Wild with Sarah Wilson

You know the latest IPCC* Assessment Report? The one that came out at the end of 2021 that the UN secretary general dubbed “Code Red for humanity”? Australian climate scientist Joëlle Gergis was one of its lead authors responsible for its 3 million words of truly stark wake-up-call content. This episode I catch up with her at the Byron Writer’s Festival (where she was launching her new book on cli...

Right, we’re doing something different this episode. Uber-talented radio/TV/podcast host and contrarian Josh Szeps has me on his Uncomfortable Conversations podcast to chat sugar, cannonau wine, class wars, woke-speak, ethics, the decline of innovation in wealthy countries, how men around the world behave on dating apps and the perils of looking like could be on an insurance ad.  For some con...

If only we all learned to think more we might solve the problems of the world. This is a thesis British philosopher A.C. Grayling has devoted much of his life to via his 40-odd books, the philosophy college he founded in London and his engagement in global debates on euthanasia, the existence God, Brexit and beyond. In his latest book, For the Good of the World, he applies it to the challenge of a...

This episode is an intense one. It’s with multi-Walkley Award-winning Australian photographer Andrew Quilty who has spent the past eight years living and working in the Afghanistan capital Kabul, documenting the conflict for publications around the world. We talk about the details of the decades-long occupation and go into the story of that day - one year ago - when the Taliban arrived at the gate...

In exclusive pockets around the world rich, white (mostly) men are prepping for end times. They are hoarding resources and building bunkers, putting billions into funding their place on Mars. They could be funding renewable energy projects, or putting their efforts into restoring political stability, you know, finding ways for humanity to survive on our beloved Earth. But no.  Irish author an...

Our existential risk – the probability that we could wipe ourselves out due to AI, bio-engineering, nuclear war, climate change, etc. in the next 100 years – currently sits at 1 in 6. Let that sink in! Would you get on a plane if there was a 17% chance it would crash? Would you do everything you could to prevent a calamity if you were presented with those odds?  My chat today covers a wi...

The wealthy elite once signalled their status with expensive handbags and super yachts. Now they do it with what Rob Henderson calls “luxury beliefs” - so-called politically correct pronouncements that, in reality, only the rich can afford to live by and thusly differentiate them from the rest of us. We’re talking about such wokenesses as “defund the police” and calls for drug legalisation, death...

Breaking things up a bit this episode with an AMA from London where I'm staying with my good friend Melissa Hemsley, cookbook author, sustainable food advocate and humanitarian. Mel kindly reads out a bunch of juicy questions: Do you have botox? How do we stay hopeful in the climate crisis when giving up and just enjoying the few remaining "normal years" is easier? Should 16 year-olds be allowed t...

Wintering is the process of resting and withdrawing in dark, or fallow, periods, respecting the rhythm of the cycles of nature and the role of winter. A lost art in a summer-based culture. British author Katherine May writes:  “There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open up and you fall through them to somewhere else..into a sad and lonely and isolated place."&nb...

We can’t make sense of the world anymore, right? How can we when our leaders lie, the media publishes non-truths, conspiracies spread faster than facts and the algorithms favour bullshit? Recently, I’ve started following a “Sensemaking movement” of philosophers, renegades, sociologists and psychologists who are trying to return the world to truthfulness. And it excites me no end! Sensemaking is a...

He famously wrote the New York magazine essay that told us “it is worse, much worse than you think” and painted an apocalyptic picture of an “Uninhabitable Earth” by 2100. The essay, which became the #1 New York Times bestseller 'The Uninhabitable Earth', singlehandedly shook the world into “OK, we’re officially freaked out” mode. But five years on, is the climate emergency as bad as David Wallace...

She spent two years and three months in a brutal Iranian prison. In solitary confinement for half of it. For a crime that was entirely made up. The Melbourne University lecturer was attending a conference in Iran when she was randomly captured at the airport and charged with “espionage” based on zero evidence. How do you survive such horror? How do you cope with living in a cell with nothing but a...

I really love the wild theory we explore in this episode. About 1500 years ago some obscure Catholic pope declared we probably shouldn’t marry our cousin. And from here the “West” was born. A psychologically peculiar subset of humanity then rose to dominate the planet, namely western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic folk. You know, WEIRD people. You and I. Joseph Henrich is a Ha...

I have been wanting to talk blokedom for a very long time: How and why it defines so much about Australia; how it excludes and masks the existence of class inequalities; and how it holds us back as a nation. The myth of the larrikin bloke is something writer Lech Blaine has been studying for some time. Hailing from a very working class background in Toowoomba, Queensland, he went on to be the firs...

In 1992 Julia Cameron published a book that saw the whole world (it seemed) suddenly writing "morning pages", these free-from diary entries that unblocked creativity. The Artist's Way was the title and it became a global bestseller in 40 languages. Alicia Keys, John Cleese and Tim Ferris are fans; Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, “Without The Artist’s Way there would have been no Eat, Pray, Love.”  ...

In this brain-bending ep we explore this wild idea: are there good brains and can we find a way to use them to save the planet. My guest is Professor George Paxinos AO, the world’s leading brain expert. The 78-year-old Greek-Australian is the most famous scientist you’ve never heard of – he’s identified and named more parts of the brain than anyone in history. He’s also a climate activist (and cyc...

Sheena Iyengar’s The Art of Choosing – the book and the wildly popular TED talk – posits a profoundly paradoxical idea. Despite what we might think, we don’t like choice, or at least not too much of it. Which is why arranged marriages lead to more lasting love than “romantic” marriages and ALDI stocks one version of everything. To make the best decisions in our lives, there is a “magic number” of...

THIS WILD ELECTION: EP 12, Last thoughts…with Betoota Advocate It's been a wild ride but here ends our journey together. Wendell Hussey from the awesome satirical news site and I answer last questions about the election, who to vote for if you care about climate, what to do if there are no indies in your electorate, what if one of the parties directs my preferences (hint: they can't) and what do w...

For 15 years, successive governments have kicked the Indigenous Voice to Parliament can down the road. A referendum to enshrine a Voice into the constitution has been shown time and time again to be the most important first step to closing the yawning - and growing - gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Three quarters of Australians say they want it…and yet here we are again! Tod...

It’s looking very possible that this election will result in a hung parliament, where one of the parties must form a minority government with a bunch of independents. The implications of this are huge (and exciting!) and it’s worth knowing how it would work (and how it could be the right kind of shake-up we need). Former independent Tony Windsor was one of the crossbenchers who famously had to for...

Australia has become a country with one of the worst records for gender equality in the world. A picture worsened by the misogyny we've witnessed from within Parliament in the past 18 months. And so women are rallying this election according to many polls. This ep we cover the policies and commitments to look out for that will change the system for all women and finish by answering your questions...

Climate is the #1 issue this election for Australian voters. And yet politicians are making a meal of it and hiding their lacking climate policies in misinformation. This ep I outline each party’s climate policy (or lackthereof in the case of the Liberal National Party) and I invite The Australia Institute’s climate director Richie to sift through the classic climate lines/lies that are bandied ab...

Here, all your granular questions about voting answered in one spot. A great 101 for first timers or a primer for everyone who would like to be on top of things this year. What’s voting above vs below the line? How do I make my preferences work best? How do I know if my #1 vote won’t be passed onto another party? Are How To Vote cards dodgy? What if no one wins a majority of seats? Evan Ekin-Smyth...

Who is “Albo"? The Labor leader has been in politics for 26 years and yet many Australians struggle to name the guy or pick him in a line-up. His opponents capitalise on this and paint him as meek and not upfront, even “not on the ball”. In this chat with Karen Middleton, chief political correspondent for  The Saturday Paper  who also wrote Albanese’s biography, ...

There’s a lot we don’t know about our current Prime Minister. And what we do know - daggy dad, makes curry on the barbecue, Sharkies fan - is  crafted  by the ex-marketing man himself, the bloke who gave himself the moniker “ScoMo”. His biographer the Nine newspapers’ Sean Kelly joins me to talk through our PM'S past; the Hungry Jacks ad; how he left all previous jobs “under a cloud”; wh...