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Today's episode is a real honour to be sharing. Alexander Pui is the guest, and he is an old colleague and someone I hold closely as a professional and person. He has been developing a significant volume of work across his career in both academia and industry for two decades, working in some of Australia and the broader region's largest and most influential organisations.

Alex is an engineer and lawyer by training, received a PhD for his work in applied statistics specific to understanding hydrology and flood risk in the context of a changing climate, and is now a fellow of the University of NSW's Climate Change Research Centre and works up in Japan leading climate risk engagements for many of Asia's largest businesses. He has and continues to do outstanding work, especially at the frontlines of trying to merge and blend the incredibly complex science of a changing climate with the daily pragmatism and operational efficiency of large corporates. His work in exploring why there is such a discrepancy in how scientists describe the perils of a changing climate and the existential threat it poses to human and non-human life as we know it compared to the largely benign or muted results of individual - organisational climate scenario work is outstanding.

We chat about a lot in this conversation - it's a bit of a climate101 primer, how climate does or doesn't fit into enterprise risk management frameworks, the necessity of collaboration and crossing into new disciplines and worldview, the challenge of balancing urgent action against all that is uncertain or unknown about how a changing climate will affect economies and societies, incentives, being the green sheep of his family and how to be the change as a translator and connector of disciplines, skills and knowledge sets.

The theme for the newsletter this month is mavericks, and the work Alex does, what many of us do, requires some of the maverick spirit. An unorthodoxy in thinking and being that seeks to highlight hypocrisy, challenge norms and pursue curiously. I've seen it firsthand with Alex - unconditional courage despite the consequences.

Arguably the first climate maverick was James Hansen, the NASA scientist who testified in front of the US Senate in 1988 on climate change. I can't decide if it would have been easier or more difficult to speak about climate change in that period. A changing climate wasn't part of the mainstream zeitgeist at the time, and it may have seemed like an impossibility to many that humans could change the climate through their collective actions so sharing something so incredulous possibly seemed insane. Perhaps though, the lack of politicised nonsense about the problem and its necessary responses were still to arise and maybe that meant it could just be said.

Regardless, James Hansen was and remains a maverick, and in 1988, in that public setting he announced “Global warming is not a prediction. It is happening.” And yet here we are 36 years later.

Until next time, thanks for listening.

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