Today, we have a man who needs no introduction: Patrick ‘Paddy’ Gower. Paddy is an incredibly well-respected journalist in Aotearoa, known for tackling complex issues head-on. His latest documentary, On Ice, focuses on climate change and his journey to Antarctica.
In this episode, he shares:
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Kia ora kaitiaki and welcome to Now That's What I Call Green. I'm your host,Brianne West, an environmentalist and entrepreneur trying to get you as excitedabout our planet as I am. I'm all about creating a scientific approach tomaking the world a better place, without the judgment and making it fun. And ofcourse, we will be chatting about some of the most amazing creatures we shareour
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planet with. So if you are looking to navigate through everything green or notso green, you have come to the right place. Today we have a man who needs nointroduction. Patrick Gower, or of course as many of you know him, Paddy, isjoining me today to talk about his new documentary On Ice, which is all aboutclimate change and his travels to Antarctica. You may have watched some of hisother documentaries like On Weed and On P, documenting the drugs crisis inAotearoa. Paddy has never really shied away from tackling
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some pretty complex issues and I've got to be honest, climate change is upthere. Welcome! Do you prefer to be called Patrick or Paddy?
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Paddy, Paddy please.
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Okay, perfect. So I don't really think you need any intro but congrats on thenew role with Stuff. Very exciting. Thank you. Stuff, let's be honest, is thepreeminent national news, sorry NZ Herald.
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As a non-reporter I'm very excited about this. Thank you for joining me today,I'm really excited. I've watched your Antarctica documentary both episodestwice and it's kind of, well we'll get into it, it's a little bit depressing.But first, you've covered pretty heavy topics, you know, you went from politicsto drugs, and now you've decided you'll go to Antarctica
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and visit the coldest place on Earth and talk about climate change.
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Why?
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Well, it is the biggest issue of our time. And as my career progressed, andyou're right, like, you know, I've been doing this for 25 years now, androlling my way through the different issues and climate change had to come. Andyou know, one thing that I'll be pretty honest about is I probably haven't beenthe
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best climate change reporter as well as the best climate change personthroughout that career. It's taken me a long time to get to climate change.I've sort of covered every other kind of issue I could get to and you know I'mpretty honest about that it took me a long time to get there, despite itsimportance. And a lot of the reason is, and it sort of fits with bigger themes
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to do with climate, I think, is that I actually found climate change reallycomplicated to report on, and I couldn't understand how to communicate it. Andnot only was it complicated, but a lot of the time it would fall on sort of
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deaf ears as well with the audience. So I just sort of, rightly or wrongly ordeliberately or not or whatever, avoided climate change through 25 years ofjournalism. That started out as a crime reporter and came right through toworking in Parliament for 10 years and covering climate change policy while Iwas there by the way. And then of course delving into all these big issues andclimate was just off to the background. But you and I know, and reallyeverybody knows or most people know that it is the biggest
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issue of our time facing humanity, depending on how you define things, but it'sright up
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there.
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And yeah, it took me 25 years. This is a long way of answers, apologising andsaying that it took 25 years to get there.
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It's a very fraught topic. I mean, you bring it up on social media and you geteveryone in the comments calling you all sorts of things. So I can understandwhy you avoid it, and it is complicated.
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I will come in there though. I've never avoided it because of the social mediacomments and the people who are against it. That is not...
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You're braver than me.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Oh, no, no, no, I'm not braver. I'm just so used to them. I’ve been hassled bythat certain sector of society, which is what it is, for so long that I justreally, you know, everyone's saying, oh my God, the comments on your Facebookand everything like that. And I'm just like, brother, sister, I've been havingthose people comment on the stuff I've said about the vaccine, things, youknow, all sorts of things. So that's never
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been a reason in stopping me from doing it. But also very true. Yeah, andcovering the vaccine would have been interesting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. And Imean, I've had them with covering white supremacy as well and Mark Twain and1080 and all sorts of just all sorts of anything. So I guess I was kind ofready for them to come. And the only thing is I manage all of my own socialmedia. And I'm actually a technophobe. I'm amazed that we got this up. Well, wehaven't finished yet.
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I do all my social media off my phone. I don't kind of get in and do it on thelaptop or anything like that. And I'm doing all this posting and of course, Idon't always manage to turn off the comments on certain posts. And then I comeback a day later and they've flooded the zone. Or I try to moderate thecomments myself and I don't have time and there's really nice comments comingup, but then there's five to one and every now and then I have to give up.
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So, yeah, anyway, we're spending a lot of time talking about these people whenwe don't need to.
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And it's funny we devote so much time to them when they make up such a small,they're just small but loud. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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So I'm sorry, that was my fault.
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Yeah.
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But you're here now and that's the main thing. And I'm very excited about that.So, just like a practical question, but what is being down there like? What isliving down, because you were there for three weeks, right?
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Yeah, three weeks.
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What was that like?
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You know, it was really odd and extreme, you know, and on one level, it's kindof everything you imagine. You just know that you're going to get absolutelyblown away when you first step out of the plane and you see it, and I think, youknow, you're ready for that. But you know it's interesting you know visually Ithink I was kind of ready for
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it visually you know in my mind you know. I think scientifically I didn't fullyunderstand it even though I've been reading a lot of articles about mountainsea ice and that sort of thing. Scientifically I didn't really understand ituntil I was down there and spending all this time with the top scientists andit started to unlock. And that sort of took me into a new level as well. But acouple of things, the cold, I just was not ready for the cold. It was so coldwhen you're outside, like it was just
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incredibly cold and so unforgiving. And you'd just be outside doing some workand you would just get too cold to work. It was just so hard to work and thatwas something that I didn't really get used to. And then the other aspect of itwas the cramped conditions inside Scott Base, and just sort of no privacy,living in a bunk room. I'm a really private kind of guy and I'm sure a lot ofpeople are, and breakfast in particular. I hate having breakfast with people.
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Yeah, I don’t want to talk.
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Yeah, I don't want to talk. I don't want to see anyone, want to eat, just wanta cup of coffee, look at my phone, get the day started. Just coming into a messroom or whatever it was called and being full of people and highly energetic,
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motivated people who want to have a yarn, which is completely fine. You know,that was one of the hardest things for me. I'd just like wake up and be like,oh my God, I've got to go down there for breakfast. So yeah, and that all ofthat sort of, I think the visual beauty, 24 hour a day sunlight
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while we were there because it's the height of summer, the visual beauty isjust blowing your mind away. Then there's this cold that's outside and thisjust this extreme cold that you can't adjust to. this massive thing going onscientifically and environmentally, and your brain's unlocking that.
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I'm starting to see the role that Antarctica has over the world and the powerthat it has over us. Then you add in this, you're in this constrainedenvironment with these incredibly motivated people that are really, reallypassionate, and that's a very unique thing as well. You've got just all thesethings going on, which means you're having, you know, by definition, anextrasensory experience. You're way out of your comfort zone and on multiplelevels.
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And I think most of the time in life you do go outside of your comfort zone,but it might be in one area or two at the time, or, you know, in this oneyou're sort of out of multiple comfort zones in multiple sensory zones. Andyeah, and then that's what leads to you and so many other people before mewho've been there, having these basically extra sensory sort of experiences
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and finding themselves or understanding things or changing their views onthings. So yeah, it's pretty cool. It'd be a lot.
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I think it's fair to say. It was a lot.
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It was.
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Okay, cut to the chase.
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What did you learn? You looked pretty devastated in some of thoseconversations.
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I think the main thing that I learned was, you know, to sum it up, we haveawoken this beast, this monster. We've stirred up Antarctica with our ownactions, knowing what we have been doing, but, you know, we've actually awokenthe beast, basically.
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And Antarctica has so much power and control over the rest of the world. It'slike, and that was something that I didn't really understand. I just thoughtthere was a hunk of ice at the South Pole and a hunk of ice at the North Pole,and they did something. I didn't really know what. I didn't understand thatAntarctica had this power and control over the world in terms of basically thetemperature of the sea.
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You know Antarctica freezes in its winter and its ice gets bigger while itfreezes. In the summer that ice melts and gets smaller, then it freezes again.And all of the world's oceans, the major oceans, you know I never knew thiseither until I was down there. I obviously did not look at a globe or anythingwhen I was young. All of the world's major oceans, Pacific, Atlantic, all ofthem are fed by Antarctica. It literally sends water around in a circle and itdiverts off and comes out into the
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rest of the world. All this is new to me, by the way. And learning that, thathere's this thing, I call it a thing because it's so hard to describe. Here isthis massive thing that has so much control over our temperature, our weather,our sea temperature, everything that is happening everywhere in the world. Andwe have gone in and, sorry to use bad language, we've gone in and fucked withit
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and poked it and prodded it and jabbed it and just said, wake up, wake up, wakeup. We want to see what you, sort of in an idiotic way, you know, like let'ssee what happens if this thing wakes up. We've poked the bear. Yeah, we'vepoked the bear and we've done that and now we face the
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consequences, now it's awake and nobody
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knows how to get it back to sleep or what's going to happen, what it's going todo. So that's what I've learned and that is just kind of stupid to go and pokethe bear like that. And yet we do it all the time, so well. And scientists thatI’ve spoken to, I’m down there talking to scientists 24 hours a day, whodevoted their life to Antarctica and to climate, their entire working
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life and building on knowledge after knowledge. And they were so frustrated,they just sort of were just like, well, we've been telling you this, Paddy. Youknow, we've been telling people this and they were quite downbeat like that.And that was another sort of realisation for me as well. So yeah, basically,you know,
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I was down there having a mini epiphany, really. Yeah, you know, I don't wannasort of throw the word epiphany around because it's a big one, but a mini one,definitely with all of this and got really worried for the world really.
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I mean you actually specified, I think it was perhaps in the trailer orsomewhere that you said you didn't want it to be a big depressing alarmistdocumentary but this is a big depressing alarmist topic. And one of the thingsyou talked about was the 4 metre sea level rise if the western ice shelf melts.
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And that is depressing. The western Antarctic ice sheet, which they're worriedabout melting, would mean four metres of sea level rise, according to thescientists. And there's no sugar coating that. That is what is going on there.There's the western ice sheet and the eastern ice sheet. The eastern icesheet's even bigger if that goes. We're in serious trouble. But the western icesheet, and if you think about it, the scientists explain a lot about it, butthere's two big sheets of ice under Antarctica, the west and the east.
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And then, so they're the sheets, then around them is the shells, so big bits ofice that protect them, and then around them is the sea ice, which comes andgoes with the sea, which protects the shells. So it's almost like we're peelingback the layers. So we're peeling back the sea ice layer that's weakening theshells, which could weaken the sheets, which could stuff everybody. And yeah,so you know, there's four metres of sea level rise potentially, and also,
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you know, those forecasting models are based on our current levels of warming.And when all this starts to click together, because believe you me, I did notunderstand this before I went down there, and I can actually talk about it. Youknow, I'm not giving myself big ups here, but I can actually talk about it. Ithink I'm getting close to the level of communication where you really need tobe at to reach someone who doesn't understand it. And it's taken me a year toget to that, which is another topic of
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this whole issue, is how hard it is to communicate it to some people. Theydon't want to talk about it. It's incredibly complex. They either know and theydon't want to hear or it's incredibly complex just to communicate. But, youknow, that's part of this education of climate that I've had has been, I didn'trealise when we started making it that there were people out there that hadclimate anxiety and didn't want to watch these things, right?
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I just kind of thought, holy shit, you know, because I'm an old, old bloody, journofrom way back, shit kicker. I'm just like, oh Jesus this bloody place is bloodymelty. It's bloody a horror story. Here we go You know headlines headlines, youknow this sort of thing and the documentary team that I work with which is acompany called Ruckus run by Mitchell Hawkes and Owen O'Connor They're theproducers and then my friend Justin Hawkes who's Mitchell's brother is thedirector and they are experts in science communication and they understand allthis stuff and they slowly filter it down to old Paddy, you know.
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And you know, they were instantly on to this issue of climate anxiety and ifyou serve up a documentary full of horror stories, you're gonna just a wholelot of people aren't gonna tune in. So that's why, you know, we put some hopeand solutions and different things throughout the documentary to help with thatbecause yeah we didn't want to make a documentary of gloom and despair becausesome people can't take all of that, you know.
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And it doesn't achieve anything anyway.
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Yeah, yeah.
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You don't have to give people something to aspire to, to hope for, to go anddo, otherwise what's the point?
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But sadly there is gloom and despair, you know, that is part of this issue. Youknow, there's no getting around that. And also moving the conversation frommitigation or trying to stop it to, well, actually it's here and now we need totalk about adaptation or adapting to what's coming. But needing to be more, youknow, basically what I've been saying is we need to be more realistic now abouthow we deal with this.
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And that has a gloomy aspect as well, because it's like saying things havechanged, we need to change, we need to adapt. Things have got so far that weneed to think about adapting. Nobody really likes that sort of storyline, butthat's where I've decided to go, because that's the reality as far as I see it,is that we now need to start thinking about adapting, adaptation, adaption,whatever you want to call it. Changing, climate change is coming. We canmitigate it, but we can't
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stop it. We can do bits and our actions matter, but ultimately, as a countryand as a world and as human beings and as Paddy, you know, we need to startthinking about adapting to it because it is coming and it is here and it's notgoing away and by adapting, I mean those big things like moving away from thesea, moving out of floodplains that are near the sea, not building any morestuff in those places. You know, these are massive questions. These are justbeyond, you know, these are just
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massive, massive questions that are just so far beyond some people. That'swhere I want
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to try and lead the conversation. Yeah, well no one wants to have theseconversations. Governments just focus on re-election, so they're not going totalk about moving, I don't know, Auckland. That's right, that's right. I mean,how do we even bring that conversation up? Yeah. But you're absolutely right.Climate change is here. It's already happening.
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You only need to look at the changing weather. It's not just about sea levelrise. It's about changing weather. It's about changing ocean currents. It'sbloody scary, but you are right. We do need to adapt to it.
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We need to try and prevent further climate change and slow it down. It'sinteresting you say we can't prevent it. Did the scientists talk much aboutpreventing further change?
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Oh, yeah. I think everybody realises that we can prevent further change andmitigate further change.
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Right. So are they holding, are we still talking about the 1.5 degrees or the2? We're not really talking about 1.5 anymore, are we?
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Not really, no. No, I think 1.5 is sort of taken as locked in. Yeah. There isthat mitigation, but the sort of the turning it back or anything like thatseems to be over. One of the things that came through really strongly for me.You know, it was another big part of Antarctica, which is why so many people
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are fascinated by it, is it's only recently been explored. You know, the SouthPole was only reached in the, I'll get the date wrong, but in the early 1900s,you know, it's younger than the Treaty of Waitangi by a long way. True, true,yeah. By a long, long way. And nobody's really been down there. And all thatmeans is it's unexplored and it's not understood. They just don't have muchknowledge of it.
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People haven't been down there recording. There's no oral history or peoplerecording things. There's no science. There's a very small amount of sciencethat's been done because there's a short amount of time since people got downthere and then it's hard to be down there. It's like out of space and therehasn't been people living there and some sort of history
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that people can track back or anything like that. So we don't know a lot aboutAntarctica. It's this big thing, like I said earlier, that controls the wholeworld. But there is not a lot of science. There's not people going, oh, well,we know what happened last time this happened and X, Y and Z happened. Or wecan kind of guess or we can do this or we've done something here.
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They just don't have that much knowledge about it. So they know that it'schanging, the scientists, and they know that all these big things are happeningto it, and they know that it's going to mean something, but they kind of don'tknow exactly what, which is quite, you know, another sort of worrying thing.
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Ah, yeah, okay, so we've awoken the bear, but we don't really know whathappened last time the bear woke up, you know? We sort of can guess and modeland do some different things, but we don't really know that, you know. So thatwas another sort of one of these
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many discoveries for me down there.
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Was it fun playing scientist or being a scientist while you were down therewith ice cores and things?
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I loved being a scientist down there because they were incredibly hardcorescientists, obviously. I mean, they are just so driven to get down there and dotheir science. And it is so hard to get down there, you know, by definition.
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And the scientists are so incredibly adventurous to want to choose to do that.And they're reliant on the weather being okay and they've got to get down thereand their equipment's got to work and there's only so many slots that they canuse the helicopter and their research is so critical. I really ended up reallyadmiring them. They've got to do this study to get to the point that they'reat, then they've got to
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wait for their chance to get to Antarctica, then they've got to get the fundingto go back again, then they've got to get in there and hope that the weather'sright so they can get their data and then they've got to get their data backout again. You know, they're incredibly, the scientists down there areincredibly resilient and they're finding out information for the sake of theworld, which is what all scientists do. But there's something very specialabout Antarctica scientists.
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So to get on the big drill and, you know, I forget all the meters that wedrilled down, but we drilled down bloody deep into this frozen sea with thismassive drill. Seriously, I'm just using the hand drill at home to put the oldscrew in the kit set. That's what I was used to,
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and then next minute we've got this gigantic drill into the frozen ocean. Intohistory. Yeah, and it's just surreal to be there, and you're literally on theRoss Sea which is completely frozen. You drive across it to where we weredrilling this hole in these
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harglin vehicles, which are like little tanks and you just go right across, acouple of hours out to sea, essentially, across the frozen sea. Then you're onthe frozen sea, you're sitting there, in the background is a iceberg that isthe top of the iceberg frozen into the frozen sea, that's the sort of backdrop.Then you get out this gigantic drill that you've never seen before and sort ofdrill down and pull up an ice core and then check out the algae which I'vealways just seen around home and just
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sprayed away. But instead it's this precious kind of thing to look at. So it'sjust awesome to be out there with these scientists working in these conditionsand, you know, they're so Kiwi and so practical, but then, you know, they'reobviously doing this deep science as well. And yes, it was awesome to beworking with them. But don't be fooled by the documentary, like, you know, thatmakes it all short and fast, like, it happened real quick, you know, it wouldtake days to set those funny things up.
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I can imagine.
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Yeah, we made them look far less, you know, not boring, but we made it look farmore easy
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fun than it was.
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Yeah, science looks great in movies like The Day After Tomorrow.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were sort of taking that sort of version of things, sortof really cramping it in.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So we probably created a lot of scientists like, I want to do that. And they'llall be like, I hate this. I know, but 15 years ago it set me on a life thatI...
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Well, they can blame you.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they can.
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You spent a bit of time with climate change, well a couple of climate changedeniers. Do you think they actually deny it or do you think they just don'twant to contemplate it? I've always wondered that. I've never really met toomany. I think it was a really good conversation.
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I didn't know what their views on climate were. I take a really liberal view topeople in Aotearoa New Zealand's views, you know. I've learned that down theyears, you know, you've just got to, you can't look down on people becausethey've got a different view to you. And I've done that myself and I've madethat mistake and I've tried to learn from that and everybody's got theirreasons for believing things that they believe a lot of the time.
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And I know that people will be like, that's a stupid thing to say, but you'vegot to, in my experience, you've just got to respect people and where they comefrom sometimes. And Alan and Valerie, who you're talking about, who are livingnear Thames there, literally underneath a seawall that needs to be built a bithigher.
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And I'm sure they've lived a fantastic life as New Zealanders and contributedto society and their family in all different ways. There's nothing bad aboutthem at all, probably.
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Of course.
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Quite the opposite. But they just really just don't think much of climatechange. And you've got to sort of sit there and go, okay, and try andcommunicate with them respectfully and say, well, you know, that's not whatI've seen down in Antarctica, that's not what I've been told and then you knowthey're not going to be around. You know they're elderly and they say they'renot going to be around and it's a tricky one. I think my job is not as apersuader or
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anything like that, I'm a journalist and my job is to communicate. That's whatyou've got to try and do with people, you try and do with people like that. Youcan't bang them overhead, you can't tell them they're wrong, you can't, youknow, they've lived their whole life and they're entitled to their views, butyou've just got to try and communicate and present the information and keepgoing.
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You're absolutely right. If you go in and judge people, you're never ever goingto persuade them, even if you don't want to do that, right? You're never goingto get them to even start listening to you. So it can be frustrating and Icommend you for that very grown-up attitude. I try, I fail at times.
0:25:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. And I mean, I've learned it the hard way. Youknow, I've covered the vaccine. I've been pro-vaccine during that. And I sortof tried to block vaccine hesitant people away. And I didn't think much ofthem.
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And where did that really get me? And where did that get us? Who knows? So ashard as it, I think my philosophy is as hard as it is to listen to peoplesometimes, you have to, you know, or else you lose them forever or the next onethat comes along or what have
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you, you know, and you've just got to keep communicating in a positive mannerand just, yeah, that's my sort of way of looking at climate change.
0:26:13
Yeah, well when you mock and belittle people, you're just going to push themmore and more into the arms of whatever extreme side they view things, right?
0:26:21
Yeah, totally.
0:26:22
Talking about what people think is extreme, but I don't necessarily, you spentsome time with the Extinction Rebellion.
0:26:27
Yeah, and I thought they were extreme beforehand.
0:26:30
Beforehand.
0:26:31
Yeah. Beforehand. And it wasn't Extinction Rebellion, but it was part of thesame movement that blocked the motorway in Wellington quite a few times, withthe passenger rail movement. And look, I'll be honest, I just, you know, I'mjust like, shivers. And this fits into this sort of this conversation thatwe're having.
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I'm just like, this is not a way to communicate something with people, justgetting in the way and blocking them and hassling them and actually you'rebloody annoying and get off the roads and maybe they need a short sharp shockinside jail to teach them a lesson. I was in that sort of camp. So yeah,meeting Extinction Rebellion was like meeting Alan and Valerie, anotherlearning experience for me.
0:27:11
Yeah, because they're not as bad as I thought they were. Being in Antarctica, Ican see why they feel the way they do. And it's a bit like Alan and Valerie andtheir climate change scepticism. You know, you've got to open yourself up to,well, why does someone feel like they need to glue themselves to a motorway orstop a fuel tanker or chain themselves to a bridge and stop all the traffic inLondon?
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because they just feel so frustrated and unlistened to that they don't knowwhat else to do. And you really got to kind of go, well, I can see why they doit, because I can now.
0:27:51
Yeah, I've always admired them, because I would just simple not have the ballsto, I think they're incredible people. But I've also wondered how successfulthose sorts of tactics really are, but they did right. I mean, one of the womenwas saying to you, well, we've
0:28:03
tried everything else and you didn't listen and this is all we have left. Andto be fair, I mean, that's how everything's been changed through protest,whether peaceful or less
0:28:13
so, right? Yeah. And, you know, if you put it in that context, you know, theVietnam War, the Springbok tour, you know, there's a reason that we haveprotest. And now we have this issue that is, you know, the biggest, you know,one of the biggest issues facing the world. And we're probably going to see alot more of this kind of thing. We're not going to see less people doing this.And you can't see things in isolation.
0:28:39
Who knows how big it's going to get? Who knows what kind of influenceExtinction Rebellion and the protest movement is going to have in 5, 10, 15years time. Who knows where it'll lead?
0:28:49
Hopefully we won't need them. Although I'm not going to hold my breath, to beperfectly honest. That would be ideal. Yeah. Talking kind of a little bit aboutcommunication in the media, as you have said, it's complicated to discuss andget across in the correct manner and in a non-fear-mongering way. But what isthe media's responsibility to talk about these sorts of issues and particularlyclimate change? Because I don't know if anywhere is doing a particularly goodjob in terms of mainstream media.
0:29:16
Yeah, you know, I put my hand up and take the blame for that as one of NewZealand's most senior journalists who's held a number of roles in this area andjust saying, look, I, you know, I've failed down the years, you know, untilnow. And there's so many problems to do with it. It is incredibly complicatedto talk about the ETS, carbon credits, this sort of thing, sea level rise. Itis incredibly complicated and trust me, I know a lot about communicatingcomplex stories, a lot. I've been doing it off and on my entire life. And soit's right up there in terms of that.
0:29:54
Then of course, there is the fatigue that people feel like they've heard enoughand they don't want to hear more. And we know that the media can see thatthrough clicks and ratings and vibe, you know, general vibe and stuff likethat. And so there's the fatigue. And then there is the fear factor, you know,
0:30:14
where people have anxiety and that turns them off from reading and learningmore about it as well. So you've just got this-
0:30:22
Perfect storm.
0:30:23
You know, I hate to use the word storm.
0:30:24
It's quite appropriate, really.
0:30:26
Yeah, it is, it is, it is, it is. And you've got this perfect storm of thingsgoing on. And, you know, the media does have a responsibility to take on ourhard issues. And in saying that, you know, the New Zealand media has someincredible climate specialists that are out there working. And in some ways,you know, as someone who has been in the media, and, you know, there was verylittle science in the media when I started and actually there's been an
0:30:52
exponential increase. It might not be what everybody wants. And actually thereare a number of climate specialists who are out there doing the mahi every dayin the mainstream media in New Zealand who are really, really good. And this isin a media that is under attack and is losing specialists left, right andcentre.
0:31:10
So in some ways, if you were to come in and say, hey, there's actually a numberof areas where there's big issues and no specialists. You know, so what I'msaying is, yep, it might not be great, but it's better than with a lot of otherstuff. But yeah, the media can always do more on climate change, has to. Andhopefully this, what I've done is a small bit to sort of righting my wrongsand, you know, always kind of get it going. And it's, it's been cool hearingfrom all the climate journos I really respect them, whose stuff I read,
0:31:41
and they're like, good on you, man, for getting in there and giving it anothernudge. But yeah, there's no way to sugarcoat it, that the media can do morewhen it comes to climate. Simple, that's the answer.
0:31:55
Yeah, it's figuring out how to do it in a way that actually moves the needle,though, isn't it? I don't envy you, and I don't think there's blame to beleveled at you or other people, because you're right, the journalism and mediain general is massively under attack at the moment. But it is so difficult, andit's so difficult to do it in a way that actually engenders any change.
0:32:15
Anyway, it's a funny one, because you want to talk to consumers and to peopleevery day about what they can do, because that tends to change what governmentsdo. But I've always been of the opinion that if we really want to change theworld, we need to change business. But of course, the way to do that leads backto the consumer. But then you talk to people and they say, well, it's not myfault this is happening. I know, I know this isn't your fault specifically,
0:32:36
but you are through what we move everything else. So it's complicated who youtalk to, what you say, how you say it. Yeah, I don't envy you.
0:32:45
It's not like there's one truth when it comes to climate change. Obviouslythere is in terms of there's a scientific truth that it's happening, but forindividuals there's all sorts of different ways of looking at it how fast weshould act how to fix them etc and we know that it's politically divisive We'vegone from a Labour Greens government that in one view to a National Act NewZealand First government That's got quite a you know their views on how to dealwith it are quite distinct
0:33:11
So you you're already appealing to a divided audience. So you add the dividedaudience to the climate change complexity, to the climate change fatigue, tothe climate change fear, and you've got very, very complicated things going onin terms of how you reach and deal with that audience and this issue. And, youknow, for me, the bigger picture comes really back down to, well,
0:33:37
who knows where it's going to start or what's going to happen, but ultimatelyit's about leadership, really, whether it's the individuals or at the top orsomewhere in between. That's what's needed. We are in a crisis. What ishappening in Antarctica is a crisis for the world and we need leadership to get
0:33:56
out of that crisis. And that's what I've said in the documentary. ErnestShackleton, very famous explorer in and around Antarctic area, was trying toget to the South Pole. And for all of the people who haven't read about him, orfor all the people who have, very heroic and courageous leader in a crisis,able to make quick decisions and change things
0:34:19
in a crisis. And realistically, that's what the world needs now, is we are in acrisis and we need some form of leadership to bring all of this together andhelp us get out of it. And at some point that will come, whether it's from oneperson or multiple people or whatever, at some point that will come because ithas to. Because humans can adapt, you know, we do adapt to stuff all of thetime. And when I'm in Antarctica, I'm adapting to a new world. That's what Iadapt to having to talk to someone over breakfast.
0:34:52
I know it's funny, but it's true. You know what I mean? You have to adapt. Thealgae in the ocean, an organism, scientists have shown that that adapts towarmer sea temperatures. It does change.
0:35:07
It changes and helps to survive. Humans can adapt as well. So we are going tofind a way out of this. Who knows what it is or how or who or when and why, butwe will because that's what humans do. But yeah, it's about leadership andleadership in a crisis really. And it's about, that can be individualleadership. I'm trying to show
0:35:30
a little bit myself, a tiny, tiny bit, not just in the way that I act orwhatever, but by doing this documentary, doing the mahi around it and thenhaving conversations like you and using my platform, I'm trying to do my tiny,tiny bit in this big world to show some leadership. And that's what's needed bya whole lot of us really to get out of it.
0:35:53
Absolutely.
0:35:54
I wouldn't underestimate your impact. It's interesting you say that leadershipwill come. Is that your way of saying that you don't think we have it inposition now? I don't know if I should ask you that question. It's a bit meanfor
0:36:03
a political reporter. I don't mean that in terms of who's in New Zealand oranything like that or who's in other countries or whatever, but I just mean ingeneral, I think we just need leadership to get out of this. It's actuallybigger than who's in power at the moment or whatever. But looking politically,we have seen it energised down the years. Jacinda Ardern energised climatechange. People can do it.
0:36:34
The parties on the right have come an incredibly long way, in some parts ofthem, towards climate change as well. Corporate New Zealand's come a long waytowards it as well. There's definitely the scope and ability there for climateto once again become one of the top issues and us to move in some sort ofdirection around it. I know this sounds like a bit of a wishy-washy answer butI think what I'm trying to say is I don't think it would take much for climate
0:37:03
to be fired up as a major movement here in New Zealand. All the makings of itare there and it'll happen again. It's just when and how. That answer makesense in the end?
0:37:15
It's a really nicely uplifting one actually, I like that.
0:37:17
Yeah, yeah, it's just going to. And you do look at it and think, you know, aclimate-based movement, you know, could be ignited quite easily. That's just meas an observer of New Zealand and an observer of politics and, you know, thatwould be something that could have some genuine power in this country. Agreed.So there you go, there's your next project.
0:37:42
Yeah, I thought about it.
0:37:46
People like you and there's others out there that are slightly different toyour normal usual suspects is maybe where something could come from. So yeah,I'm being quite serious.
0:37:55
Yeah, there are some really interesting people out there, some really youngerpeople. I feel so old when I say that but some really incredible younger peoplecoming through.
0:38:03
Yeah, totally.
0:38:04
Interesting to see what happens.
0:38:05
Now, I have two more questions for you. Now, you mentioned before we jumped onrecording that with this new role you have with Stuff, and you're going to dosome exciting stuff and move into the climate change conversation. What is ityou're looking to do?
0:38:20
Well, I'm looking to, I want to stay on with this message around Antarctica. Iwant to focus a lot on Antarctica to be honest and it's not going anywhere. I'mconnected to it now and I want to continue to communicate about what'shappening down there. And yeah, you know, I want people to look back and go,one day, and you know, just to go, well you know, Paddy got into climate changelate as he does a lot of things, but when he got in he gave it a bloody goodshot and he communicated about Antarctica and he got the message out aboutAntarctica. And I had a roommate down there
0:38:58
in my bunk room, Professor Craig Cary, who was an amazing Antarctic scientist,had been there 18 times, was one of the mighty totoro of Antarctica. He was acool guy and he was at the University of Waikato there and he gave me a big hugwhen I left Antarctica and he was the last person I hugged at Scott Base, andthe last person I saw. And sadly, people would have seen this
0:39:20
because the documentary is dedicated to him. You know, he died afterwards, youknow, came back to New Zealand and died of natural causes and stuff like that.So, you know, I want to honor his work and the work of other scientists
0:39:32
and people who are down in Antarctica keeping Scott Base running, and just makecommunicating about what's happening down there one of my things. I don't know reallyhow else to explain it and people go, oh well, he tried.
0:39:44
And that's all you can do. You almost sound like you feel a little bit guiltythat you joined this message late, but I really don't think there's anything tofeel guilty about.
0:39:52
I don't feel guilty. I feel like it was a missed opportunity. I feel a littlebit guilty, but you know, it's sort of like, oh well, I'm here now.
0:40:00
Exactly.
0:40:01
And that's the main thing.
0:40:02
You're here now and you're going to have massive impact because of who you are.Yeah. Well, my last question for you is my favourite question and I askeverybody the same one. So, brace yourself. If you were a supreme globaloverlord, what would be the one thing you would change immediately to make theworld a better place?
0:40:16
This is a good question. So if I was supreme global overlord, so like Prime Ministeror President of the world. Yeah. And so what would I change? I want to get thisone right, but what would I change?
0:40:28
Yeah, what would you change to make the world a better place? I mean, it couldbe something as simple as banning raisins, which I'd be on board with.
0:40:32
I would definitely ban raisins.
0:40:34
Oh, good.
0:40:35
Second.
0:40:36
You've got my vote.
0:40:37
Yeah, you know, yeah, what would I ban? So I'd want to have a real impact,wouldn't I? I would ban, I wouldn't ban arguing. We'd have a good world ifnobody argued. I would try and ban arguing but I feel that that would causearguments.
0:40:56
Maybe you'll ban arguments where people resort to ad hominem arguments, maybe.So instead of arguing the point in a respectful manner, they just reply to oneanother. I don't know.
0:41:07
Yeah, you know, I just look at the world in Aotearoa New Zealand and I just, asI get older, I'm 47 now, I just look at us wasting time worrying about thingsthat don't matter and arguing about stuff that doesn't matter and slowingourselves down about stuff that doesn't matter and I'm someone who's done thatin my own life. I've had problems in my own life, I've been an alcoholic, I'vehad things that have slowed me down and I've worried about things that Ishouldn't have been worried about.
0:41:40
And I think, Aotearoa New Zealand and the world, we've got the propensity to dothat as well. It's human nature, and we slow ourselves down by nitpicking andworrying about bullshit a lot of the time, things that just don't matter. I'mnot even going to name the things on my mind, because, you know, they'll firepeople up. But I would actually ban people from worrying about things thatdon't matter.
0:42:05
And that would just be the coolest world ever to be in.
0:42:09
Hopefully.
0:42:10
Yeah.
0:42:11
Actually cool, you know?
0:42:12
Two degrees cooler.
0:42:13
I like it.
0:42:14
Okay. I get a different answer every time.
0:42:16
Yeah. That's really interesting. Okay. I think I've banned arguing and worryingand raisins.
0:42:20
I'm a fan.
0:42:21
I'm a fan of particularly the last two, Worrying and Raisins. Worrying is justsuffering twice, right? I like it. Amazing. Is there anything else you want tosay? Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate you joining me. It's fascinatingand not as depressing as I expected, actually, because I thought it would be,but I love that you have so much hope. It's really, really nice. Well, that wasless depressing than I expected. I've got to be honest, I didn't want to watchthe documentary.
0:42:52
I know enough about this stuff. I speak to enough climate scientists to realisethat there isn't a lot of good news in the climate science world. There's lotsof good news stories outside, but when you look at actual climate science andwhat we're doing and whether it's moving the needle, it's not a cheerful story.I wasn't excited about it.
0:43:12
However, it was actually a really good watch. I really enjoyed it and he didbalance it well. There were some great news stories and there were some reallyinteresting solutions he talked about. But I did appreciate the fact that hedid it, right? This is a hard topic for people to get their heads around.
0:43:27
It's a hard topic to talk about. I think it's a very, well, brave is not theright word, I suppose, but actually, no, brave is the word. It's a hard thingto tackle in the correct way. And I'm delighted that Paddy is here now, helpingus talk about climate change, helping us get this important message across, andI am really appreciative that
0:43:44
he joined me. Thank you again, Paddy, for your time. See you back next weekwith another this or that. Till then, kia ora. And there you go. I hope youlearned something and realised that being green isn't about everything in yourpantry matching with those silly glass jars or living in a commune. If that'syour jam, fabulous. But sustainability at its heart is just using what youneed. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't keep it to yourself and feelfree to drop me a rating and hit the subscribe button. Kia ora
0:44:09
it to yourself and feel free to drop me a rating and hit the subscribe button.Kia ora and I'll see you next week.
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