The Malachite Dialogues
The Malachite Dialogues is a podcast that explores the complex intersections of climate change, conflict, security, and diplomacy, guided by the transformative spirit of Malachite — a stone symbolising positive change, balance, and renewal.
Each episode invites futurists, artists, scientists, military strategists, activists, and innovators to the table — not just to diagnose the world’s challenges, but to imagine a more resilient, joyful, and secure future. Through calm, curious, and occasionally confrontational conversations, this podcast gives listeners a lens of realistic optimism in an era marked by uncertainty.
It’s not about quick fixes. It’s about courageous dialogue and the green spark of transformation.
Podcast # 3: Andrew Kelly – Antarctica, Eastern Philosophy and ‘Deep’ Leadership
In this episode, Andrew Kelly, former CEO of the Antarctic Science Foundation and planetary governance expert and I explore a profound and unexpected convergence: the icy vastness of Antarctica and the ancient Japanese principles of Shinto. We journey into a conversation that dissolves the boundaries between science, spirituality, leadership, and deep-time perspective.
As the world confronts the escalating realities of anthropogenic climate change, our usual tools – data, metrics, market logic, political cycles; feel increasingly inadequate. This episode asks:
What happens when we invite other ways of knowing into the conversation?
From the Shinto concepts of kami, the living presences within nature – and wa, the fragile harmony that binds people and place, to the silent immensity of Antarctica where all human certainty is humbled, we uncover a new lens for leadership in this era of planetary disruption.
Together we explore:
How Antarctica reveals truths beyond language, challenging our assumptions about control, dominance, and progress.
How Shinto’s reverence for the natural world reframes climate action not as resource management, but as relationship and responsibility.
Why deep-time thinking – from millennia-old ice to thousand-year-old Japanese trees, invites leaders to step out of short political and economic cycles.
How stillness, silence, and listening can become strategic tools in a world addicted to speed and certainty.
What courageous leadership looks like when grounded in humility, restraint, and ecological harmony.
This is not just a conversation about climate science.
It is a conversation about wayfinding – about how leaders can navigate an uncertain future by drawing upon wisdom from landscapes and traditions far older than our current crises.
If you’re seeking a richer, more introspective, and more human way to understand the anthropogenic climate challenge, and your place within it, this episode offers a powerful new compass.
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