Matters of Consequence

Matters of Consequence is a podcast about people who chose to act when something felt important enough not to ignore.Host Michael Hanf speaks with guests from different walks of life about what happens before action and what follows after. About doubt, responsibility, trade offs, and the cost of staying with a decision when things get complicated.These are conversations about people in motion. Not about perfect answers, but about living with the consequences of what we choose to do.

If you watch the Winter Olympics today, women’s bobsled is part of the program.That wasn’t always the case. In the early 1990s, women were banned from competing in the sport.In this episode of Matters of Consequence, host Michael Hanf speaks with Alexandra Allred and Liz Parr-Smestad, two of the women who were part of the early effort to change that. They talk about what it was like to be involved in opening bobsled to women, the physical risks involved, and what that period of their lives looked like from the inside.

In this episode of Matters of Consequence, Michael Hanf speaks with Maggie Tokuda-Hall, author and co-founder of Authors Against Book Bans.Maggie is an author of children’s and young adult novels. In 2023, she was asked by a publisher to quietly change her work to make it more “acceptable”. She said no, and she said it publicly.What followed was not a short or contained moment. It brought visibility, backlash, fear, and a much larger responsibility than she expected. Maggie put much of her own writing aside and became deeply involved in fighting book bans and censorship.In this episode they talk about what it means to stay with a decision once the cost keeps unfolding, how her understanding of being an author has changed, and when writing stops being enough.

This is a short outtake from my conversation with Maggie Tokuda-Hall, author and co-founder of Authors Against Book Bans.Alongside her own experience with censorship, Maggie talks here about how she sees AI showing up in the same landscape. Not as a technical issue, but as something that displaces expertise, weakens public institutions, and shapes who gets to decide what information people can access.This outtake focuses on that part of the conversation.

In this episode of Matters of Consequence, Michael Hanf speaks with Sönke Marahrens.Sönke works at the intersection of security policy, defense, and foresight. His work focuses on hybrid threats, forms of conflict that operate below the threshold of war and often go unnoticed until their effects are already deeply felt.The conversation explores what hybrid threats actually look like in practice. Disinformation, cyber pressure, legal manipulation, and small disruptions that gradually undermine trust and decision-making. Not as isolated events, but as patterns that exploit gray zones and existing cracks in society.They talk about preparedness and resilience, not as abstract concepts, but as everyday leadership challenges. About responsibility in situations where no single moment feels decisive. And about what it means to stay attentive when disruption becomes normal rather than exceptional.A conversation about risk, trust, and what it takes to respond before systems start to fracture.

In this episode of Matters of Consequence, Michael Hanf speaks with Clover Hogan, climate activist and founder of Force of Nature.The conversation explores climate anxiety, not as something to be fixed or pushed away, but as a response to paying attention. They talk about what it means to care deeply without burning out, and how people turn concern into action when the scale of the problem feels overwhelming.They discuss activism beyond slogans and protest, focusing instead on discomfort, responsibility, and speaking up inside systems that are slow to change. The episode also touches on the role of young people, moral clarity, and what happens when that clarity collides with institutions designed to maintain the status quo.A conversation about anxiety, action, and what it takes to hold both at the same time.

In this episode of Matters of Consequence, Michael Hanf talks with Stuart Goldsmith. Stuart is a stand-up comedian who also describes himself as a climate comedian. He uses humour to talk about climate change, climate anxiety, and subjects that are often difficult to approach directly. Michael invited Stuart after seeing one of his performances and wondering how to feel about people laughing about the climate crisis. The conversation explores whether humour has a place in this context, and what it allows that other forms of communication might not. They talk about responsibility, hypocrisy, burnout, and the pressure to be perfect before speaking up. They also talk about comedy as a space where failure is allowed, and sometimes necessary.

This is a short introduction to Matters of Consequence.A podcast driven by curiosity, conversations, and the things people care about.