But what if that idea itself is the risk?

In a world shaped by climate volatility, geopolitical tension, and deeply interconnected systems, the notion that risk sits neatly in spreadsheets or policy frameworks feels increasingly… fragile. Because what we’re dealing with now isn’t just risk as we’ve traditionally understood it—it’s uncertainty that cascades, compounds, and evolves faster than the institutions designed to contain it.

The Romans had a phrase: “Fortuna fortes adiuvat” - fortune favours the bold. But boldness today may not be about control or prediction. It may be about something far less comfortable: the willingness to rethink the systems we rely on, and the assumptions that underpin them.

Australia offers a fascinating lens into this tension. A nation deeply exposed to climate extremes, yet also deeply invested in the economic structures that contribute to them. A country with growing policy ambition—on climate, on ESG, on resilience—but where the question remains: are we adapting, or are we simply optimising the status quo?

Because resilience, in its truest sense, isn’t about bouncing back. It’s about whether the system itself needs to change.

And that brings us to the heart of today’s conversation. If we accept that we are living within complex adaptive systems—systems that don’t respond linearly, that don’t respect institutional boundaries, and that often behave in ways we don’t fully understand - then what does it actually mean to be prepared?

What does it mean to govern? To invest? To lead?

And perhaps most importantly… what are we still getting wrong?

Today, I’m joined by Dr. Paul Barnes - an expert in systemic resilience, climate risk, and geopolitical security - to explore these questions. Not from the perspective of easy answers, but from a willingness to sit with complexity, challenge assumptions, and think differently about the future we’re already stepping into.

This is The Malachite Dialogues.

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.

Drawing on his new book The Big Fix: Rebuilding Australia's National Security, Palazzo argues that our leaders have chosen to see China as the primary threat, while ignoring the far greater danger posed by climate change. We unpack what happens when climate is omitted from defence policy: a military unprepared for natural disasters and the paradoxes and consequences it poses, a society strained by repeated crises, and a nation locked into fragile energy and supply chains.

Palazzo explains why AUKUS narrows our imagination, how the Overton Window of Australian security has been shifted away from reality, and what a climate-centred ‘Strategic Defensive’ posture could look like. This is a fearless conversation about courage, consequences, and the urgent need to redefine national security in a warming world.

We unpack how leaders can design the future instead of simply managing the present, why courageous conversations are so often avoided, and how narratives shape our politics, policies, and possibilities.

From the global climate crisis to shifting the Overton Window — and even lessons from Donald Trump’s redefinition of political discourse — this is a masterclass in seeing the big picture, making sense of complexity, and leading with both urgency and wisdom.