a jet ski, like, that's amazing. That's millions and millions
of you. That's a dinosaur. That's the last thing after
(22:07):
that big comment hit. That's the last thing that remained
that is the direct descendant of the dinosaur getting ready
to attack you. Sick. Yeah, being at awe of it. Yeah,
try to find your pathway to be in awe of nature.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
But also just imagine without without trees. I mean, these
are nature, they are shade cloths. Imagine just walking down
the street and not having a single tree, or not
being able to see whales or fish or go diving
or snorkeling or whatever you like to do there. If
the world was emptied of these things, imagine how terrible
(22:45):
it's sad that would like it just would be awful.
Aside from it, you know, we wouldn't be able to exist,
but if we did exist, it would just be a
huge loss. I couldn't even imagine a world like that.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
In the book you wrote this line. And the harder
we work to avoid thinking about it, the bigger the
problems become. Can you tell me through that?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, I think I think we have. It has been
decades when it comes to environmental issues. It's just been
decades of denial, inaction, obscuring information, misinformation, disinformation, and now
it has just been this issue has been persisting for
so long and we feel it now, we see it,
(23:28):
We see the impacts of climate change, and people are
checking out, they don't want to engage, and it is
causing a It's a big problem. We need everybody involved
It's not just individual life styleshifts, but we need a
cultural shift in the way that we think about the environment.
We need people active, and we need to if you
(23:48):
don't feel like engaging, it's about how do we find
ways that mean that we can engage with these issues
that don't completely unravel us. And if that means going
and finding sources of inspiration in nature, talking to your kids,
finding the stories of joy. But the more the longer
that we ignore it and stop being active, the worse
(24:12):
the problem gets, because it means that we are allowing
for the continuation of systems that are harming nature and
harming communities.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Just a moment away from Natalie to ask that if
this show is a value to you, please do consider
liking or subscribing, or following, or rating or reviewing or
telling a friend about this show, any and all of
the above. That is how we keep the lights on here.
This show is my full time job. It's how keep
the lights on the food and the fridge. If you
(24:45):
want to support me, it's put the work I do.
Please do that. You can buy the book that I
just wrote. You can buy both books actually, and also
come and see me in cam On tour. All the
links for that are in the show notes. We're back
with Natalie in just the moment. It's very difficult to
(25:09):
want to change anything about a life that I have
become used to when someone is telling me that a
part of what I'm doing is wrong and I'm a
bad person. But when I think about it, like, well,
hang on a second here, I can't choose to have
one hundred percent green power. I'd love to, but I
(25:30):
need to have a fridge, and I can't choose to
grow my own food because I don't have the land,
so I've got to buy food that comes from far away.
Your personal choices are not they are impactful. But because
I didn't put the right thing in my yellow bin
doesn't mean that I am the enemy of the people
(25:51):
putting the blame on the individual. Completely agree, is it's
the same shit, and it's unfortunate when you understand that
the people who started this stuff studied the way the
cigarette industry worked. Putting the blame on the individual on
the addict, Yeah, well mate, we just make the shit. Yes,
all right, it's up to them if they want to
buy it, you know, freedom.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, exactly right, And that was its been it's sort
of this myth that's been perpetuated, but fossil fuel industry,
by tobacco industry, where even I mean, I think it
was you know, one of the major fossil fuel organizations
said basically tells people it's not our fault, it's your fault.
You're not recycling, right, this is why we have the problem.
And it's just it's a myth. And that's why my
(26:31):
when I talk to individuals, it would be like, that's
how can we activate individuals to create systemic change? And
does that mean through mobilizing them through political means, through
their voting, through engaging with ministers, by advocating for certain
bills that encourage transparency in politics. Or there's other communities,
(26:52):
so for example, a lot of indigenous communities are driving
the rights of nature movement where we're seeing you know,
whales being granted legally your personhood. So I like to
rather than yes, we should plant trees, yes we should recycle,
all fantastic, but we also need to be challenging the system,
these underlying systems because we are a product of this system.
(27:13):
I don't like the shaming and saying okay, it's because
this all this problem is because a thirteen year old
girl didn't recycle properly. It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'm sure in the amount of time we've spoken Tod
something's on extingct someway like as heartbreaking, heartbreaking to think of.
A friend of mine's been on the podcast Doctor Ayana
Elizabeth Johnson. She wrote a book called All Week and
Save and it was and it was definitely for me.
It was definitely an idea of like, if we talk
(27:46):
about everything we've lost, it's just only like only ever
talking about all the friends we know who've died. But
if we talk about all we can save, Yeah, it's
a different kind of conversation. If we think about all
we can save and what can I do right now
within my sphere of influence? Is that enough?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I think it's using your working to your strengths. If
you work at a cosmetics company and you're a buyer,
then you have control of it. You might have control
of your company's supply chain and the things that they're buying.
So can you pivot that company to working with businesses
that have a commitment to no deforestation or can you
work with more sustainable companies? If you're I don't know.
(28:29):
In media you have a loud voice and you speak
up about climate change. That's a powerful role to play
as well. If you're a teacher, can you work with
your school to ensure that there is Can you have
a school that sets up a forest school. There's forest
schools in Western Australia and basically kids can learn how
to build their own forest and they learn science in
(28:50):
the field, and so there's lots of things that you
can do. It's work. I think the most power comes
from working to your strengths, working within your industry. So
there is always something.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Say when we had the election in May, you ran
and you were elected, and you are now Prime Minister,
you're in charge of it all. What do you do?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I would commit to investing to at least two billion
dollars into nature and nature restoration because I would see
that as the we're talking. We don't have healthcare systems,
we don't have armies, we don't have anything without having
an environment to live on. So we have had economists
(29:31):
and environmentalists run the numbers and they've said how much
we need to just allow us to keep our natural
world and keep species and that figure sits at around
two billion a year. I would first and foremost commit
to that. I'd remove harmful subsidies we have. I mean,
some of our policies absurd. We spend billions of dollars
(29:53):
in subsidies for activities that just directly harm nature, that
extract from nature, that give very little back to this
only in economy. For example, subsidizing fossil fuels I would remove.
I would stop subsidizing corporations that have undue influence in
our government that don't deliver much in benefits to the
(30:15):
Australian public, and redirect those subsidies into activities that actually
support nature and communities. I would want to see more
community mobilization, where communities feel empowered to be active within
their local council and advocate for you know, whether it's
electric vehicle charging or better public transport or better national parks.
(30:38):
Would I would strengthen our environmental laws. I would ensure
that we have marine protected environments and environments that just
cannot be touched by mining or industrial activity. We need
these spaces not just for our species to regenerate, but
also for our joy and for our children's future. I mean,
there's there's quite a lot I would also, you know,
(30:59):
there's transparency laws we've got to get. There's a whole
there's a lot, I've got a list.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
There has been an argument, and we mentioned earlier that
you can't you can't protect nature and have economic prosperity
at the same time, which I don't believe is exactly true.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Well, I mean you can't have an economy without nature.
That is, the economy is entirely dependent on nature. These
are even fossil fuels, so that they come from nature.
They are prehistoric creatures, that is what fossil fuels are.
So yeah, it's a strange way of framing it to think, oh, okay,
the economy is sort of predicated on this idea that
(31:36):
we can destroy nature. I think the economy in its
current form does not work. I don't think it works
for individuals, it doesn't work for the world, it doesn't
work for nature. If we start to experiment with how
we design economies, then I think there is a greater
opportunity to have better well being outcomes for humanity but
(31:58):
also for nature. So there's like, well, the New Zealand
started looking at well being economy countries like Bhutan, we're
looking instead of GDP having gross national happiness. So do
we find a new measure, a new way to measure
human health, happiness and livelihoods? Do we need I don't
think that GDP. I don't think that we can focus
(32:20):
on GDP alone. Our economy is fundamentally built on extraction,
constant extraction and consumption and production on this finite planet.
I think that needs to be rewired. So I think
the economy right like the economy in its current form
does not work and will not work. We can tweak
it or we can overhaul it. Either would be better
(32:43):
than the current I mean, I like what Costa Rica did?
Costa Rica? Do you know the story of Costa Rica?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I want to know all about it.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
It's so in nineteen get coffee from this sometimes. So
in nineteen forty nine and Costa Rica, they just come
out of one of their bloodiest civil wars, and their leader,
who is known as John Pepem, he put a shovel
through the army headquarters in Costa Rica and said, from
this day on, I am abolishing our military and we
(33:16):
are now going to be a country of peace and nature.
And then he reinvested all of the money that was
going towards the military, towards education, peace processes, and the environment.
What happened over the subsequent decades was remarkable. In Costa Rica,
they had destroyed I think seventy percent of their rainforests,
They had quite low literacy rates, and they were a
(33:38):
country of quite a lot of violence. They ended up
becoming having the highest literacy rates in Costa Rica as
a result of these changes, literacy rates in Latin America. Well, yeah,
and they restored a huge amount of rainforest. So I
think they ended up restoring seventy percent of their rainforest
(33:58):
and the country is run on renewables now. They had
quite an extractive agricultural industry, and they shifted that by
giving payments for ecosystem services to farmers. So they incentivized
their farmers to protect their land and enhance biodiversity on
their land. And the country was completely transformed. It is
(34:20):
now known as a country of peace and nature, and
it meant not only transforming their education systems and political
systems and economic systems, but their cultural identity is now
tied with peace and nature. And Don Pepe, the leader
who put the travel through the building, he went on
to have two kids. One went on to become president.
(34:44):
And his daughter is named Christiana Figeris, and she's the powerhouse.
She's the architect of the UN the Paris Agreement, and
she also endorsed my book, which is amazing. Yeah, she's
the best. So it's this family of just environmental heroes
that have transformed the country. So I think there's, yeah,
(35:06):
really some really amazing stories of how the economy can be.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And maybe Christiana can answer this question better. But I'm
wondering can because I love the universal healthcare system we
have here and I think it's really important, but it
is somewhat dependent upon the tax base and the revenue
that we get for the way our economy is structured.
Is there a way to have appropriate healthcare for a
population when you do rework the economy like that.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
If your economy is centered around human health outcomes and
well being outcomes and outcomes for nature, then of course,
because that is what that's something that you'd be measuring.
I don't. I mean, I'm not an economist, so I
don't know how it works, but I know there's been
a huge amount of work done by particularly coming out
of London, but all over the world there is work
(35:54):
to rethink the economy. I've worked with quite a lot
of organizations and help them to become more sustainable and
try to make the case for rethinking the way that
(36:15):
their business is operating from a very extractive model. I mean,
I mean, I just did a talk. I hope it resonated.
But I did a talk the other day and it
was about how nature cures cancer. Have you heard of
the Madagascar periwinkle? But the Madagascar What Madagascar periwinkle? It's
this little flower. It's become pink or white both anyway,
(36:40):
It's known as the Madagascar periwinkle, but we now know
it as something else because it is the cornerstone treatment
for childhood cancer, for Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia. And so
in the sixties, either of those diseases were a death
sentence for children. Now, thanks to this, the Madagascar periwinkle,
(37:01):
the extracts from that have formed the backbone of chemotherapy
treatment and cancer survival rates in children are ninety percent
in developed countries. And it is because of a flower.
And so just when I think about the healthcare industries,
this is built on not the economy, It is built
on nature. Seventy percent of cancer medications come from nature.
(37:26):
It is you know, malaria treatment, have all of it.
It is from these really remarkable discoveries in nature. So
I mean there's the un said the next cure to
cancer could be going extinct right now. So we have
a real interest in protecting nature. I mean, indigenous communities
have known this for a long time, that you know,
(37:46):
we are fundamentally tied to nature. They see nature as
mother and understand the healing properties of a lot of
these medicines. But I don't think we often don't make
that link. So where I find success is talking to
people and helping make the link of finding that a
harm moment of oh okay, yeah, no, it's not just
this abstract trees climate change thing. It is something that
(38:08):
has allowed my child to recover from cancer, or it
is something that has put food on our table. So yeah,
I think of that as success, just a mindset shift
that goes on in tiny little ways, as a bit
of a ripple effect where you see people thinking about
the environment more, or being conscious of their choices or
(38:29):
voting differently. I like that sort of impact that I'm
still naive. I guess I think that we can make
a small difference through the ripple effect that we have.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Look, we have to we seem to it's wild. We're
really resistant to change. For the most adaptive species on
the planet, humans, we're pretty resistant to change. And that
doesn't make a lot of sense, all right. We really
have any if any animal can figure out how to
live and alter their environment to make sure everything's okay.
It's us. Yeah, but for some reason, if we don't
(39:03):
come up with your idea, we don't like to do it. Yeah,
it's really dumb. You do write about one of my
favorite adaptive species. It's a It's a species that I
think is it's one of my heroes. They've been carved
on the front doors of temples in Egypt thousands of
years ago, the bloody white ibis. It's an amazing animal.
It's such an incredibly adaptive creature and I love it.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
I'm so glad you said that. I love them too.
They're so underappreciated, and we, I mean, we didn't take
to naming them very kindly.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
We call them the sacred ibis for a long.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Time, and then they've somehow became the bin chicken.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Or a trash turkey or a tip turkey.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
They are incredible. So I actually interviewed a scientist who
is talking about ibis. But there was a so we
sort of have a love hate relationship with them because
there was this protest that was set up on Facebook
where they set up an event called the International Glare
at Ibis Day and so thousands of people went to
their parks to glare at ibises. But then they were
(40:04):
also voted the second most popular bird in Australia. And
so a lot of their natural habitat has been destroyed,
which meant they migrated into urban centers and became these
city dwelling dumpster divers. But they show us just how
remarkably certain species can adapt and now they are thriving
in cities. And I know a lot of people look
(40:25):
at that with scorn, but it's actually an incredible story
of survival for a species. And now they've even adapted
to be able to eat cane toads, which is obviously
cane toads are an invasive species. They can eat cane toads.
They've adapted to be able to survive the poison of
cane toads, so they are now potentially helping us rid
(40:47):
Australia of invasive species. So they're just remarkable.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
That is astonishing.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Yeah, how cool are they.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
That in my lifetime there has been enough evolution, generational
kind of adaptation that an ibis can develop a resistance
to catoe points.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, yeah, and help us get rid of them.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Brilliant because they used to live in wetlands and we
drain them and put canal developments or an airport. Yeah,
and then they went away. They are they're very clever animals. Yeah,
they found a way to get through.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah. Yeah, it's not because there's stories. I mean, there's
even cases, you know, after Chernobyl worst nuclear disaster of species,
you know, years later rebounding and adapting, essentially adapting to
nuclear disaster. So there are some species that are incredibly resilient,
but it's just not the case for all of them.
(41:40):
So I think, I mean, I sometimes get asked, well,
you know, if species like the ibis can survive and thrive,
why does it matter, Like why do we have to
watch what we're doing? Can't we just let them adapt?
But not all species adapt the koalas they're considered a
sort of specialist species, so they can only really survive
in a.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
You say, Lakuala is just a bit special.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
They are. Yeah, Koalas are a bit special, and they're
a bit slow, and they're not they're not going to
They're not like the bin chicken. They can't survive off
trash and.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
They're they're in a pre chicken was doing high school
exams in grade sex. Koala is a year thirteen to
go to school. Yeah, I'll bring my kids.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, yeah, I want to keep.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Them, but probably not the cleverest dude.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah. Just some species are generalist species, which means they
can survive in a whole different you know range, that
can sort of adapt their diet, and they're you know,
ecological niches, and the other species, like the koala, not
so much. They they're only happy when they're you know,
in a eucalypustry, in a particular habitat. You move them
into a city center and they just won't cope.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
So what you're saying is for us to survive, humans
need to be just more like ibis adaptive.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah. No, we need to keep other We just we
need to keep other things alive. We just need to
stop killing things. It's really simple, and then the other
things stay alive. We stay alive.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Okay, let me, let's not be an ibis. I'm sure
the ibis is happy to be alive, but not thrilled
about drinking bing juice. Yeah, we have an opportunity to
adapt to the environment that we're in and not have
to drink bingjuice. Yes, because we I mean, if you've
seen the latest Blade run a film like, we can
get by on you know, maybe two plants. Is it fun?
Speaker 1 (43:25):
No, I don't think we can. I don't think we
can get by on two plants.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
It's not many. As a vegan celiac, I can tell
you with excellent Yeah, yeah, I can tell you can
get by on an okay amount of plants.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
What if you want like some sort of medicinal.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Should have thought about that before we extinguished the Madagascin Firwinkle,
I should have thought about that. Sorry, fucking flower. I
don't care about flowers. Yeah, any medicine for my child.
He's very sick. I'm glad that you're out there talking
about it, thank you, because it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I mean, that's there's lots of funny story like Barnaby
Joyce he tried to give herpes to fish, So I
can talk about that in my book, Like there's so
many funny stories with nature.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
You know what that is amazing because it's not even
the most outrageous Barnaby Joyce story.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I know, yeah made headlines.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah it's not. I don't think it's even the top ten.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
No, barely made headlines. Like he's not even remembered for it.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I can't let you go without talk to me. Barnaby
Joyce came up with giving her piece to fish.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, why so he announced that he wanted to give
herpi to fish. We don't know if he wanted to
directly transmit.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I doubt I can't even finish that. We can't know.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
We can't know for sure, Nord.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
We assume so carp.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
It was carp freshwater fish invasive and freaking havoc and
their ecosystems impacting farmers and so on, and so Barnaby
Joyce learned that apparently carp can't survive herpes.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
And so whoever whichever scientists found that out up there
with the first person who tried.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Milk, I know, how did they even come up with
we're going to explore whether what herpes does to carp.
So anyway, he got up in parliament and he said
that he wanted to give herpes to cup and he
backed it with money, put fifteen million dollars behind it.
So what happens is when you give herpes to carp,
the carp have orgies. And so his thinking was that
(45:32):
if he gives herpes to one carp, they have a
massive orgy, everyone gets herpies and then they all die.
But he couldn't even get that right. And so I
asked the question of the book. If Barnaby Joyce can't
give herpes to a fish, what hope do we have
for mobilizing political action for nature. Because still carp do
not have herpes, and their populations have grown since his announcement.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
But some genius lobbyist secured fifteen dollars funding for this.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
We need to meet them and find out what their
secret is.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Those people are very good at what they do, and
I'm sure if you're doing that job, you probably will
do most things for money. Yeah, just get enough money
behind the lobbyists and say go for it, dude, Rather
than herpies and fish, you get in there, get right
in there. As far as you know nature, business and
energy and fossil fuels off your pop Yeah, it's really
if you're going to invest money, pay the lobbyist.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
But actually scientists thought that they liked the idea Barnaby Joyce,
that they really supported it, So it could have been
if that came to fruition, or if that was successful,
that would have been Barnaby Joyce's single most important and
effective decision as a politician.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
If you need me, I'll be trying to find funding
to pay a person who is essentially a mercenary with morals,
a lobbyist, to go and do some shit that's good
for all of us, because I reckon that's probably the
most effective you said my time, second only to speaking
with you today.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Thanks for.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
That, was Natalie Kuriaku. You're not going to look at
carp the same ever again, especially the ones that are
in the pond out in the front of the restaurant.
You'd be like, ah, those are lips for kissing Ah.
Nature's Last Dance Tales of Wonder in an Age of Extinction.
You can buy that book wherever you buy books, including
(47:24):
where you buy my latest books called So What Now What?
Also Back After the Break is back out for sale.
They've reprinted a bunch of copies of my first book.
Both those things and tickets to any live gigs where
you can come along and see the show and buy
a book. All those things are in the show notes. Again,
if this episode was useful for you, please like it,
subscribe to it, follow it, rate it, review it, tell
(47:44):
the mate that'd be unreal. Thanks for listening to the show.
Thanks to add a bunch of for making the episode today.
See you on Monday.
I focus a lot on tales of joy, both of
people and their efforts in nature, but just how cool
nature is, how funny nature is. There are so many
amazing stories of wildlife just doing the kookiest things. So
there is so much more to our world story than loss.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Did I welcome to better than Yesterday? Useful tools and
useful conversations to help make your day to day better
than yesterday? Every episode since twenty thirteen, Mine, johnsh Ginsberg,
I'm glad you here. Have a question for you when
you think about nature? What do you think? How do
you feel? Do you think of nature as separate to yourself,
(00:44):
to us as humans? Is nature a problem we need
to solve? Is it a slowly unfolding tragedy? Do you
feel loss or guilt or heaviness? What do you think
about how beautiful it is to hear the song of
a magpie? How credible it is. There are so many
plants that nourish us in food, medicine, give us air
(01:06):
to breathe. Do you think of the people devoting their
lives to saving species and ecosystems? Do you feel joy,
a wonder or hope? I know in twenty twenty five
thinking about nature can be hard, it can also be delightful.
With my guest today, we're going to think and talk
about nature in all kinds of ways. My guest today
(01:27):
is Natalie Kiriaku, who is an environmentalist, social justice advocate
and social entrepreneur. She is the founder and the CEO
of My Green World. She was awarded the Medal of
the Order of Australia for her services to wildlife and
environmental conversation conservation well, they can't currently have one without
the other. In twenty eighteen. She's on a numerous board.
(01:48):
She's a bunch of plenty of organizations. She was named
as one of Australia's Top innovators by The Australian Newspaper
and has just written a book, Nature's Last Dance Tales
of Wonder in an Age of Extinction. Grim title, But
don't worry, it's funny because in many ways the book
is not what you think it is. I mean, for
a start, it mentions the sexually transmitted diseases of fish
(02:08):
way more than you may expect. Yeah, I know right,
you'll hear about that, as well as some of the
other incredible tales of nature that are featured in the book,
as well as so many other insights that nature can
offer us to help us solve the very problems that
we humans have created. We'll get to Natalie right after this.
(02:39):
Thanks to listening to the ads. Thanks for helping me
pay the bills. His Natalie Kiriaku, thank you for coming
in today.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Nat, thank you for having me. I'm good.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
When did you first start to kind of have an
idea and get an interest in your part in the
world and the other organisms that exist so you can exist?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, I mean I've always been I've always loved just
being outdoors and in nature, and grew up we used
to go camping. I used to go camping with my
mum and dad and sister every second weekend. So we
spent I spent a lot of times outdoors and a
lot of camping. Yeah. Even when we weren't going camping,
we my dad would picture a tent in the backyard
(03:19):
and hit camp with my sister and I and we
would pretend we were in a like a forest and yeah,
so I was outdoors and playing with frogs and always
loved nature. Yeah yeah, wow.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
So when you're camping in I group from Queensland, so
bring your flannels it'll be cold, like you can actually
have to wear cold stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it was cold, but really really fun.
And so I've just I've just always cared. I've just
always I've loved being outdoors. But also I just saw
species and animals and the environment as something that brings
us joy, but that they just have a right to
exist on their own. I don't want harm to come
(03:59):
to them. And also I know how dependent we all
are on each other, so and I just felt it
was an issue that people didn't really understand. And as
I got older, especially my late teenage years, the way
that we spoke about nature, I just thought it was
so odd to me that we talk about it as
something separate, or that if you talk about the environment,
you're a tree hugger. And I would just think, this
(04:22):
is the thing that allows you to breathe and to
eat and provides your medicine, and is you know, nothing
exists without nature. We do not exist without nature. So
I just thought it was a really odd way to
look at nature as something as oh, it's for you know,
the tree huggers that are divorced from reality. So I
just saw nature as being the source of everything, of joy,
and inspiration, and I wanted to find ways to, I guess,
(04:48):
help other people realize that.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I think it was a big leap at some point
where knowledge was able to be shared and pool were
able to understand that they could manipulate or at least
influence physics or at least even you know, the way
that cows got domesticated or dogs. Mykviudal was once a wolf,
(05:13):
all right, where people understood that, oh, we can we
can work within the parameters of this, and because we're
in control of it, we're better than it, and we're
separate from it, and we can do what we like
with it. We're only able to live because of our
control over this thing. And I guess we've always thought
that no matter what happens, we'll be able to control
(05:34):
our way out of it. But we're really starting, like
we started to really butt up against this and we
started to understand our impact on this. It was pretty
early in the Industrial Revolution, wasn't that we started realizing,
Hang on a second, here, this isn't good. This isn't good. Yeah,
not just everyone can't see because of a fog in London,
but we're changing animals.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean they had the great I
think it was the Great smog in London and where
I mean funeral service providers would basically just at capacity.
You had cows just dying in the paddic because the
smog and the pollution was so bad. And that was
when they said, okay, we might need to clean air
act here. And there is there is something here to
(06:18):
do with the link between industrialization and the environment and
that being linked to humanity. So yeah, we did make
the link quite early. We're still arguing over it today though.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Because we've set ourselves up where the incredible utility and
benefit for humanity in as far as food production and
healthcare and medicine and infant mortality and economic growth, and
you know, desperate people do desperate things. So if you're
(06:52):
economically doing okay, you've probably unlikely to go and start
a walk because it war was expensive. So the better
people got economic people started to become much more peaceful.
And so it's all been kind of tied together in
this thing that people are just afraid to unravel, afraid
to touch it.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, But what I find funny is when we talk
about the economy and politics, these are systems that are
meant to serve humanity, to ensure that humanity is healthy
and well and can eat and feed their families and
(07:27):
be happy. But those systems don't We're seeing that they
don't work for the majority of people. The economy is
not serving the majority of people. It's not factoring in
well being or happiness or joy or family or community
or nature or any of those things. And so, but
the way we talk about it is that this is irreversible,
this is just the way things are. And I'm like, no,
(07:48):
we made these things. These are human constructs. We made
them up, and often they were made up to serve,
you know, a certain interest or a certain interest group.
And so I mean, maybe I'm naive, But the way
I think, if we made these things up, we can
remake them to better serve humanity and nature and to
prioritize things like well being and health and nature. So yeah,
(08:13):
I think these things are changeable. They are not. They're
not like laws of physics.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yes, but the laws of physics part is the thing
that is waiting for everybody. Yes, thermodynamics doesn't give a
shit where your stock portfolio is. Yes, exactly, at some
point that beaks so properly that you bought with all
those fossil fuel stocks is going to go. Yeah, diving
into this book, I mean, even just researching to getting
to chat with you, I was kind of into I
(08:40):
was reflecting a little bit about it about upon a
few things. One, Yeah, it's a gigantic situation that we face,
gigantic problem we face. And two that there was a
time where I was so paralyzed by a climate anxiety
that I couldn't have even considered having this conversation. That
I would be absolutely unable to even look at the
(09:01):
cover of your book because I would have and I
would have been gone for a week. You I wouldn't
been able to talk to anybody. It would have been
fucked right. But through a lot of hard work, I
was able to get to a point now where I
can do it. And you know, I've got strategies around it.
Diving into this knowing what you already knew, but then
doing the research for this book. How did you keep
(09:22):
yourself upright? How did you keep yourself upright making this book?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry you went through that. I've
saw I felt.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I kind of feel everyone kind of has to it.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, it's tough. I focus a lot on tales of joy.
There is so much more to our world story than loss.
There are the most I mean, I think i live
in a bit of a bubble, but I'm surrounded by
some of the most remarkable people who are just going
to extraordinary lengths to protect nature. And there are so
(09:54):
many success stories that we don't hear about. I mean
humpback whales, the fact that we live in Sydney and
we can watch hump back whales who were bordering on
extinction in the eighties and are now rebounding. We have
the Californian condor. There's so many species that have been
brought back from the brink of extinction. There are so
many people, incredible people, twelve year old forest defenders who've
(10:15):
interviewed that are teaching adults about forests. I've met women
that have dangled themselves upside down inside a drain to
rescue lower keets. People that are just incredible, and so
I get a lot of inspiration and joy from them,
and a lot of hope from just being around them.
(10:36):
But also I think it's this balance. Yes, we need
to be aware of the severity of the situation, but
it is not over yet it is so not over.
There is still so much we can do, and nature
is incredibly resilient. We have seen nature being knocked around
a huge amount, but if we do give it time
(10:56):
and space to heal, it will it does regenerate. So
I just make sure that throughout this book it was
a combination of tales of joy and tragedy and humor.
So I have a sort of like a dark humor
throughout a lot of it, because that was how I
was able to talk about the ridiculousness of this sort
of these mass extinction events. But at the same time,
(11:20):
I was highlighting a lot of these incredible stories both
of people and their efforts in nature. But just how
cool nature is, how funny nature is. There are so
many amazing stories of wildlife just doing the kookiest things.
So that kept me going a lot finding trying to
find these fun, interesting stories that I felt could appeal
(11:40):
to anyone and everyone. And I also just it's important.
I cared, and I just I couldn't stop honestly writing
It was like it was one of the greatest joys
of my life. I loved it.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
We live in an incredible country with so much wildlife
and people might think, why would you dangle upside down
in a storm trying to rescue a rambo LORICU loriate?
There's squillions of them, what's one more? But we just
don't know. And we still don't know. We don't know
which one is the keystone species. We don't know which one,
(12:13):
which extinction is going to be the one that sets
off the domino.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, and they all have a role. Oh, can I
tell you about the vultures.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I want to know about the vultures. Tell me about
the vultures.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
So in India, their vulture population started plummeting and went
from basically, they lost ninety nine percent of their vulture
populations in a really rapid amount of time, and they
couldn't figure out why, and it was causing. Vultures are
basically nature's clean up crew, so you know, they feast
on the dead, the carcasses of animals, and they helped
(12:48):
mitigate any disease and so on. And so they ended
up figuring out that what had happened was the vets
were giving the cattle this particular type of medicine, and
when the vultures were eating the dead cows, it was
killing them from this medicine. So the Indian and Pakistani
governments quickly changed these laws and outlawed banned this particular drug.
(13:11):
So ve stopped using it immediately, and that was that
allowed the vulture populations to start to rebound, but an
extraordinary amount of damage was already done. So the loss
of vulture populations in India ended up resulting in the
deaths of half a million people and it costs something
like ten billion dollars to their economy.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
How does a vulture dying kill a person.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Well, because they there was a build up of the dead.
Essentially the carcasses of the animals. Carcasses of animals would
spread and things like this spread diseases and so diseases
transmitted to humans it and also yeah, so it caused
(13:59):
as in India just because of the vulture. And then
you think, okay, one species, Well, what does the vulture
eat or what does the vulture rely on? It relies
on other species to exist, So then if that species,
so there's always it's a domino effect. One species that
might not seem important to us is actually incredibly important
in its own web. And so we never I mean,
(14:22):
it's same like chocolate industry that's dependent on one tiny
little insect called a midge that's a pollinator. All of
these and we don't think of these things, but we
already we have a perfect system in place. Nature was
a perfect system of balancing, a balancing system that allowed
humans to thrive, but that also meant that other species
have to thrive. You knock one domino and everything starts
(14:44):
to wobble.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
It can be incredibly overwhelming once you start to consider
the pace of change and the steaks, once you really
start to think about what's at stake and what we
are f today. Yeah, let alone five, ten, twenty years
from now, it can absolutely flatter you.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah all right, Yeah, when.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
You get hit by something like that, I don't know, say, know,
you finish this interview, you open up your phone, and
you know, because you're you, your algorithm will feed you
something about you know, a chunk of ice the size
of the Southern Island of Fiji has slid off of
Greenland and nothing we can do about that. What do
you do with that information? What do you do in
(15:31):
that moment?
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I mean it depends. Sometimes I just check out and
I don't want to engage with the news. I don't
want to engage at all, or I'll read some sort
of trashy book and try to find escapism. But then
other times I'll call my mentor, who's sort of become
like a best friend to me. She's just this person
(15:54):
that's worked in wildlife conservation for a long time, and
she's just a joy and help each other. Other times
I just go outside and see what we still have
we still have. I mean, we're so privileged to be
able to go outside and see the ocean, or walk
through a forest, see wildlife, to still breathe in relatively
clean air, all of those things we still have that,
(16:15):
so as long as we still have it, there's still
so much work to be done, and there's still so
much hope. And also talking to young people, I mean,
even when I go and talk at schools or how
to do workshops with kids, and the ideas that they
have to protect the future and solutions they have to
protect nature just remarkable. The way they think about things,
(16:37):
the curiosity they have, how they just see the world
so simply and clearly and accurately. That sort of thing
that lifts me up a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
How do you talk to young people kids about where
we are, what we face and what needs to be done.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
With the kids I've worked with, I haven't really needed
to outline the problem as much as I would with adults.
Kids get it, Kids know that it's bad, They understand it.
It's adults that I actually have to make the case
too of why this is actually bad for them and
their children.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
So what do you say to them?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Well, so it would depend on the person. So if
it was an adult, I would talk about that has
a house of let's talk about rising insurance costs, what
this act when we've got the insurance industry, major players
in the insurance industry saying we cannot continue to ensure
homes anymore because of the risks of nature destruction and
climate change. Or if it's a farmer, we can talk
(17:33):
about just an individual. Your chocolate is at risk, your
wine is at risk, your coffee is at risk. So
I try to depending on the audience, I would try
to find different stories or anecdotes that are relevant to
them that might make them care. Because with a lot
of people, you say climate change and they just they
check out. They're not interested. They know it's bad, but
(17:54):
they're not interested. But that's why I think finding this
language of let's talk about specific story is not just
climate change. Let's talk about with kids. I'll talk about
whale pooh because whale pooh is essentially a climate change solution.
So we can talk about climate change not just as
greenhouse gas emissions, but let's talk about this whole system
where of wildlife and how different animals, different species are
(18:17):
all dependent on each other. And so I think it's
about finding the right stories that's going to resonate with
that particular person. And I don't think that in the
environmental movement we've been very good at that. At times
we've probably just said the same climate change is bad,
but not being able to find these stories that's going
(18:37):
to resonate with somebody like my ninety year old grandma
or a farmer or a teacher.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So tied to something that you like coffee, like my
coffee is a threat. Wait what h if I start
making changes that make more coffees? Okay, I'm saving whales,
I'm saving crill, but I care about the coffee. But
everything I do to change that will affect all of it.
So you really only have to care about one thing.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yes, yeah, absolutely, it's all connected. You can find a
connection anywhere. To me, it's not controversial, it's not political.
It's just we want to be able to swim in
our oceans, We want to be able to have clean air.
We are proud as Australians, be a proud of our
species like koalas that and even our snakes and reptiles
(19:20):
and people. People come to Australia because we have these wonders.
These are things that we are proud of that make
us Australia. Don't we want to keep them? Or do
we really want to be the nation that sent its
most iconic species, the koala, to extinction. So there is
a national pride in these things as well and a
community pride. It's whether do you like going forward driving?
(19:40):
Do you want national parks? Do you want to go hiking?
These are things that I think we all appreciate and
we are all dependent on.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
To go outside, whatever sub you live in, to go
outside and I don't know, go for a walk for
ten minutes and notice how many different birds you saw?
Yeah right, just just look straight away. Oh, hang on
a second, I don't just see birds. There's that, there's that,
there's that, And then the next day like why is
it different? What is that doing differently today? And what's
(20:13):
that one doing differently today? And they do different things
at different times a day, like it or not. We
might live inside a house that's got you know, duck
the air conditioning and great internet, but we're not separate
from that. We're not separate from those things. Watching. There
was an open day at my son's school and there
were some kids from the older grades doing a dance
in the middle of the quadrangle thing there, and there's
(20:33):
this glorious, kind of really mature eucalypse growing along one
side of the school boundary, but they are so tall
they reach above the buildings. And the magpies magpies are
doing their dance and I'm like, ah, that's the baby,
that's the magpie baby making dance because I know it's
(20:55):
going to happen in six weeks from now. Walking my
son past those trees, it's swoopy time.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, yeah, a passage.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
That is amazing, Like just yeah, I don't like getting
sweet by magpie. Nobody does, but it's pretty freaking amazing
that there is this creature, this tiny creature that is
smaller than one of my shoes.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Yeah, that I'm terrified and still sphere in the masses
in all of this, the.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Enemy of every cyclist, that is nature. And if for
some reason the magpies as swoopy as they are so
swoopy in my area, we have signs, there's council signs
in the park going don't hang out here and think
it's gonna be fine, because it isn't. So it's pretty swoopy.
There's big bag. Like if the magpies went away like
(21:44):
bad time, Yeah, that's a bad time.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
We would miss them.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I would miss that sound of that warbling thing that
they were in the morning, because it's very happened to
the sound that make in the afternoon. Matures all around you.
And if you just take a second to be as
amazed by that as a video you just saw on
your phone of some doing do doing something dumb on
a jet ski, like, that's amazing. That's millions and millions
of you. That's a dinosaur. That's the last thing after
(22:07):
that big comment hit. That's the last thing that remained
that is the direct descendant of the dinosaur getting ready
to attack you. Sick. Yeah, being at awe of it. Yeah,
try to find your pathway to be in awe of nature.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
But also just imagine without without trees. I mean, these
are nature, they are shade cloths. Imagine just walking down
the street and not having a single tree, or not
being able to see whales or fish or go diving
or snorkeling or whatever you like to do there. If
the world was emptied of these things, imagine how terrible
(22:45):
it's sad that would like it just would be awful.
Aside from it, you know, we wouldn't be able to exist,
but if we did exist, it would just be a
huge loss. I couldn't even imagine a world like that.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
In the book you wrote this line. And the harder
we work to avoid thinking about it, the bigger the
problems become. Can you tell me through that?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Yeah, I think I think we have. It has been
decades when it comes to environmental issues. It's just been
decades of denial, inaction, obscuring information, misinformation, disinformation, and now
it has just been this issue has been persisting for
so long and we feel it now, we see it,
(23:28):
We see the impacts of climate change, and people are
checking out, they don't want to engage, and it is
causing a It's a big problem. We need everybody involved
It's not just individual life styleshifts, but we need a
cultural shift in the way that we think about the environment.
We need people active, and we need to if you
(23:48):
don't feel like engaging, it's about how do we find
ways that mean that we can engage with these issues
that don't completely unravel us. And if that means going
and finding sources of inspiration in nature, talking to your kids,
finding the stories of joy. But the more the longer
that we ignore it and stop being active, the worse
(24:12):
the problem gets, because it means that we are allowing
for the continuation of systems that are harming nature and
harming communities.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Just a moment away from Natalie to ask that if
this show is a value to you, please do consider
liking or subscribing, or following, or rating or reviewing or
telling a friend about this show, any and all of
the above. That is how we keep the lights on here.
This show is my full time job. It's how keep
the lights on the food and the fridge. If you
(24:45):
want to support me, it's put the work I do.
Please do that. You can buy the book that I
just wrote. You can buy both books actually, and also
come and see me in cam On tour. All the
links for that are in the show notes. We're back
with Natalie in just the moment. It's very difficult to
(25:09):
want to change anything about a life that I have
become used to when someone is telling me that a
part of what I'm doing is wrong and I'm a
bad person. But when I think about it, like, well,
hang on a second here, I can't choose to have
one hundred percent green power. I'd love to, but I
(25:30):
need to have a fridge, and I can't choose to
grow my own food because I don't have the land,
so I've got to buy food that comes from far away.
Your personal choices are not they are impactful. But because
I didn't put the right thing in my yellow bin
doesn't mean that I am the enemy of the people
(25:51):
putting the blame on the individual. Completely agree, is it's
the same shit, and it's unfortunate when you understand that
the people who started this stuff studied the way the
cigarette industry worked. Putting the blame on the individual on
the addict, Yeah, well mate, we just make the shit. Yes,
all right, it's up to them if they want to
buy it, you know, freedom.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, exactly right, And that was its been it's sort
of this myth that's been perpetuated, but fossil fuel industry,
by tobacco industry, where even I mean, I think it
was you know, one of the major fossil fuel organizations
said basically tells people it's not our fault, it's your fault.
You're not recycling, right, this is why we have the problem.
And it's just it's a myth. And that's why my
(26:31):
when I talk to individuals, it would be like, that's
how can we activate individuals to create systemic change? And
does that mean through mobilizing them through political means, through
their voting, through engaging with ministers, by advocating for certain
bills that encourage transparency in politics. Or there's other communities,
(26:52):
so for example, a lot of indigenous communities are driving
the rights of nature movement where we're seeing you know,
whales being granted legally your personhood. So I like to
rather than yes, we should plant trees, yes we should recycle,
all fantastic, but we also need to be challenging the system,
these underlying systems because we are a product of this system.
(27:13):
I don't like the shaming and saying okay, it's because
this all this problem is because a thirteen year old
girl didn't recycle properly. It's just ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I'm sure in the amount of time we've spoken Tod
something's on extingct someway like as heartbreaking, heartbreaking to think of.
A friend of mine's been on the podcast Doctor Ayana
Elizabeth Johnson. She wrote a book called All Week and
Save and it was and it was definitely for me.
It was definitely an idea of like, if we talk
(27:46):
about everything we've lost, it's just only like only ever
talking about all the friends we know who've died. But
if we talk about all we can save, Yeah, it's
a different kind of conversation. If we think about all
we can save and what can I do right now
within my sphere of influence? Is that enough?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
I think it's using your working to your strengths. If
you work at a cosmetics company and you're a buyer,
then you have control of it. You might have control
of your company's supply chain and the things that they're buying.
So can you pivot that company to working with businesses
that have a commitment to no deforestation or can you
work with more sustainable companies? If you're I don't know.
(28:29):
In media you have a loud voice and you speak
up about climate change. That's a powerful role to play
as well. If you're a teacher, can you work with
your school to ensure that there is Can you have
a school that sets up a forest school. There's forest
schools in Western Australia and basically kids can learn how
to build their own forest and they learn science in
(28:50):
the field, and so there's lots of things that you
can do. It's work. I think the most power comes
from working to your strengths, working within your industry. So
there is always something.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Say when we had the election in May, you ran
and you were elected, and you are now Prime Minister,
you're in charge of it all. What do you do?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I would commit to investing to at least two billion
dollars into nature and nature restoration because I would see
that as the we're talking. We don't have healthcare systems,
we don't have armies, we don't have anything without having
an environment to live on. So we have had economists
(29:31):
and environmentalists run the numbers and they've said how much
we need to just allow us to keep our natural
world and keep species and that figure sits at around
two billion a year. I would first and foremost commit
to that. I'd remove harmful subsidies we have. I mean,
some of our policies absurd. We spend billions of dollars
(29:53):
in subsidies for activities that just directly harm nature, that
extract from nature, that give very little back to this
only in economy. For example, subsidizing fossil fuels I would remove.
I would stop subsidizing corporations that have undue influence in
our government that don't deliver much in benefits to the
(30:15):
Australian public, and redirect those subsidies into activities that actually
support nature and communities. I would want to see more
community mobilization, where communities feel empowered to be active within
their local council and advocate for you know, whether it's
electric vehicle charging or better public transport or better national parks.
(30:38):
Would I would strengthen our environmental laws. I would ensure
that we have marine protected environments and environments that just
cannot be touched by mining or industrial activity. We need
these spaces not just for our species to regenerate, but
also for our joy and for our children's future. I mean,
there's there's quite a lot I would also, you know,
(30:59):
there's transparency laws we've got to get. There's a whole
there's a lot, I've got a list.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
There has been an argument, and we mentioned earlier that
you can't you can't protect nature and have economic prosperity
at the same time, which I don't believe is exactly true.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Well, I mean you can't have an economy without nature.
That is, the economy is entirely dependent on nature. These
are even fossil fuels, so that they come from nature.
They are prehistoric creatures, that is what fossil fuels are.
So yeah, it's a strange way of framing it to think, oh, okay,
the economy is sort of predicated on this idea that
(31:36):
we can destroy nature. I think the economy in its
current form does not work. I don't think it works
for individuals, it doesn't work for the world, it doesn't
work for nature. If we start to experiment with how
we design economies, then I think there is a greater
opportunity to have better well being outcomes for humanity but
(31:58):
also for nature. So there's like, well, the New Zealand
started looking at well being economy countries like Bhutan, we're
looking instead of GDP having gross national happiness. So do
we find a new measure, a new way to measure
human health, happiness and livelihoods? Do we need I don't
think that GDP. I don't think that we can focus
(32:20):
on GDP alone. Our economy is fundamentally built on extraction,
constant extraction and consumption and production on this finite planet.
I think that needs to be rewired. So I think
the economy right like the economy in its current form
does not work and will not work. We can tweak
it or we can overhaul it. Either would be better
(32:43):
than the current I mean, I like what Costa Rica did?
Costa Rica? Do you know the story of Costa Rica?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I want to know all about it.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
It's so in nineteen get coffee from this sometimes. So
in nineteen forty nine and Costa Rica, they just come
out of one of their bloodiest civil wars, and their leader,
who is known as John Pepem, he put a shovel
through the army headquarters in Costa Rica and said, from
this day on, I am abolishing our military and we
(33:16):
are now going to be a country of peace and nature.
And then he reinvested all of the money that was
going towards the military, towards education, peace processes, and the environment.
What happened over the subsequent decades was remarkable. In Costa Rica,
they had destroyed I think seventy percent of their rainforests,
They had quite low literacy rates, and they were a
(33:38):
country of quite a lot of violence. They ended up
becoming having the highest literacy rates in Costa Rica as
a result of these changes, literacy rates in Latin America. Well, yeah,
and they restored a huge amount of rainforest. So I
think they ended up restoring seventy percent of their rainforest
(33:58):
and the country is run on renewables now. They had
quite an extractive agricultural industry, and they shifted that by
giving payments for ecosystem services to farmers. So they incentivized
their farmers to protect their land and enhance biodiversity on
their land. And the country was completely transformed. It is
(34:20):
now known as a country of peace and nature, and
it meant not only transforming their education systems and political
systems and economic systems, but their cultural identity is now
tied with peace and nature. And Don Pepe, the leader
who put the travel through the building, he went on
to have two kids. One went on to become president.
(34:44):
And his daughter is named Christiana Figeris, and she's the powerhouse.
She's the architect of the UN the Paris Agreement, and
she also endorsed my book, which is amazing. Yeah, she's
the best. So it's this family of just environmental heroes
that have transformed the country. So I think there's, yeah,
(35:06):
really some really amazing stories of how the economy can be.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
And maybe Christiana can answer this question better. But I'm
wondering can because I love the universal healthcare system we
have here and I think it's really important, but it
is somewhat dependent upon the tax base and the revenue
that we get for the way our economy is structured.
Is there a way to have appropriate healthcare for a
population when you do rework the economy like that.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
If your economy is centered around human health outcomes and
well being outcomes and outcomes for nature, then of course,
because that is what that's something that you'd be measuring.
I don't. I mean, I'm not an economist, so I
don't know how it works, but I know there's been
a huge amount of work done by particularly coming out
of London, but all over the world there is work
(35:54):
to rethink the economy. I've worked with quite a lot
of organizations and help them to become more sustainable and
try to make the case for rethinking the way that
(36:15):
their business is operating from a very extractive model. I mean,
I mean, I just did a talk. I hope it resonated.
But I did a talk the other day and it
was about how nature cures cancer. Have you heard of
the Madagascar periwinkle? But the Madagascar What Madagascar periwinkle? It's
this little flower. It's become pink or white both anyway,
(36:40):
It's known as the Madagascar periwinkle, but we now know
it as something else because it is the cornerstone treatment
for childhood cancer, for Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia. And so
in the sixties, either of those diseases were a death
sentence for children. Now, thanks to this, the Madagascar periwinkle,
(37:01):
the extracts from that have formed the backbone of chemotherapy
treatment and cancer survival rates in children are ninety percent
in developed countries. And it is because of a flower.
And so just when I think about the healthcare industries,
this is built on not the economy, It is built
on nature. Seventy percent of cancer medications come from nature.
(37:26):
It is you know, malaria treatment, have all of it.
It is from these really remarkable discoveries in nature. So
I mean there's the un said the next cure to
cancer could be going extinct right now. So we have
a real interest in protecting nature. I mean, indigenous communities
have known this for a long time, that you know,
(37:46):
we are fundamentally tied to nature. They see nature as
mother and understand the healing properties of a lot of
these medicines. But I don't think we often don't make
that link. So where I find success is talking to
people and helping make the link of finding that a
harm moment of oh okay, yeah, no, it's not just
this abstract trees climate change thing. It is something that
(38:08):
has allowed my child to recover from cancer, or it
is something that has put food on our table. So yeah,
I think of that as success, just a mindset shift
that goes on in tiny little ways, as a bit
of a ripple effect where you see people thinking about
the environment more, or being conscious of their choices or
(38:29):
voting differently. I like that sort of impact that I'm
still naive. I guess I think that we can make
a small difference through the ripple effect that we have.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Look, we have to we seem to it's wild. We're
really resistant to change. For the most adaptive species on
the planet, humans, we're pretty resistant to change. And that
doesn't make a lot of sense, all right. We really
have any if any animal can figure out how to
live and alter their environment to make sure everything's okay.
It's us. Yeah, but for some reason, if we don't
(39:03):
come up with your idea, we don't like to do it. Yeah,
it's really dumb. You do write about one of my
favorite adaptive species. It's a It's a species that I
think is it's one of my heroes. They've been carved
on the front doors of temples in Egypt thousands of
years ago, the bloody white ibis. It's an amazing animal.
It's such an incredibly adaptive creature and I love it.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
I'm so glad you said that. I love them too.
They're so underappreciated, and we, I mean, we didn't take
to naming them very kindly.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
We call them the sacred ibis for a long.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Time, and then they've somehow became the bin chicken.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Or a trash turkey or a tip turkey.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
They are incredible. So I actually interviewed a scientist who
is talking about ibis. But there was a so we
sort of have a love hate relationship with them because
there was this protest that was set up on Facebook
where they set up an event called the International Glare
at Ibis Day and so thousands of people went to
their parks to glare at ibises. But then they were
(40:04):
also voted the second most popular bird in Australia. And
so a lot of their natural habitat has been destroyed,
which meant they migrated into urban centers and became these
city dwelling dumpster divers. But they show us just how
remarkably certain species can adapt and now they are thriving
in cities. And I know a lot of people look
(40:25):
at that with scorn, but it's actually an incredible story
of survival for a species. And now they've even adapted
to be able to eat cane toads, which is obviously
cane toads are an invasive species. They can eat cane toads.
They've adapted to be able to survive the poison of
cane toads, so they are now potentially helping us rid
(40:47):
Australia of invasive species. So they're just remarkable.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
That is astonishing.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Yeah, how cool are they.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
That in my lifetime there has been enough evolution, generational
kind of adaptation that an ibis can develop a resistance
to catoe points.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Yeah, yeah, and help us get rid of them.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Brilliant because they used to live in wetlands and we
drain them and put canal developments or an airport. Yeah,
and then they went away. They are they're very clever animals. Yeah,
they found a way to get through.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah. Yeah, it's not because there's stories. I mean, there's
even cases, you know, after Chernobyl worst nuclear disaster of species,
you know, years later rebounding and adapting, essentially adapting to
nuclear disaster. So there are some species that are incredibly resilient,
but it's just not the case for all of them.
(41:40):
So I think, I mean, I sometimes get asked, well,
you know, if species like the ibis can survive and thrive,
why does it matter, Like why do we have to
watch what we're doing? Can't we just let them adapt?
But not all species adapt the koalas they're considered a
sort of specialist species, so they can only really survive
in a.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
You say, Lakuala is just a bit special.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
They are. Yeah, Koalas are a bit special, and they're
a bit slow, and they're not they're not going to
They're not like the bin chicken. They can't survive off
trash and.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
They're they're in a pre chicken was doing high school
exams in grade sex. Koala is a year thirteen to
go to school. Yeah, I'll bring my kids.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yeah, yeah, I want to keep.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Them, but probably not the cleverest dude.
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yeah. Just some species are generalist species, which means they
can survive in a whole different you know range, that
can sort of adapt their diet, and they're you know,
ecological niches, and the other species, like the koala, not
so much. They they're only happy when they're you know,
in a eucalypustry, in a particular habitat. You move them
into a city center and they just won't cope.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
So what you're saying is for us to survive, humans
need to be just more like ibis adaptive.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah. No, we need to keep other We just we
need to keep other things alive. We just need to
stop killing things. It's really simple, and then the other
things stay alive. We stay alive.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Okay, let me, let's not be an ibis. I'm sure
the ibis is happy to be alive, but not thrilled
about drinking bing juice. Yeah, we have an opportunity to
adapt to the environment that we're in and not have
to drink bingjuice. Yes, because we I mean, if you've
seen the latest Blade run a film like, we can
get by on you know, maybe two plants. Is it fun?
Speaker 1 (43:25):
No, I don't think we can. I don't think we
can get by on two plants.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
It's not many. As a vegan celiac, I can tell
you with excellent Yeah, yeah, I can tell you can
get by on an okay amount of plants.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
What if you want like some sort of medicinal.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Should have thought about that before we extinguished the Madagascin Firwinkle,
I should have thought about that. Sorry, fucking flower. I
don't care about flowers. Yeah, any medicine for my child.
He's very sick. I'm glad that you're out there talking
about it, thank you, because it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I mean, that's there's lots of funny story like Barnaby
Joyce he tried to give herpes to fish, So I
can talk about that in my book, Like there's so
many funny stories with nature.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
You know what that is amazing because it's not even
the most outrageous Barnaby Joyce story.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
I know, yeah made headlines.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah it's not. I don't think it's even the top ten.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
No, barely made headlines. Like he's not even remembered for it.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
I can't let you go without talk to me. Barnaby
Joyce came up with giving her piece to fish.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, why so he announced that he wanted to give
herpi to fish. We don't know if he wanted to
directly transmit.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
I doubt I can't even finish that. We can't know.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
We can't know for sure, Nord.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
We assume so carp.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
It was carp freshwater fish invasive and freaking havoc and
their ecosystems impacting farmers and so on, and so Barnaby
Joyce learned that apparently carp can't survive herpes.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
And so whoever whichever scientists found that out up there
with the first person who tried.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
Milk, I know, how did they even come up with
we're going to explore whether what herpes does to carp.
So anyway, he got up in parliament and he said
that he wanted to give herpes to cup and he
backed it with money, put fifteen million dollars behind it.
So what happens is when you give herpes to carp,
the carp have orgies. And so his thinking was that
(45:32):
if he gives herpes to one carp, they have a
massive orgy, everyone gets herpies and then they all die.
But he couldn't even get that right. And so I
asked the question of the book. If Barnaby Joyce can't
give herpes to a fish, what hope do we have
for mobilizing political action for nature. Because still carp do
not have herpes, and their populations have grown since his announcement.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
But some genius lobbyist secured fifteen dollars funding for this.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
We need to meet them and find out what their
secret is.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Those people are very good at what they do, and
I'm sure if you're doing that job, you probably will
do most things for money. Yeah, just get enough money
behind the lobbyists and say go for it, dude, Rather
than herpies and fish, you get in there, get right
in there. As far as you know nature, business and
energy and fossil fuels off your pop Yeah, it's really
if you're going to invest money, pay the lobbyist.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
But actually scientists thought that they liked the idea Barnaby Joyce,
that they really supported it, So it could have been
if that came to fruition, or if that was successful,
that would have been Barnaby Joyce's single most important and
effective decision as a politician.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
If you need me, I'll be trying to find funding
to pay a person who is essentially a mercenary with morals,
a lobbyist, to go and do some shit that's good
for all of us, because I reckon that's probably the
most effective you said my time, second only to speaking
with you today.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Thanks for.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
That, was Natalie Kuriaku. You're not going to look at
carp the same ever again, especially the ones that are
in the pond out in the front of the restaurant.
You'd be like, ah, those are lips for kissing Ah.
Nature's Last Dance Tales of Wonder in an Age of Extinction.
You can buy that book wherever you buy books, including
(47:24):
where you buy my latest books called So What Now What?
Also Back After the Break is back out for sale.
They've reprinted a bunch of copies of my first book.
Both those things and tickets to any live gigs where
you can come along and see the show and buy
a book. All those things are in the show notes. Again,
if this episode was useful for you, please like it,
subscribe to it, follow it, rate it, review it, tell
(47:44):
the mate that'd be unreal. Thanks for listening to the show.
Thanks to add a bunch of for making the episode today.
See you on Monday.
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