Ireland is often described as one of the most food-secure countries in the world. But Mary Robinson thinks that narrative is fooling us.

In this conversation, I sit down with Ireland's first female president, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and founding member of The Elders to explore what food security, climate change and community really mean and why the solutions to our biggest global problems might begin much closer to home.

We talk about Ireland's dependence on imported food, the importance of reconnecting with the land and the people who grow our food, and why Mary increasingly believes that local communities are where meaningful change happens.

Mary shares the story of SEWA, a women's trade union in India with over four million members, showing how communities can build their own resilience to climate change and protect the people most vulnerable to its effects. We also explore a powerful idea from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: that we have duties to our communities, and that giving back can help us become more fully ourselves.

And towards the end of our conversation, Mary tells me about sitting alone in Greenland, listening to a glacier break apart. It's an experience that moved her to tears and led to a realization that brings this whole conversation together.

We are nature. And what we do to nature, we do to ourselves.

Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/HarrisonGardner

CONNECT WITH ME

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_harrisongardnerWebsite: https://www.harrisongardner.net/

Buy my new book: Heat Shelter Water Food
https://www.harrisongardner.net/bookstore-1

Project Dandelion: https://www.projectdandelion.live/

SEWA – Self Employed Women’s Association: https://www.sewa.org/

Mr. Robinson Documentary: https://www.mrsrobinsonfilm.com

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself crying in my car after listening to a podcast about a change to how the Trump administration interprets harm under the Endangered Species Act. It got me thinking about responsibility, unintended consequences, and what it means to cause harm without meaning to.

That question led me somewhere unexpected: to a conversation about the things that stop us from making the changes we know are necessary in our lives.

I think a lot of it comes down to three things: capacity, capability, and confidence. Do we have the time and emotional space to care? Do we have the skills and knowledge to do something about it? And do we believe that our actions can make a difference?

In this solo episode, I explore how those three things connect, why a history of small successes can help us build momentum, and how our attempts to solve problems can sometimes make them worse when we're too afraid to admit we've got something wrong.

I also tell a story from my time working with a community in Ahmedabad, India, and a young woman who found somewhere to belong when she had nowhere else to go. It changed the way I think about security, and what it means to have enough to share with someone else.

We can't all solve the biggest problems in the world. But we can start by scaling them down to something we can understand, learn from, and act on.

Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/HarrisonGardner

CONNECT WITH ME

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_harrisongardnerWebsite: https://www.harrisongardner.net/

Bookstore: https://www.harrisongardner.net/bookstore-1

00:00 What Stops Us From Taking Action?

01:38 Trump's Endangered Species Rule and Responsibility

05:43 From Anger to Islands of Sanity

10:03 The Three Cs: Capacity, Capability and Confidence

10:51 Capacity: Time, Mental Space and Emotional Bandwidth

19:10 Capability: Learning Practical Skills

21:40 Confidence, Mistakes and Shame

26:27 The Flywheel: From Small Wins to Agency

28:59 How to Scale Big Problems Down

32:45 Community, Security and Belonging

39:56 Climate Carnival and What Comes Next

40:41 A Challenge: Find One Small Thing You Can Do

42:21 Support the Show

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the way we build our homes and cities is part of the problem and the solution is already around us?

Architect Robert Bourke joins me to explore how we can rethink the way we build, from the materials we use to the relationship between buildings, nature and the communities around them.

With construction contributing significantly to global carbon emissions, Robert questions why concrete, steel and glass have become the default and why we should look at existing buildings before building new ones.

But sustainable architecture isn't just about materials. It's about seeing buildings as part of a much bigger system: how water moves through our cities, how our streets affect rivers, and how we can design places that work with nature rather than against it.

From a tiny three-square-metre extension that won two national awards to a community rain garden designed to help absorb rainfall and reduce flooding, Robert shows how small, thoughtful interventions can make a difference.

What would our towns and cities look like if we stopped treating buildings as isolated objects and started designing for the systems we all depend on?

Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/HarrisonGardner

CONNECT WITH ME

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_harrisongardner

Website: https://www.harrisongardner.net/

Bookstore: https://www.harrisongardner.net/bookstore-1

Pre-order my new book HEAT-SHELTER-WATER-FOOD

https://www.harrisongardner.net/heat-shelter-water-food

Robert Burke Architects: https://www.rba.ie/

Act Now Collective: https://actnowcollective.org/

Chapters

00:00 — Teaser

00:00:55 — Intro

00:02:41 — Why We Need to Rethink How We Build

00:11:27 — What Traditional Buildings Can Teach Us

00:17:50 — Building with Light, Space and Nature

00:25:55 — The Three-Square-Metre Extension That Won Two Awards

00:31:05 — The Value of Working with an Architect

00:39:05 — Building for Permanence and Longevity

00:46:10 — From Architecture to Landscape Systems

00:50:15 — Learning to Think in Systems

00:55:39 — Restoring Rivers and Working with Water

00:57:00 — The Knocklyon Sponge Scape and Rain Garden

01:03:00 — Moving from Protecting Nature to Restoring It

01:08:05 — Learning from Communities and Farmers

01:12:13 — Advice for Young Architects

01:20:30 — How Small Changes Add Up

01:22:10 — Final Thoughts and Where to Find Robert

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