Finding Nature

Nathan Robertson-Ball

Find inspiration and guidance for the change you want to create and learn how others have achieved it in their life and work in pursuit of a more just, safe and healthier future. Nourishment for the change making class.

  1. 2 days ago

    Benn Coubrough Keeps Moving - What One Of Australia's Greatest Ultra Runners Can Teach Us All About Mindset, Living and Going For It

    Hello wherever you might be, welcome to or welcome back to the Finding Nature podcast and my name is Nathan Robertson-Ball. Now what a week I’ve had and having, my cup feels very full after attending conferences and events, moving forward on lots of different Finding Nature ideas and programs - including something very big for 2027 that I’m going to be very excited to share more about over time, as well as an absolutely wonderful time visiting Dungog over the weekend just gone. This episode is part of the result of that weekend, as was hitting the trails again for the first trail race I’ve done since the Takayna Ultra in March 2020. The usual listener might be wondering - what does my interest in and pursuit of running have to do with sustainability, with Finding Nature? Well let me read something I put in my journal back in May, which hopefully answers that question: “New dawns all over the place. Through my dismantling is the dawn of wanting to go long on foot again - to ultra. To be with one of the world's best this week, to go up to Ultra Trail Australia yesterday, to be feeling the love of running that has been coming back into my life over the last month, it feels inevitable. To find my nature - and to stay with it - means being in connection with my body, which is running. To see and explore place and potential, with self and others, is running. Few things in my life have I loved more than long and very long distance running. Now the urge, the desire, the yearning for, has returned. Been about six years since I last did - wow, where has time gone - the time to go again is here.” Heading up to Run Dungog was what I signed up for, but after I’d completed my registration they announced that Benn Coubrough was also going to be there - and Benn is today’s guest. I couldn’t believe it - the race I’d selected to go in after six and a half years was going to host one of Australia’s greatest ever ultra distance runners, and most likely one of the best athletes in Australia in any sport at the moment. So I reached out to Ben about whether he’d like to be on the show, and he said yes. Then I thought maybe this was the opportunity I’d been looking for to do a live podcast recording. So I asked Benn, and he said yes. So I reached out to Dan at Run Dungog about being included in their weekend of activities, and he said yes. Then we spoke to the team at the Tinshed Brewery on the Main Street of Dungog, and they said yes, and like that, the format I’ve been wanting to do for a long time was going to happen. On Saturday we were joined by locals and travellers to listen in to what you’re about to hear. And what a story this is. Ultra distance runners and sustainability professionals have a lot of common characteristics in my mind - determined, seekers, mutants, caring, community oriented, mission focussed, and I think you’ll love this conversation even if the idea of running around the block is something you detest. Benn’s epic adventures in races like Badwater 135, Moab 240 and Coast to Kosci are remarkable, and the insights and lessons he shares on mindset, discipline, joy and going for it are applicable to everyone out there. Check out (and sign up to) Benn's coaching business, Stroke No Limits and follow him on Instagram.  Some extra reading relevant to this episode from our friends at Altiorem.  The board playbook: Winning strategies for long-term value creation Policy portfolios: Empowering long-term thinking and tactical flexibility Target-setting protocol fourth edition Check out Planet Protein and get 10% off when you sign up. Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    Benn Coubrough Keeps Moving - What One Of Australia's Greatest Ultra Runners Can Teach Us All About Mindset, Living and Going For It

  2. 4 Aug

    Earth Emotions - Glenn Albrecht Has The Words To Fuel A Revolution

    At the end of 2023 when I was starting to get this Finding Nature show on the road I was fixated on two questions after 20 years in and around large organisations where I felt both lost in my career but also demoralised by another leadership decision to avoid the harrowing reality of what climate change means for everyday people, their finances, home security, access to insurance and their right to safety. How could they abdicate their agency to help avoid harm to others and their own business? So I wanted to know two things primarily, firstly, how does change happen, and secondly, what do I do with my anger, grief, disillusionment and fear for what a climate changed planet and existence looks like? My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball, and welcome to or welcome back to the Finding Nature podcast where each week I sit with leaders who’ve pursued change and are actively working to make this planet a healthier, safer and more just place. So to those questions I’ve been privileged to now host 128 of these episodes where I explore and seek to understand the insights and let the wisdom of my guests wash over me, and I know it’s had a significant and positive effect. Today’s guest, Glenn Albrecht, is one of the most meaningful conversations I’ve had, not just on this show, but ever. Glenn is someone I frankly cannot believe I hadn’t come across until about six weeks ago when my John Elkington newsletter made reference to this man in New South Wales who has developed an entire lexicon for how we can better understand our emotions in a changing world - including the word solastalgia that I’ve seen pop up all over the place. Glenn is an environmental philosopher who for decades has worked to understand deeply and put precise language to the emotions people are having when they experience the loss, destruction, degradation, removal or alienation from a place they love. It’s me! These are the words I’ve been looking for for years, and he’s been up the Blue Mountains this whole time! I absolutely loved this conversation, and Glenn’s work, especially his book Earth Emotions, is something anyone listening to this episode and working in sustainability would be well advised to seek out and immerse yourself in. The most common conversation I’ve had this whole time in Finding Nature Land centres on the despair and despondency people are having watching the world literally burn, where genocide and killing and corruption and nepotism and white collar crime are moved on from with the swipe of a finger. How to reconcile the desire and immense effort that goes into being a force for positive change, while so much else is making the underlying conditions worse? In this episode we talk about Glenn’s work in environmental philosophy, the words he has devised and their meaning, the emptiness of language and words like sustainability and ESG that are devoid of a connection to life and relationship, the parasitic nature of the Anthropocene and his hopes, ambitions and motivation to see an era of symbiosis come to life. Some extra reading relevant to this episode from our friends at Altiorem.  Life, Climate Volatility, and What Comes After Our predicament: The fundamental flaws of predominant economic systems - and the cultures scaffolding them Framing and language for effective climate conversations Check out Planet Protein and get 10% off when you sign up. Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    Earth Emotions - Glenn Albrecht Has The Words To Fuel A Revolution

  3. 28 July

    Hidden In The Ice - Joy McCann On The Stories And Science Of Earth's Heart

    Joy McCann is an environmental and public historian who has worked to understand and share the stories of how the histories of people, places, ideas and the non human world have and do interact to create the cultures, practices and rhythms of life on this planet. Her work and research has taken her across Australia and over the last decade she has explored the oceans, ice, islands and coastlands of the Southern Hemisphere, resulting in her latest book, ‘Heart of Ice; A Journey Into Antarctica’s Frozen Realm’. I loved reading the book and speaking with Joy as both helped me realise how little I know about the ice continent, as well as its fascinating history. From the commencement of planetary glaciation around 34 million years ago to the fables and myths humans projected onto the great unknown southern land, to her own trip to the ice as well as the human history of exploration and discovery there. Considering its crucial role in creating and maintaining our planet’s homeostasis the threats and perils it faces, and the rapid changes it has already undergone, are alarming to say the least. What happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay in Antarctica, and its role in regulating climate and oceanic systems is fundamental for a stable globe. More than the threats and perils though, Joy’s work is about understanding how we got to here, and by revealing the secrets of the past - the stories human’s have and still do tell ourselves about ecosystems, place, other species and the planet in general - uncover deeply held values, bias, misalignments and emotions. In the Heart of Ice Joy shares myths about hidden monsters and something known as hollow earth theory about how humans accounted for what they didn’t know hundreds of years ago, as well as how the economic invectives of the 18th, 19th and 20th century to plunder and massacre millions of whales, seals and penguins are still entirely present today. A history of separating humanity from the natural world holds strong today, and this book tells the stories of how our species perpetuated that on a continent thousands of kilometres away, across the most gruelling and dangerous ocean crossings on the planet, only to end up carving it up for resources and what could be taken from it for profit. Joy’s work reveals the depths of our cultures and the strength of story passed on over generations. I hope she inspires you to consider the stories you tell yourself and others.  Some extra reading relevant to this episode from our friends at Altiorem.  Is the Atlantic Overturning Circulation Approaching a Tipping Point? What We Know About Deep-Sea Mining — and What We Don’t Turning the tide: How to finance a sustainable ocean recovery Check out Planet Protein and get 10% off when you sign up. Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    Hidden In The Ice - Joy McCann On The Stories And Science Of Earth's Heart

  4. 21 July

    Running The Finance System Transformation Gauntlet - Simon O'Connor Is Sustainability's Diplomat

    Today’s guest is Simon O’Connor, who for more than two decades has worked at the forefront of responsible investment and sustainable finance. From his training and time as an economist and working with the Australian Conservation Foundation, running the Responsible Investment Association of Australasia for over a decade and helping to established the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative, Simon has been neck deep in everything to do with hardwiring a different financial system. His knack for building alliances has been central to his efforts and successes in trying to pull every available lever to shift the leadership, systems and culture of a system that is both necessary to undertake society-level transitions but also incentivised to reinforce itself to maintain as much of the status quo for as long as possible. I wanted to speak with Simon because he is the archetype of the person I started this show to speak with - he’s been in the game for years, he’s been in thousands of rooms where the change I hope is possible is either unlocked or vanquished, he cares and he’s lit a path for all of us over the years for everything that I hope is still to come. Being a sustainability professional in the 2000s was different to the 2010s, and is different again in the 2020s, from a nascent outsider in those early days to a capability and mindset that is now inevitably positioned to transform every aspect of our society and economy, Simon has been and remains a leader I wanted to learn from to understand what his insights are and wisdom he has to share. We chat about plenty in this episode, but it centres on three central questions - how was it, what happened to create change along the way, and how is it now? We get into the pendulum of despondency and optimism, personal resilience, culture and team building, longevity, the trade offs between incremental and transformative change, language and jargon, as well as a final conversation about how pursuing hard things in our non-work lives help to set us up for success in our work lives. Some extra reading relevant to this episode from our friends at Altiorem.  What can investors do about climate change? Driving positive social change through co-operatives and mutual enterprises (CMEs) Navigating the winds of change Strategic foresight and the power of weak signals Check out Planet Protein and get 10% off when you sign up. Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    Running The Finance System Transformation Gauntlet - Simon O'Connor Is Sustainability's Diplomat

  5. 14 July

    Lost In A Maze - Is Corporate Sustainability Just Pretending To Try, with Cameron Tonkinwise

    Hello out there and welcome to or welcome back to the finding nature podcast. My name is Nathan Robertson-Ball and today’s episode is a slightly different format to what is usual here. Today I’m chatting with the show’s most popular guest, and someone I consider a teacher, friend and colleague Cameron Tonkinwise about the eight years I spent in the organisation that will not be named. Sounds a bit like Voldemort from Harry Potter, and perhaps even mentioning their name also risks summoning their followers or drawing dark magic. This show has been in the works for a little while after Cameron and I chatted about ways to capture and share the misadventures of attempting to do corporate sustainability in one of Australia’s largest organisations for the best part of the last decade. Ever the teacher, Cameron was keen to remind me that the roles I had and unusual spaces I was privileged to exist in is likely valuable for others to appreciate as part of our shared ambition to shift institutional structures and barriers. So this episode is somewhere between Cameron interviewing me, me interviewing him and also two people that spoke on a near daily basis for those eight years surfacing memories and insights and questions for all of us to consider, and hopefully learn from. To be clear, the eight years of doing social innovation, home electrification and climate risk management were full of valuable insights, progressed me as a professional and allowed me to meet and work with hundreds of terrific and intelligent people. This isn’t my version of a takedown, but a legitimate effort to reflect on my experience, look into a mirror to conduct honest self appraisal and openly question what needs to be different and what I can do differently over the next phase of my career and life. I’m hoping there are stories that resonate and insights that inspire for each of you out there listening. I’m always keen to get feedback and the thoughts of everyone else, so please get in contact through the website or send me something via email (info@findingnature.com.au). So the question I haven’t been able to stop asking myself the last few months is whether organisations by and large are just pretending to try with their sustainability ambitions. Cameron helped me explore this further.  Some extra reading relevant to this episode from our friends at Altiorem.  Can you be the change you’d like to see? Three US philosophers aim to offer hope We need to talk about net zero bullsh*t. The business case for “speaking up”: How internal reporting mechanisms strengthen private-sector organisations Check out Planet Protein and get 10% off when you sign up. Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    Lost In A Maze - Is Corporate Sustainability Just Pretending To Try, with Cameron Tonkinwise

  6. 7 July

    Modelling A Dangerous Future - Timothy Neal Is Leading The World In Understanding The Economic Impacts Of Climate Change

    A category of guest I really enjoy speaking with though are those who are on the way up. People like Holly Ransom or Kal Klanznig or Vanessa Pirotta who are clearly going places - it’s a thrill to spend a little bit of time with them before they accomplish even more. Today’s guest doesn’t have the public or social media profile of those three, but I hope that is to change in next little while. Timothy Neal is a senior scientia fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of New South Wales and also the Institute of Climate Risk and Response. Earlier this year he was named Australia’s leading researcher in probability and statistics with applications and in 2021 was the recipient of the prestigious Paul Bourke Award for Early Career Research by the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. What does that mean he’s an expert in then for those less initiated with economics, statistics and social science - it means his work at the intersection of climate change, casual inference and econometrics is resulting in entirely new ways by which to understand how much we already have and will continue to lose as a result of a changing climate and our civilisation’s collective commitment in dismissing and avoiding the reality of the losses, impacts, damages and harms that have arrived and are now locked in for decades to come. Tim’s work has re-shaped how I think, talk about and worked on physical climate risk - and his work with UNSW colleagues Ben Newell - a former guest on episode 87 - and Andy Pitman - in 2025 dropped a grenade into conventional economic thinking and modelling regarding climate change. How can we know that human activity has fundamentally altered the chemical, biological and physical reality of our atmosphere and still see company after company, regulator after regulator, reserve bank after reserve bank tell us that their numbers are telling us there is nothing to see here? How can a company write that climate change represents a material financial risk to their business then claim their scenario analysis process presents a near-zero loss future due to climate change? It makes no sense. Tim’s work has helped me understand why that is, what needs to change in economics to redress this and how all of us as lay people can better engage with the real but complex reality of attempting to understand what disaster after disaster means for economic performance nationally and across the globe. In this chat we get into Tim’s recent work on economic losses already able to be quantified and mounting up just in NSW, his seminal work on global macroeconomic loss results as well as what his research into panic buying and hoarding at the onset of Covid may have in stall for us as we face a future certain to be more volatile, dangerous and disaster-prone. Some extra reading relevant to this episode from our friends at Altiorem.  Making the case: Macroeconomic risk & portfolio impact: A tool for system-level investors The macroeconomic impact of climate change: Global vs. local temperature Discourses of climate delay Check out Planet Protein and receive 10% off your first order when you sign up.  Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    Modelling A Dangerous Future - Timothy Neal Is Leading The World In Understanding The Economic Impacts Of Climate Change

  7. 30 June

    Risking Life And Saving Pristine Ecosystems - Sukundemi Walks Before Manu Peni

    One person who for a decade now has fought against the construction of what would be the largest mine in the South Pacific in Papua New Guinea by an Australian headquartered but Chinese backed mining operation in a pristine landscape in one of the world’s most seismically active locations. Manu Peni is that man and today’s guest, and I was fortunate to meet and spend time with Manu during his recent trip to Sydney for the premier of the documentary Sukundimi Walks Before Me at the Sydney Film Festival, which won the Sustainable Future Award there too. Captured by the film is the remarkable story of the work Manu has led for ten years in the creation of the Supreme Sukundimi Declaration - a signing by 28 different clans along the Speik River to protect it from the mine and its approval. The Sepik River is over 1,100 kilometres in length and is one of the last unspoiled river systems anywhere in the world, and the plans of the mine would seriously risk its health and that of every person and species living along and relying upon the surrounding ecosystems. Manu’s story is bigger than words allow to describe. He is diligent, charismatic, intelligent, grounded and ambitious, all things he’s needed to be over the course of this battle which has included threats to him and his family. Beyond just the Save the Sepik campaign though, we talk about the concept of imposed development, how climate change has already affected the lives and livelihoods and Papua New Guineans and the deleterious impacts mining projects like Porgera, Ok Tedi and Bougainville have had when western interests have steamrolled the interests and safety of local people. Manu represents a vision of living and the future we desperately need. I hope you’re inspired by listening. Support for this episode comes from: Planet Protein - double the value of your first order at no extra cost.Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    Risking Life And Saving Pristine Ecosystems - Sukundemi Walks Before Manu Peni

  8. 23 June

    The God We Made - Anna Goldsworthy Wants To Know Why We're Building A Future No One Wants To Live In

    Is artificial intelligence here to solve every wicked and intractable problem our society currently faces? Will it morph into Skynet and become a paperclip maximiser that eradicates humanity to optimise for paperclip manufacturing? Will it just slowly degrade our information, political and economic systems? Will it be a net positive for a very small, very powerful and very rich group of white men and create uncertainty and insecurity for the remainder? AI is one of my favourite topics to get into on this show and this week I have Anna Goldsworthy here to chat about it after the release of her recent Quarterly essay; The God We Made, The Threat and Promise of Artificial Intelligence. As someone who recently got the redundancy bullet from an organisation that’s gone into a strategic alliance with one of the biggest AI companies in the world, and who before that saw the pernicious and quite strange ways by which it was being espoused as the elixir to all things human, I was really looking forward to reading Anna’s work and spending some time with her. As you’ll hear in the chat, I don’t have the most optimist view on where this is all going and the case outlined is an unsettling one. Anna’s essay though circles one fundamental question - how to live wisely and agreeably and well? Does AI help this or harm our individual and collective aspirations for life on this planet? There’s myriad answers and potential pathways and this is where context matters. When the context is that a very small number of players are in charge of where this technology goes, when the underlying political and economic system is about growth - no matter if it’s harmful or reckless or generating ghost GDP - and when previous and ongoing calamity and crisis has barely touched the side of a western development mindset, I find it hard not to be cynical about how AI has and will continue to shape and affect our lives. Anna is an unusual voice in this debate which made speaking to her more compelling. A pianist and teacher, her career in academia doesn’t indicate that writing about AI was going to be a feature of her work. It’s entirely relevant though when we step back to see how music, the arts and culture more broadly have been and are transmitted through personal relations, something AI and our compulsive relationship to any and all screens intervenes on. In this conversation we speak a little about some of the darker, more existential perils of the suite of technologies that make up AI, more than that though we talk about what it means to be human and how our humanity has been and is affected by technology. And in AI the threat of losing connection, agency, dignity, meaning and our sense of reality seems possible, if not entirely likely. In the God we Made, Anna makes the argument that we always seemed to know it was going to happen. Prometheus stole fire, pandora opened the box, Icarus flew too close to the sun, Oppenheimer built the bomb. Is that what we’re about to do? Check out the Pope's Encyclical Letter On Safeguarding The Human Person In The Time Of Artificial Intelligence.  Support for this episode comes from: Reposit Power - $500 off your solar battery installation. Planet Protein - double the value of your first order at no extra cost.Send me a message Thanks for listening. Follow Finding Nature on Instagram

    The God We Made - Anna Goldsworthy Wants To Know Why We're Building A Future No One Wants To Live In
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About

Find inspiration and guidance for the change you want to create and learn how others have achieved it in their life and work in pursuit of a more just, safe and healthier future. Nourishment for the change making class.

Information

  • Creator
    Nathan Robertson-Ball
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    129
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Finding Nature
  • Show Website
    Finding Nature

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