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The Current Transcript for April 15, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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VOICE: It's really hard to watch and witness this. It's just heart breaking.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Documentary film director Sophie Lanfear had tears in her eyes, huddling on a boat off a Russian coastline, as her cinematographer trained the lens walruses plunging from a high cliff on the rocks below. It is a scene in Netflix's Our Planet series and it has enraged some parents of young children who find it too jarring, as well as some scientists who are critical of the link to climate change. We will hear Sophie Lanfear's defence of that scene and the research behind it and from a documentary maker who has been studying the effects of confronting viewers, adults and children, with the unvarnished pacts of climate change. Hear them in half an hour. Also today, the story of two women, Teresa and Amanda.

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VOICE: There's a misconception that postpartum depression means that the mother, the birther, doesn't love their child, when in fact I felt fierce, fierce love for my child.

AMT: Teresa Wong and Amanda Munday each suffered debilitating months of postpartum depression. We know that 20 percent of Canadian mothers go through some form of this and yet both Teresa and Amanda each talk about a void of understanding on the part of health professionals, birth coaches and those around them when it comes to mental health issues following childbirth. They join me with their stories in an hour. But we begin where the passions are high, the voices are strong and the decision is coming.

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VOICE 1: Are you ready to fight for an Alberta where it doesn't matter who you love, to whom you pray or the colour of your skin?

VOICE 2: Are you ready to scrap the carbon tax? Are you ready to stand up to the special interests that are attacking Alberta?

AMT: I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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As Alberta election looms, some voters 'stuck' on who to support

Guests: Jennifer Clark, Rima Coates, Ravin Moorthy

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VOICE 1: The NDP has tried to scare Edmontonians. We will preserve universal publicly funded medicare with patients at the heart of our health care system.

VOICE 2: Just yesterday, I stood with a group of Calgarians, people who had never voted for the NDP before and now they're rallying behind us.

AMT: The sounds of the last days on the campaign trail in Alberta this weekend. Polls throughout the campaign have consistently put Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party in the lead. Rachel Notley and the ruling NDP continue to struggle, despite a campaign period that included revelations about homophobic and racist comments by UCP candidates and questionable tactics during the party leadership contest that Mr. Kenney won in 2017. Already close to 700,000 Albertans have voted in advance polls. That's a record for Alberta. We have a panel of voters in Alberta to talk about what matters and what does not a day before everyone else heads to the polls. Rima Coates works in retail sales. She joins us from Edmonton. And in Calgary we're joined by Ravin Moorthy. He's an engineer for an oil and gas company. And Jennifer Clark, she's a legal assistant. Hi everyone. Welcome.

RAVIN MOORTHY: Good morning.

JENNIFER CLARK: Good morning.

RIMA COATES: Good morning.

AMT: I want to go around the table quickly just to hear a few words from each of you on how you are thinking of voting, if you haven't already voted in those advanced polls. Rima Coates, let's start with you.

RC: Good morning. Thanks. Well I'm leaning towards obviously NDP with Rachel Notley.

AMT: Jennifer Clark?

JC: I'm leaning towards UPC.

AMT: And Ravin Moorthy?

RM: I'm sort of stuck in the middle. Not decided as of yet.

AMT: What do you usually do Ravin?

RM: I've been a Conservative almost my entire life. I usually vote for the Conservative Party.

AMT: And now you're stuck?

RM: Now I'm a little bit stuck. I'm struggling between two very different versions of Alberta and trying to figure out which one we want to go with.

AMT: Okay well we're going to come back to that in a minute. So let's talk about the number one issue you feel is facing Alberta right now. Jennifer Clark what is it for you?

JC: Getting people working again and putting jobs back in Alberta.

AMT: And who do you think will do their best.

JC: I think Jason Kenney or one of the other Alberta parties will do it best.

a: Ravin Moorthy.

RM: I agree it's got to be the economy. People are really really struggling in Alberta. We're very very stubborn, high unemployment and you know the great days there I guess that ended in the last few months of 2014 in early 2015 don't look like they're coming back. We need a reset on what actually pays the bills in Alberta and which way we're going to go.

AMT: And Rima Coates, what about you? What's the big issue for you?

RC: I think the economy, like definitely jobs and right that behind health care and education.

AMT: And why health care Rima? Tell us a little bit more about why that matters so much to you right now.

RC: Well we I mean I think of this, we live in a country where you know our health care is for the most part free, but also that we have we access to resources and doctors and everyone. Well my daughter we just recently discovered she has MS and it was a very unusually aggressive form of it and we've been battling with this for the last three months. At present she's in the hospital and needs 24/7 care. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else right now other than here in Alberta and not get the care that we're getting. Just not knowing if she's going to be able to walk again or see again and definitely like health care is you know it's definitely up there with you know my priorities.

AMT: She's lost her sight as well with this form of MS?

RC: Yeah. One minute she's walking around having a great time and three days later she's home and we thought it was a stroke at first, but it it's a very agressive form that doesn't happen too often, but she's 23. So we're hoping a very good chance that she'll regain all or the majority of her vision and I mean, her hair needs to come back and she's in a wheelchair right now, but I mean we're very optimistic. There's so much work being done in MS with treatment and everything like that. So yeah we're definitely hoping it'll all come back. She's got about 50 percent so far of her vision.

AMT: So have health issues shaped your view of this election when you say health issues?

RC: Well beds and nurses and getting people working and research and just waiting times. Hospitals, like the emergency, we had to wait several hours on four different occasions at the University of Alberta ward. And just to get somebody to listen to us and just to take us seriously and do something about it and wait times was a big issue. But finally I mean it just before Christmas of course, actually the week right before Christmas, when everyone's on vacation or taking time off or something that we were finally one of the doctors happened just to go by, not expecting to be there, but got called in for something and probably hearing me speak really loudly at the desk and just listen to us.

AMT: Right well what you're saying about nurses and stuff I guess dovetails with economic issues. So let me bring the other two back in here. When it comes to economic issues, Ravin and Jennifer, Ravin, Mr. Kenney says he will bring back oil patch jobs and build a pipeline. Can he?

RM: I very much doubt it. You know in Alberta we have control of what happens in this province and I think that thats I dont think thats been our biggest problem certainly that that can be improved how we get pipelines built inside the province but over the years everyone wants a pipeline either east or west. I think thats what we need in order to as Im sure everyone has heard get former fair market value for resources that actually all the rest of the field of the federal government and I'm not sure which pemier, any premier, in any province that is going to take on the federal government and win.

AMT: Jennifer Clark, what do you think?

JC: I agree with Ravin. We need to work with the other provinces and we need to work with the federal government in order for that to happen. And right now it seems like there has been more and everybody doing their own thing instead of working together for one Alberta or one Canada because the resources that we have they do affect the rest of the country and without them, the whole country is at a loss, not just Alberta.

AMT: And so Jenifer Clark, what do you think Jason Kenney, who you will support, will do about that? Do you think he can do something about that?

JC: I think that he'll be able to at least open up talks and can hopefully bring people to a place of understanding while at the same time respecting the environment and the other views of the other people that also live in Alberta. We need to remember that we need to work together to get this done in order to bring in the jobs and bring in the pipelines like it was years ago.

AMT: Rima Coates, Rachel Notley's critics say she is not capable of turning around the province's economy. What do you say to that?

RC: Well you know what I think. me personally I think that I find her a little bit more sincere than Jason Kenney, no disrespect to anybody who's in favour of him, but it doesn't seem that he was you know very well liked. Maybe in Ottawa when he was there, I'm not too sure, but if Rachel Notley does in fact have Trudea's ear, then perhaps that may help push along this pipeline project because I agree with everyone else, we do need that project to go ahead and I don't know why it hasn't for so long. It's a matter of just somebody just saying OK let's do it. Let's get it built and let's get started. Like I'm not sure what the holdup is or where the holdup is.

AMT: So I'm wondering as you all talk about this, how this dovetails with the federal government. I'm wondering what you each think about Justin Trudeau and the policies of the federal Liberal government and how that fits into your voting choice. Jennifer?

JC: The Federal Liberals obviously they have a say right now in what happens with the pipeline. They bought out the pipeline. So we need to work together to make that happen whether it's PC that comes in or if it's the Liberals that stay.

AMT: Ravin?

RM: I think the challenge that a lot of Albertans are facing here is that the federal government for whatever reason and even previous federal governments have been unable to make a real good move on the energy file. And I think Alberta continues to hold out hope that you know it doesn't matter what happens in Ottawa that we're somehow going to get pipelines built. I think all that's happened in the last few years is we now all us tax payers own one and it hasn't been upgraded and it hasn't been expanded. So I don't know that factors into my personal voting choice because I think I've sort of almost given up hope when it comes to Ottawa and and doing I think what's in the best interest of the country and the best interest of Alberta.

AMT: Well Ravin you work in the energy industry, you're downtown Calgary, there's a lot of anger and frustration directed at the NDP provincial government. What are you hearing from your colleagues?

RM: I would agree I think people are very very frustrated with the NDP. I don't, I'm not sure they share that entire frustration. I think the premier may be a little late to the party on trying to you know move energy forward, but I think she's done a pretty fair job. I think she's gone out, she's tried to fight for the industry. I think she's fought for Calgary you know she's kind of made that a cornerstone of this last 30 days. I just again maybe I'm sounding a bit negative, I just dont know who in that chair can get something done until there's a will across the country to move pipelines forward. I mean we are roughly 1000 kilometers from the coastline in Vancouver, you know in BC and you know we can't get a pipeline there. We can't seem to go east and there is a market for our oil. There's a market for our gas. And the biggest message that I would have to people across the country about Albertans is we don't want anything other than we want the opportunity to work and help support everybody and I think that's the frustration I hear more than anything else. People just want to go to work.

AMT: And Mr. Kenney is threatening to cut off oil to BC. Is that the way to go?

RM: You know I very much doubt that. I think that by doing that, I think you're, it's saber rattling right now. I think you do that you more than anything else, I hope he understands that you're hurting producers. You know if you cut off those you know 350,000 barrels a day the go to the coasts, you're hurting those producers and I think that's the biggest challenge that we'd have when bottom lines are really thin right now.

AMT: Jennifer Clark, what do you think?

JC: I don't think that's the way to go either. We need to try to work together whether it's goin federally or working with BC.

AMT: Rima?

RC: Well I'd like to see Rachel Notley finish what she started. You know whether it's she's been pushing to get this pipeline operational and moving going forward and I'd like to think I mean she probably had so many obstacles with her last term that it's just maybe the momentums starting to pick up now. And you know I think it just we should give her another. She couldn't fix and do everything in just the one term. I don't think that was enough time definitely.

AMT: Well let me ask Jennifer what she thinks of that. Do you, she wants to let Rachel Notley finish what she started. What do you say to that Jennifer?

JC: I don't agree with that. She's had three, well almost four years to show what she could do and she hasn't gone forward yet in some of the things that were on her list when she came in four years ago.

RC: What she did actually. She helped I think helped increase like 2000 beds, I know she had said 4000 at the time, but at least 2000 beds. But there's so much red tape involved too, whether people putting up walls or barriers or something in her way. I think she has done as much as she possibly could with the time frame that she was given.

AMT: You are both respectfully disagreeing with each other, respectfully. But Ravin you are conflicted. What is it that you're conflicted about then? You're very clear on oil and gas. So what is it that's?

RM: Well you know I look at the situation here, it was four or five years ago and I think it's very hard for anybody to have come in and right the ship. You know 20 years ago Alberta should have been putting away dollars you know in a rainy day fund. We had one and that's all evaporated now. So I can't imagine that anybody, doesn't matter how smart you are or how good a politician you are, you're going to change that. I think the conflicting viewpoints come out as to are we going to spend our way out of this? Are we going to cut our way out of this? The one biggest factor that you know people have to understand in Alberta and around the country is the one major piece here that we don't control is the price of the resource. And you know that's not going back up to $150 a barrel any time soon. So we've got to be innovative. We've got to think a bit smarter. We've got to you know we believe in, I think most Albertans you know want to go back to work. I think most Albertans also believe in being fair socially and thinking about health care in maybe a bit different terms than maybe what we have because we have to make it work. Alberta has a spending problem. It's not necessarily a revenue problem.

AMT: Now there have been a lot of issues coming out in this election from UCP candidates including homophobic statements, support for white nationalists. Ravin Moorthy how have you seen that? How do you think Mr. Kenney has been dealing with those controversies?

RM: I don't think he's dealt with it very well and I think that's me like many of the you know "progressive conservatives" that's what's mostly giving us reason for concern. I think you know people are entitled to their opinions, I'm not suggesting they're not, but I think as a leader of a party, in 2019, in a country like Canada, you have to distance yourself from those kind of statements and you've got to come down very hard on people that make them. This isn't 50 years ago or 75 years ago.

AMT: Jennifer Clark how have you respond to what's been happening on that front?

JC: Well we found it kind of hard and actually we were talking about it with respect to how Alberta has changed even in the last five years with respect to opening up more to other issues with respect to gay and lesbian people and how everything is changing from you know five or ten years ago. But where do you draw the line on something a candidate said 10 years ago? Because we grow and we change as people. So how can you blame them today for something they said when they had no knowledge and were indifferent, but now that we've learned, they shouldn't be happening again.

AMT: Rima Coates, what do you think?

RC: Well I agree with what you said Jennifer, but at the same time, I think politicians are one thing, but you know Jason Kenney for example has been in politics for years and you would think that you would know that if you say something, eventually and it's going to back to haunt you. It may not be mainstream mentality or something, but since we are such a diverse province and we're getting and more so every year, we have to keep up or else we're going to be left behind. Enough of the country thinks of us as just this redneck province and that might be so for the most part, but timers are chagning and we have to change. And whatever a politician says or somebody in the public eye, when they say something or someone in their team says something, they need to be held accountable. I think if it for a lot of the comments and issues that were going around, sometimes I think people just want to hear an apology and then just move forward, instead of a lot of denial and a defensiveness and then of course the muscling.

AMT: Look I just want to ask you really briefly because we're almost out of time. We'll start with Ravin. In a column for the Calgary Herald, Don Braid wrote that Alberta could use a course in anger management, that the anger fueling Alberta politics is a corrosive force. What do you think?

RM: I would agree. You know and it's easy. I think what Mr. Kenney you know probably is going to be the premier next week, what he probably needs to understand is it's really easy to campaign on anger, it's much harder to govern on it. And you know if he doesn't make some progress in six months are Albertans going to turn on him? So I think Don Braid is right, we need to take stock of where we reasonably are and what's actually happening and not just be stirred up by two parties who are hungry for power.

AMT: Jennifer you'er a Kenney supporter. You don't sound angry.

JC: Well I think we just need to remember there's checks and balances for everything and it doesn't matter who the party leader us as Albertans and voters need to be sure to keep the party leaders and the candidates in check. Like it's our job. So there has been a lot going on with respect to mudslinging and it's actually taken away from the real issues that are here.

AMT: I'm out of time. Thank you. Thank you all of you.

JC: Thank you.

RM: Thank you.

RC: Thak you.

AMT: Looking forward to hearing, to watching this vote tomorrow. Everybody vote. Thank you. The three Alberta voters, Rima Coates in Edmonton, Ravin Moorthy and Jennifer Clark in Calgary. Wednesday morning, the morning after that vote, our national affairs panel will be all over those results. Listen for that. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. The news is next and then we're back. Stay with us.

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After complaints from parents, Our Planet director defends footage of walruses plummeting to their death

Guests: Sophie Lanfear, Sabrina McCormick

AMT: Hello. I'm at Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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AMT: Still to come, it's not an easy topic to talk about, but two Canadian mothers are opening up about their experiences with postpartum depression. I'll be joined by both of them for a candid conversation in half an hour. But first, a nature series with a warning for animal lovers.

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VOICE: They struggle up the 80 metre cliffs. As they get hungry, they need to return to the sea. In their desperation to do so, hundreds fall from heights they should never have scaled.

AMT: That is the unmistakable voice of British broadcaster David Attenborough, narrating a heartbreaking scene in the new Netflix documentary series, Our Planet. Dozens of walruses are clustered on the edge of a steep rocky cliff. The camera does not pull away when some of them begin to fall. It is painful to watch as the bodies of walruses smash along the rocks and plummet to their deaths. The footage was shot in Russia in 2017. The filmmakers connect what is happening to climate change, but the graphic portrayal has sparked some horrified reactions from viewers. Janice Duddy of White Rock, BC posted a warning to her friends on Facebook who might be watching with young kids. She told us how her 8-year-old son, Toby, reacted to what he saw.

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VOICE: He was sitting on the floor fairly close to the TV and he just crumpled into a heap and started sobbing. And it took us an hour to get him calmed down. Like he was just irrationally sobbing. It hit something in him that he and he couldn't articulate what was wrong, but he was so very upset.

AMT: Sophie Lanfear is the producer and director of this episode of Our Planet. She joins us from Bristol, England. Hello.

SOPHIE LANFEAR: Hi Anna Maria.

AMT: You were crying when you were filming that scene. I was watching the supplementary footage on the weekend. Tell me what was going through your mind.

SL: Yeah well the story was a bit of a shock to us as well. I mean we went with the intention of kind of filming these big haulouts and hoping to get sort of polar bear interactions and maybe some tumbling down the sort of the kind of shallower slopes, but I never expected them to climb to the top of those 80 metre cliffs. I mean I didn't even realize until I was there that walrus are even capable of climbing that high. So we were kind of in total shock really when we saw the first one starting to kind of fall off and it was exceptionally harrowing. One of the hardest things I've ever had to film.

AMT: You call a haulout? That's when they pull themselves out of the water and go up a cliff?

SL: Sorry yeah the haulout sites is the term for the sites where they come onto land. Basically that's what they're referred to as by the scientific community.

AMT: What did you find out about why the walruses were up on the cliff?

SL: So I mean the science, the kind of long term studies that have been going on in Russia, we worked with Anatoly Kochnev, he's a Russian biologist and he was on location with us the whole time and he's been looking at the history of these sites. He studied them for 35 years, but he's also spoken to local communities about the history for the last 100 years and what he's kind of put together through all the kind of verbal accounts and then all the data, empirical data that he's collected is these haulout sites are being used more and more frequently with the loss of sea ice. And the loss of sea ice is unprecedented at the moment, especially in the last few years in the Bering Sea, which is the kind of Sea between Alaska and the Russian coast. And it basically is the sea ice retreat too far north, the closest spot for walrus to rest. Normally they'd rest out on the sea ice, but without the sea ice, they have to come to land to rest. And so what you're seeing is increased pressure at these haulout sites with more walrus turning up more frequently and pretty much every year now. And these sites get very crowded and this one particular site, they go up these cliffs as they sort of spread out, they go around the side and then up to the top of the cliffs and then they wait up there until all the walrus decide to go back to the sea to feed.

AMT: How long did it take you to get that scene?

SL: We were there, it iwas an eight week shoot in total and so we were there, it takes about a week to get to the site anda week to get back. So six weeks in total we were sort of at the cliffs and the walrus come in pulses. They kind of come and go, you know they'll be there for a couple of days and they disappear again and then they come back and then they disappear.

AMT: And why was it important for you to show this given how graphic it is?

SL: I mean obviously we thought long and hard about this sequence and what to show and whether to show it and as a film maker making a show on sea ice essentially the whole film is about the ice and people understanding the importance of sea ice to our planet. And I think we felt that this sequence kind of sums up what the loss of sea ice, the set loss of sea ice can have on some animals. And so we just felt it was a very important thing to document really and the first people to do so.

AMT: And the link between this behaviour then and the sea ice and climate change is clear in your research with the Russian scientist you're working with?

SL: Yeah its not just the Russian scientist. I mean obviously Anatoly is the one with the most knowledge of particularly Russian haulout sites, but I got in touch with many people, many scientists that are published on this matter from the FWS, USGS, WWF optic program and the resounding kind of information coming through from data is that yes the ice loss is a problem because you know without the ice the water had no resting place. So they have to come to land and when theyre on land they can be disturbed by all manner of things from people to aeroplanes to polar bears. You know walrus spook really easily, so the stampedes actually that we show also in sequence before the cliff falling is also a major problem for walrus in terms of deaths. That probably kills more walrus than the cliffs does, overall across all the sites there is this stampeding behavior that is kind of inescapable when they're on the beaches.

AMT: As you know there are scientists who have responded to the scene by saying the correlation is not so clearcut. That walruses have been falling off cliffs to their deaths before sea ice started thinning or disappearing at such an alarming rate. How do you respond to that?

SL: Yes I would agree that walrus have fallen off cliffs in the past. The difference is the frequency with which this is happening now. In recent years the numbers of walruses have increased at these sites and whereas particular haul out sites used to happen maybe once every 10 years once every three years. I mean the site particularly this site that we filmed at the first time it was used in about 80 years was in 2006 and it corresponds to Locy years and those low sea ice years are happening more and more frequently. So youre getting lets say we counted 750 bodies on that beach. So that was the one I dont know in eight a year event is now happening every single year. So youre getting those casualties every year which will impact the population over the long term.

AMT: We also spoke with Dave Rosen, a research scientist at the Vancouver Aquarium, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia. Listen to what he had to say about the correlation between climate change and the walruses following off of cliffs.

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VOICE: The main threat is these anaimasl are forced to go on land and so they're not foraging as effectively as they're supposed to be and this is probably been females and their calves. But that's not as dramatic for TV, but that's probably the real threat to the population as opposed to increasing numbers of animals that are falling off cliffs. But that certainly is effective as a tool to raise the idea in the public imagination that these animals are threatened by climate change.

AMT: Sophie Lanfear, how do you respond to him?

SL: What he says is slightly contradictory. Yes of course you know it is a problem there are feeding sites if they haven't got the platform to hover above the kind of dense feeding sites that are dense in clouds then you're getting more and more soaring out of land. And so they're you know they're using up their resources in the local environment a lot quicker so they are malnourished and they are hungry. So it's a double pronged thing. It's both arguments you know yes forging is an issue for them especially the mums and Mackoff they cant travel great distances to the feeding site their forage time is increased. So when they're on land it takes them you've got to swim 100 kilometres and if they're all going together with one group and then feeding on those areas. It's going to deplete those areas and you're going to get malnourished walrus. So I would agree with that totally.

AMT: Did you, could you tell were there female walruses also climbing in that halout that you were filming?

SL: Yeah it was predominantly females with babies at the site. And the big males can't climb a cliff. They weren't in the narration we say one tonne animals that's because the big males are two tonne animals and actually it's the smaller individuals that are capable of climbing cliffs and those happen to be mums with their babies and younger individual animals. And that's the make up from Anatoly studying them when we were there and his observations. Yes there are some males there and there are some big males there, but it's predominantly females with their calves.

AMT: I want to get your response as well to the mother who had some concerns. You heard Janice Duddy say her son had some emotional reaction to watching the walrus scene. Listen to more of what she said.

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VOICE: I really appreciate the intention of the filmmakers. We're all impacted in climate change and because of climate change this is all happening to nature. It's really important message, but I think because of the way that film was shot, that message was completely lost on Toby and it also actually made him very fearful of any other nature shows. He said to us like you know he's not sure if he wants to watch anymore in this series.

AMT: Again Sophie Lanfear, you had an emotional reaction to it as you were filming. I'm just wondering how you respond to that mother's concern?

SL: Yeah no of course. I mean I'm sorry that you know her son feels that way and has had that reaction because certainly it's the hardest part in the whole series to watch. The rest of the series is not like that. Netflix have warned viewers now about the time codes for people to avoid. I would say that you know from my experience from the kids I know I've watched it and I've shown it to kids here and we've had sort of test viewings that wasn't the reaction they had. So everyone is different and everyone has their own way of dealing with a hard subject matter. So yeah it's sad obviously if that put a child or natural history and I would encourage her to let him know that you know the rest of the series is not light and is not in that vein. But I just think it's a disservice to the natural world for me not to have made that into the film like to know something like that was going on in Russia and to not show it for me would be a complete disservice to everything I stand for and everything. You know I this live my life I've filmed wildlife since I was 20. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do but I think it's an important message and also I've had so many messages come through from people since it's gone out being totally inspired driven to do change driven to make a difference what can we do. That's just unheard of. I've never had that from any film I've ever made. So you know I think overall the response has been very strong in the right direction from kind of my experience of it.

AMT: Okay well thank you for speaking with me today.

SL: My pleasure.

AMT: Thank you. Bye bye.

SL: Thank you bye.

AMT: That is Sophie Lanfear, she's a producer and director of the Netflix documentary series Our Planet. She joined us from Bristol, England. This new Netflix series ends with other feature documentaries has the potential to help shape the way millions of viewers think about the natural world and how they think about climate change. Sabrina McCormick is a sociologist and a filmmaker who has researched how documentaries depict climate change and which messages are most effective. Sabrina McCormick is also an associate professor at the Milkin Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. And we have reached here in New York City. Hello.

SABRINA MCCORMICK: Good morning.

AMT: What do you make of the strong reaction to this particular episode in that particular scene in that episode of Our Planet?

SM: I have to say I'm not particularly surprised. In our study we actually look at another story that's somewhat similiar. It's about animal extinction. People have similarly very strong emotional reactions. I mean children and babies are very emotionally poignant subjects for people, no matter what the topic is and so this kind of reaction to this kind of extreme event, I think is not, I would have expected something like that.

AMT: Now Netflix has a warning out to "animal lovers" and to parents that they may want to skip certain scenes in the film. What do you make of that?

SM: That's surprising to me. I mean I guess we're such an extreme reaction and they don't want to scare viewers off on the rest of the series, as Sophie was saying, it sounds like that scene and maybe a couple of scenes others like that are a little bit of an outlier from the rest of the series and they'd like people to continue watching, which is totally fair. And in a way this is the kind of violence I guess especially for younger viewers that maybe parents need to be a little bit more careful of that Netflix had anticipated. So you know I think it's a good idea.

AMT: And you heard Sophie Lanfear's reasons for putting that in. As you listen to her, what were you thinking?

SM: I was thinking, I really get it. You know as someone who is both making films and studying the reactions at films and also understands the really extreme situation that we are in in terms of the effects that climate change is already happening in you want to be able to portray the truth. And as Sophie was talking about the scientific facts that support that phenomenon that she was portraying as related to climate change, that is one of the phenomenon that is a scientific truth and yet also you want to be careful of how you portray it, such that you're telling a story that people can hear. And if, and this is not true of all filmakers, but if your goal is to engender some kind of reaction such that people take action and do something about this very big problem, then you also don't want to scare them too much such that they don't. So you're in a bit of a tricky position to both portray these surprising events that are happening, but also do it in a sensitive way.

AMT: Arguably a lot of people wouldn't know about that until it's in the film and people start talking about it.

SM: Yeah. And I think in this echoes what Sophie was saying. I think that's more of the motivation to bring to light to shine a light on things that are happening that people dont know about that as a filmmaker you see before your very eyes and you think, oh my God, people need to know about this because this is hidden from public view generally and so of course you want to of course you want to share that with the rest of the world.

AMT: So what have you found in your research about how viewers respond to climate change messages in documentary films?

SM: Well you know in relation to this particular instance that we're talking about today, one thing that we find that I think is very important is that emotions matter. So if you're telling a story or if there's a documentary that has a story and that's really emotionally engaging and motivates an emotional response that actually is more effective than informational or factual kind of set of messages. People don't really react to fact, they react to stories and emotions. But there's an important distinction between not having different kinds of emotions. So what we see is that when people feel the emotions of anger shark in activism that they are more motivated to take action they care about climate change more they're interested in it and they want to do something about it. Biot that when it's when they feel hopelessness or some kind of depressive works the awful emotions that they actually express less interested in taking action. And so I mean it's really tricky because you know different things are gonna respond to different stories in different ways. And also you can't always predict how people respond. And so it shows if you are a filmmaker you're making a story about climate change. That tape can be going to be really careful about what kinds of emotions. Uri bogeying I mean more generally we find that of stories about climate change and rents when I say effective I mean stories that motivate some kind of emotional reaction. They do actually make people more motivated to act. We are motivated to figure out what can be done about it. One thing though that I think is critically important for educators gun makersetc. to know is that what we find at least in the arts our studies are in the United States that people dont actually know what to do. So some people say okay well I need to keep recycling take mass transportation when I can but outside of those measurers they really don't understand why it actions can affect climate change and also if they think about okay well maybe I'll recycle more or maybe I'll drive less and take mass transportation more, they're also thinking about their individual behaviors in the context of their community, the planet. They think well why does my action matter if everybody else is going to keep driving and so it's collective action that matters as well.

AMT: I want to play you a clip here of Sarah Porrier, a climate change communication consultant who's done some research on how kids TV depicts climate change. She analyzed the content of kids educational TV shows. This is part of what she found.

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VOICE: One of the most interesting things that I found in my survey of children's educational television on all the mainstream providers, was that of all the topics covered from math and nature and wildlife to engineering and space science, wildlife and nature, while it is the most popular theme area for children's television, educational television, does not address the topic or cover the topic of climate change. And this is despite the fact that many of the shows I reviewed have episodes with direct ties to climate change.

AMT: She seems to be suggesting that a lot of nature programmes air the other way. They just ignore it.

SM: Yeah. Well you know I mean that kind of reaction to the situation, I think is probably engendered by a number of things. So one, people are scared. You know they don't want to tell depressing and when I say people, I mean producers and distributors, they don't want to tell depressing stories that make audiences not want to watch the programming. Secondly, climate change science as you were discussing with the director there is very tricky. It's not always very straightforward. Now sometimes and more and more so, it is and so how to portray it its becoming I would say easier and easier in that sense, but it can be very difficult to tell a story that portrays this very complex science. So I think it's a situation that we're still working through as filmmakers and producers. How do we tell these stories such that people A, find them entertaining because right this is a product that entertainers are selling and they need eyeballs. This is how Netflix measure their success for example, but they also need to do it in a way that doesn't make people wait thinkers and say hey this isn't correct. This isn't accurate. This isn't climate change because that doesn't help their programming or reaching people either. So it's tricky.

AMT: Yeah. I mean is it irresponsible or even ethical to do nature programs in 2019 without addressing what climate change is doing?

SM: Well I mean I would say probably not. I mean I think it depends on the scope of the story and where you're going with it and what your main theme is etc. So in some cases maybe yes, but the ubiquitous and comprehensive impact of climate change on all kinds of wildlife I think really means the producers need to really begin to try to figure out how to incorporate climate change into their stories.

AMT: As a filmmaker, how would you describe the way you approach storytelling about climate change?

SM: Well you know it's changed over time. I've just premiered my first scripted feature in China actually last week and that story is set in the Brazilian Amazon and has quite a depressing ending, which is a factual representation of the situation there. Despite that it's a scripted program, we really did based it on real life events and people. But what I've learned since I started making that four years ago is that what's really important to me is to show examples and tell stories of people who have been able to make a difference, who despite obstacles, despite all the incredible challenges that each one of us faces in doing anything about climate change, it is possible and necessary to do so. So nowadays I'm focusing more on stories where we can see that positive impact. Where we can use a story as a lens to see climate change, but to not walk out the other end or walk out of the theatre and feel like oh you know I can't do anything, rather to feel like they've been inspired to follow the example of the characters in the storyline, such that I'm hopefully making a positive change, not just making people understand the factual reality of the situation.

AMT: And how pressured do you feel to do that versus maybe follow a storyline you would rather do? Like how much of it you know in other words what you were working on was fictional, but based on fact, that Amazon story. So how much leeway do you think you should get as a creator?

SM: Well I think creators should have all the leeway. I mean I think climate change is such a big important subject, we have to do everything we can. Having said that, I'll speak for myself personally and as someone who's a sociologist and who's obviously studying how stories engender different kinds of responses, I just don't simply feel able to tell stories anymore that are going to make people feel depressed and you know fall into this denial kind of tune out way of being. I just if I were to spend the rest of my career doing that, I'd be extremely disappointed myself and you know we all live short lives and we want make and produce in the world what is going to be the best. At least for me for the human race and so for me I feel very compelled to continue to focus on these stories of empowerment in action and change.

AMT: Sabrina, thanks for your thoughts today.

SM: My pleasure.

AMT: Sabrina McCormick, a sociologist and filmmaker. She's also an associate professor in the Milkin Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University. She joined us from New York City. Let us know what you think. Find us on Facebook. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the Contact link. This is The Current.

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Isolated and invisible: Meet the moms writing about the secret agony of postpartum depression

Guests: Teresa Wong, Amanda Munday

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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VOICE: Dear Scarlett, the other day you told me that when you grew up you wanted to be a mommy. I said you could be anything you wanted, an artist, a doctor, a teacher and also a mommy. But you were adamant about it.

AMT: Those are the words Calgary mother, Teresa Wong, wrote to her daughter Scarlett as she began to explain what it was like when sunk into a deep depression after Scarlett was born.

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VOICE: I blamed myself for being weak and incapable. I suppose this has always been my default position in life. Having a baby just amplified my feelings of inadequacy.

AMT: Teresa Wong's story is one that will resonate with many mothers. As many as 20 percent of Canadian mothers experience some form of mental health symptoms that affect their wellbeing following childbirth. Sometimes they can be severe as they were for Toronto mother, Amanda Munday.

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VOICE: I'm not going to sleep for weeks. But before that, i'll trip and drop the baby, or she'll suffocate in the couch or I'll forget her outside in the backyard. If she dies, I'll kill myself. I couldn't live without her.

AMT: Amanda Munday ended up being admitted to a psychiatric ward nine days after her daughter Fiona was born. Now both Amanda and Teresa have chronicled their experiences with postpartum depression in new books. Amanda Munday's book is entitled Day 9: A Postpartum Depression Memoir. She is with me in our Toronto studio. Teresa Wong's book is a graphic memoir called, Dear Scarlett: The story of My Postpartum Depression and Teresa Wong is in Calgary. Hello to both of you.

TERESA WONG: Hi.

AMANDA MUNDAY: Hi.

AMT: Teresa, can you tell us more about those feelings you had after Scarlett's birth?

TW: After her birth I actually had some medical complications. And so I wasn't very conscious at the time. I had a postpartum hemorrhage and when I woke up finally a few hours later, I just realized that I was completely inadequate as a mother. I hadn't even seen her first of all and my husband who had been taking care of her during that time, knew how to feed her and hold her and chang her diaper and I just felt like I was way behind and that I had no real instincts.

AMT: And you were, you were really weak as well. You'd lost like a lot of blood.

TW: I was. Yeah I'd lost about half my blood and so I was really low in iron, but I didn't know that. No one really explained that to me and so I just felt like everyone else can have a baby and bounce right back, why can't I do this? Why can I barely sit up?

AMT: Amanda what was the first days of your daughter Fiona's life like for you?

AM: In some ways so similar to Teresa's story and this feeling of I should be able to get this right. This should be something that comes easy for me and right away I knew something was wrong. In my case my daughter was breach, a vaginal breach delivery, so she came out backwards, feet first instead of head first.

AMT: And that was your choice right? You wanted to have that delivery?

AM: It was a choice. Yeah part of the reason why I really pushed for that was I really believed myself to fall in these lines of liberal, organic, natural food type of person that was going to do everything perfect, including intervention free drug free labor and had really buy into the idea that a caesarean section was "not natural," which I don't believe in anymore, but at the time it really felt to me like I had already failed my daughter before she got here.

AMT: How did you end up in a place where you were contemplating taking your own life?

AM: It was all driven by sleep deprivation. So because of the birth, the time I got home, I immediately went into protection mode. I wanted to watch her breathing. I felt like it was my duty to stay awake and make sure that she wasn't going to die in her sleep. I struggled to find rest even if the baby was taken away from me. So my partner and my mother would come by, take the baby, let me sleep in my room and I would lie there with obsessive thoughts that I couldn't sleep. She might die and that these reoccurring facts that this baby was going to die to me was some sort of motherly instinct. I thought they were reoccuring so often this must be a signal that it's true. I worried about her constantly and thought it is a certainty that she is going to die and if she dies that means I'll have to die.

AMT: Teresa as you listen to Amanda, what were you going through in your deepest darkest moments?

TW: Well I went through a lot of the same feelings. I didn't really dwell on my baby dying, but I just felt hyper vigilant. I was very concerned about, I bottle fed, so the amount of formula she was getting and the amount of sleep she was getting and so being totally focused on her made me unable to focus on myself. And I would lay there, you know everyone tells you to sleep when the baby sleeps and I don't know how anyone does that because I would just lay there and my heart would be pounding and you know maybe start to drift off to sleep and then she would cry and so I would have to get up to get her again.

AMT: And so you both talk about a lack of sleep, about sleep deprivation. How much did that play in to the emotions you had and the depression you had?

TW: I think it was huge. No one, you can't prepare for the lack of sleep that you're going to get. So I know that sleep deprivation can be used as a torture device and it just happens to every new mom.

AM: It's also the baby prevents you from getting sleep because they need to be fed so often. And as a birther, you don't recover from that childbirth moment. So in both our cases we had had a pretty traumatic birth and then the instinct is I'm going to go home and sleep for 12 hours or if I could lie in bed and rest and it was really really hard for me to get home having just delivered a baby and all of the uprooting that my physical body felt and immediately go into trying to nurse the baby.

AMT: Well let's talk a little bit more about breast feeding. What role did that play in each for each of you in postpartum experiences?

TW: For me I had trouble in the hospital right from the start. I felt like my milk wasn't coming in obviously and then because of my blood loss I was having trouble sitting up and all these nurses would come in, some were lactation consultants and they would told me to do different things and so I tried a different positions and my baby they kept calling her a baracuda baby. So she just was chomping away, but not really getting anything and so they started her own formula and after we got home I just we had an appointment to go see a lactation consultant and while we were driving there I really struggled with my thoughts and then when we finally parked the car, I said to my husband, I don't want to breast feed. I really don't have anything to give to this baby in terms of breastfeeding and so we had to walk into that appointment kind of defeated in a way because we had always intended to give our baby you know what they call breast is best and I just couldnt do it. I knew it was, I felt like it was a selfish decision, but I knew it was what I needed to do to recover.

AMT: And you felt selfish, you felt shame as well, didn't you?

TW: Oh a lot of guilt and shame and that played into my depression as well. You know over the next few months just even just going out and seeing other mothers breastfeeding their babies and feeling like I had to hide the fact that I was bottle feeding with formula.

AM: Formula always comes with some sort of explanation. Oh I have this baby on a bottle because I couldnt breastfeed or because there was something wrong. Even though I think the conversation has progressed a bit fed to fed is best and that you know keeping the baby alive is ultimately important. I certainly still felt so much shame in saying I dont want to do this.

AMT: What do you think that some people don't understand about the experience of postpartum depression?

AM: I certainly think that there is a misconception that postpartum depression means that the mother, the birther doesn't love their child or that they're disconnected from the bond, when in fact I felt fierce fierce love for my child. I was overwhelmed in this idea that I created this human and they're here and now I'm solely responsible for keeping them alive and I want people to know that there wasn't failure on my part in bringing on some way. You know this happened there was a hormonal imbalance, a lack of sleep, lots of factors. So many factors that go into being in a depressive state.

TW: I totally agree. And for me I feel like one misconception is that postpartum depression just works they go out of crying and theres a lot of mis diagnosis out there right now where people just say you have the baby blues and you get over it just with a little bit more sleep whereas for me my depression actually look fine on the outside. When I went out with my baby, no one could tell that anything was wrong, but deep inside I was feeling so numb and so foggy, like I had lost myself.

AMT: It was your doctor who told you you had the baby blues, wasn't it Teresa?

TW: Yeah that's correct. I went in to see the doctor about 10 days after Scarlett was born and told her that I thought I might be depressed and she said no no you've just got the baby blues and what you really need to do is just go out for more walks and get some sunshine and youll be fine. And you know while that is valid for some women, it wasn't the case for me and it really just confused me and kept me from pursuing treatment right away. But I should have known myself and really understood that what I was feeling was not going to just lift from going for a walk.

AMT: You're blaming yourself again, but yeah you were looking for guidance. Amanda, at some point you get in touch with a good friend of yours. What did she tell you?

AM: Yeah on day nine of my daughter's birth, I really felt like death was a certainty. And so I called a friend. After many midwife suggested that if I was feeling really desperate, an answer would be to go to the ER and get a sleeping pill. And so I called a friend who I knew had been on antidepressants and said what do you think the impact would be if I were to consider taking drugs with a newborn baby? And she said Amanda do you feel like you might hurt yourself or the baby and it was the first time I said out loud, yes I do. And she said then you have to go right now. You've got to go to hospital. You've got to see somebody.

AMT: So you went to the ER, what happened?

AM: I walked into the ER expecting a sleeping pill and they formed me. So that means they presented me with a form to say that they'd be admitting me to the hospital involuntarily and then I had the option to seek a court injunction if I wanted to, but the doctor that I had seen said you know I don't think you're going to do that. I think you want to be here. The typical hold and release policy in Ontario and hospitals for something like this is 72 hours. I stayed in the psychiatric ward for 18 days.

AMT: And some part of you went along with it.

AM: I felt a ton of relief, as soon as the doctor said to me you're going to have to stay here and the baby's going to have to go home at night and I thought okay, now I can sleep. It was sort of like as soon as you took away that role of mother as sufferer, I felt like I could finally maybe release and rest and also I really was scared of the thoughts. They haunted me. I was they were graphic in nature. You know I really believed that they were coming from a place of truth and so I that if something so horrific is in my near future then yeah I should be locked up.

AMT: So what happened in the psychiatric ward?

AM: When I walked into the psychiatric ward I believed I was going to some sort of wing for moms and babies. And I'm going to walk in there and I'm going to find their mothers with the babies who feel like I do and when I got there I realised it was a regular temporary psychiatric ward in a hospital. It was co-ed. There were people there dealing with all sorts of different illnesses and one of the first things that the nurse who checked me in said was make sure you don't walk in the hallway with the baby. It's not safe for her here.

AMT: So, but that's the whole reason you were feeling it was about her safety that you even went to the ER.

AM: Right and now if I'm in the psych ward, we don't know what the other patients might do so you better use caution with the baby.

AMT: Was Fiona with you full time or did she come and go?

AM: She was with me during the day and then my husband took her home at night.

AMT: How long did it take for you? You said 18 days, through that time, did you feel that it was time to leave?

AM: Once slept I started to build a real, a much stronger foundation for what was going on. I could start to distinguish intrusive, obsessive thoughts with reality and see that they were separate, but that only came after many nights of full sleep.

AMT: Were you getting some kind of talk therapy through that?

AM: I was invited to do talk therapy and group therapy and rejected a lot of it because I didn't believe it was the place for me and so I didn't really want to participate in the hospital for better or worse.

AMT: And you grappled with taking antidepressants at that time too, did you not?

AM: Yeah. There's there's a pretty strong theme through those early days for me around formula and antidepressants and the idea of introducing chemicals because this birthing industry now that I view it as that had led me to delivery had told me you know all natural, organic. So antidepressant felt like another introduction of chemicals. Another example of the way that I was failing my kid. I was so upset that I couldn't work myself through this without the antidepressants and the sleep. I thought no, other people don't struggle.

AMT: Teresa and you were home with your baby, but you were in a different kind of isolation.

TW: Yeah. tI mean I felt so many of the same things as Amanda did. I was home the whole time, my story wasn't nearly as dramatic or traumatic, but I still felt that I wasn't doing the best for my baby and I felt like I wasn't really capable of giving her what she needed and I'm not sure where those voices came from, but they were loud and continuous.

AMT: What kind of treatment ended up working for you Teresa?

TW: For me I sought help when she was six weeks old. After the first doctor told me I didn't have depression I just broke down one night in the middle of the night and just cried out I need help and my husband said yeah we gotta go find another doctor. So we ended up seeing a different doctor who took my concerns very seriously and she started me on Zoloft and she also got me in to see a counselor who specialized in postpartum depression and those two things over the course of several months were what really formed the basis of my treatment.

AMT: You had to focus on taking care of yourself and that wasn't easy either, huh Teresa?

TW: Yeah I feel like everything's about the baby when the baby arrives and so you just feel this awful guilt to think even a little bit of yourself and then to take yourself away from her for a time to go see a counselor or to you know give yourself more sleep and less time with her was a big hurdle to get over.

AMT: I'm wondering how your partners, your husbands processed this and how difficult or what it was like for them, Amanda?

AM: Yeah something that was really hard was I wanted to be and was certain that I was primary caregiver. And so when he had to absorb that role as primary caregiver. I think he in some ways felt guilty. He could see it. He felt so pained that you know Amanda wants to do it, I know Amanda wants this role and yet I'm going to take this baby away and so he was angry. He was yelling at doctors. This isn't the right place for her and I also think he got an opportunity to bond and spend time with our daughter that he probably otherwise wouldn't have had in those early days and I see it now in their relationship that they are. They're strong and they're connected. He has a better understanding of sort of what the whole process is like of having a newborn at home without me sort of sheltering all of that responsibility. It was like he had to do it. So he really became a true partner in parenting.

AMT: And Teresa?

TW: I totally agree. My husband took on so much more than many other partners do, but for me I feel like he felt very helpless at first when we hadn't gotten a diagnosis and he would just come home to a crying every day. And I was getting ready one day to bring my daughter out and so I had my daughter in the car and we were in the garage and then the garage door was going up and I just backed up too quickly and hit the garage door and basically put a dent in our bumper and the door was stuck half open and that night he walked in the door and he just said okay you know I'm going to call this guy, he's going to come fix it. And I apologized profusely. I felt so bad. And he said well no I actually feel good because this is the first time in months where I feel like I can actually do something to help.

AMT: Yeah because he didn't know what to do to help you. A garage door you can fix.

TW: Exactly.

AMT: Yeah. Amanda your story has another layer because it's also partly a story about your dad. Tell me about your dad.

AM: So my father struggled with clinical depression for his life. And when I was four months pregnant with my second child, my father died by suicide. So that to me meant now I had confirmation that the actions that the hospital and lots of care providers said to me were only thoughts. They were only thoughts, they weren't going to turn into action, could in fact turn into action. And it was pretty devastating for me. Of course you know my father was he worked in IT. He was the reason I got to working in tech. You know we were deeply bonded in our very similar career paths. And so seeing him die after I had been in a psych ward so of brought some light to maybe some of my experience, had some genetic element to it. And also just secured for a lot of the medical professionals that when my son was born after, I would most certainly have PPD again. That was a conversation I heard repeatedly throughout the rest of my pregnancy after my father died.

AMT: And what happened?

AM: I didn't have postpartum depression the second time and I really attribute that primarily because I released this idea of what being a mother means and the identity of mother sufferer, mother as somebody who takes on burden and is pained for their child. When my son was born I said I need to sleep. I continued with the antidepressants and I had really open and early conversations about the things that I couldn't do.

AMT: Teresa you were also worried about postpartum depression again when you had your second child.

TW: Yeah I mean you know I did have it again. So I was pregnant with my second child. I found out when my daughter Scarlett was only eight months old and so we were going to have two kids under two and we thought we would just we needed to set ourselves up for success and so my husband decided to take six months off work after my second baby was born and we had a postpartum dula who helped me with Scarlett come back right from the delivery room. And we thought we were really going to do this. We're going to just, we've learned so much. We've been through so much. It's not going to happen again, but about eight months in actually I started to feel those same feelings of inadequacy, of fatigue, of this inability to be the kind of mom I wanted to, but this time I just knew what to do. I knew what was happening and so I sought help immediately.

AMT: What would have helped you guys early on in your first pregnancies to maybe anticipate what you might have been facing and able to get help sooner of the kind you needed? You both felt very sideswiped.

AM: You know I sort of look back and say I did, I did not one, but two different cohorts of prenatal classes before my child was born because that's who I am. I overprepare and in both of the classes it's a four week class, three of them are on labor and delivery and one of them is on after. And to me that's backwards. It should have been three or four weeks on what happens once the baby gets there because the delivery is guided in almost all cases by some sort of medical professional and if it goes wrong like off to the hospital we go. And what I didn't hear was breastfeeding is going to be hard. Your physical body is going to ache and your mental state is going to take a hit. I didn't see any of that coming. What I saw was cute onesies and olive oil to avoid stretchmarks and fashionable nursing bras. Those were deeply seeded into my prep before having a kid and in those nine days before I was admitted into the psych ward, I looked online. I looked for writing like where are the other parents who are struggling with this.

AMT: They're listening to you right now.

AM: I hope because I really felt there was so much shame in admitting that it's hard that I could not find any writing on it.

TW: I think also you know you mentioned prenatal classes. I think Alberta is doing something right since I had a baby, so I wasn't able to participate in this. But now we have birth classes that expand eight weeks, but it's four weeks before the baby is born and four weeks after and having people around is a big deal. People who understand.

AMT: Teresa, why did you write your story as a letter to Scarlett?

TW: Well I felt that my daughter is nine now and she's actually a very sensitive girl and I think about sometimes when she becomes older, whether she's going to have depression, whether it's postpartum or not and these are definitely the things that I want to tell her if she goes through that.

AMT: Amanda what do you want your daughter to learn from your experience, if or when she becomes a mom?

AM: I want her to know that you know a depressive experience doesn't define her, doesn't mean she's a failure. I want her to honour her journey as a parent in whatever that looks like, whether it's messy and awful and painful or glorious not feel the shame that I felt.

AMT: It's really important to hear from both of you and I mean there was a time when no one would have this conversation.

AM: A recent time.

AMT: Yeah. So thanks for coming in both of you.

TW: Thank you.

AM: Thank you.

AMT: Amanda Munday and Teresa Wong. Amanda's book is called Day 9: A Postpartum Depression Memoir. She's in Toronto. Teresa Wong's book is a graphic memoir, Dear Scarlett: The Story of My Postpartum Depression. She's in Calgary. If you can relate to the postpartum experiences they describe. If you'd like to tell us about it, send us an e-mail through our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the Contact link. You can also comment on Facebook or tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Now after our conversation about nature documentaries and the new Netflix series, Our Planet, we're going to leave you with David Attenborough, the veteran broadcaster who narrates the series. Here he is speaking at its premiere at the London Museum of Natural History at a lectern underneath a giant blue whale. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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DAVID ATTENBOROUGH: That magnificent creature up there, whose skeleton's hangs up there above us, the Blue Whale, going to give us inspiration. Just 30 years ago, most whale species, including the Blue Whale, were heading towards extinction. A public outcry led to a global agreement to protect whales and now most populations are recovering. What we did to save the whales, we must now do for all nature. And that is a communications challenge as much as it is a scientific one. The eight part Our Planet series aims to reach a billion people around the world. It celebrates the species and habitats that still remain and reveals what must be protected to ensure both people and nature thrive. I've always believed that few people will protect the natural world if they don't first love and understand it.

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Apr. 15, 2019 episode transcript

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