Mike Joy. Photo: Nick George Creative
The scientist whose work prompted former Prime Minister Sir John Key in 2011 to compare academics to lawyers says it was a "surreal" and "scary" time.
Dr Mike Joy has had an untypical career. Before deciding to study freshwater ecology in his mid-30s, he worked as a farmhand, truck driver, mechanic and even had a stint as an agent in the Security Intelligence Service (SIS).
The 64-year-old has written it all down in his memoir, The Fight For Freshwater - the title referring to his work cataloguing the increasingly poor state of our rivers and streams, and his efforts to publicise it.
He became a household name virtually overnight in 2011, when his work - specifically an article he wrote for the New Zealand Herald - was cited by a BBC journalist interviewing Sir John, questioning the country's "100 percent pure" tourism branding.
"Dr Mike Joy of Massey University, a leading environmental scientist in your country, just the other day said 'we are delusional about how clean and green we are'," Hard Talk's Stephen Sackur told the prime minister.
"Well that might be Mike Joy's view," Sir John responded, "but I don't share that view… I hate to get into a flaming row with one of our academics, but he's offering his view… He's one academic and, like lawyers, I could provide you others who would give a counter view."
SIS agent turned freshwater champion Mike Joy
The exchange made headlines in New Zealand.
"It was surreal and it was scary," Joy told RNZ's Saturday Morning.
"I didn't know anything about the BBC Hard Talk show, and John Key… I think he'd been having a pretty easy time with media here in New Zealand…
"And so those figures and numbers were being thrown at our prime minister and he responded - I guess, predictably he turned my work into a 'comment'."
Joy said he was not aware of the interview until one of his former university professors - who saw the interview live - got in touch. It was a couple of days until Joy got to see what the fuss was all about himself.
Photo: Bridget Williams Books
"I think it was just a typical politician's way of getting around facts - to turn them into 'opinions'. And I had seen that before, so I expected it in a way… And then suddenly everyone was talking about me, and it made me realise just how many people in New Zealand completely believe the '100 percent pure' thing and were quite shocked and just don't want to know the truth - and many of the politicians are in that space."
At some time later, his mother - a staunch National Party supporter - met Sir John at an event in Lower Hutt.
"Mum said to him, 'I believe you know my son,' and John smiled and apparently he said, 'Okay, who's that?' And she said 'Mike Joy' and then he turned straight to a frown and said, 'Oh, yeah. Well, I don't believe what he says,' or something.
"And mum turned around and said, 'But he's got a PhD in freshwater ecology and that's what he does for a living.' And there was no response to that. He just kind of stormed out the door. I was so proud of my mum for doing that."
Origin story
Joy's journey towards becoming an environmental crusader began while he and his partner were both studying at Massey in the 1990s.
"We'd found this old house in a little township called Awahuri, which is on the banks of the Oroua River, which is a tributary of the Manawatu River… We had Ellie's niece and nephew, seven-year-old twins, come stay with us for the holidays for a week. And I think it was only in the first or second day, hot Sunday, took them down to the river and it was a bit smelly and odd looking and very warm and shallow.
"And so the kids, of course, seven-year-olds were in and out of the water and we just paddled around. And then later that evening, they became very, very sick. They became so sick that we didn't know what to do with them.
Mike Joy at Groundwater conference 2022 Photo: David Alexander Photosouth
"We ended up taking them back, driving them back through the night to their parents in Wellington, who were considering taking them to hospital, they were so sick."
He soon found out from a local that "all of Feilding's sewage" went into the river - despite the lack of any warning signs at all.
After local media covered the story, the council put up "a piece of A4 paper with [size] 12 font writing on it saying, you know, 'It's unsafe to swim here.' Not a great big symbol with a swimmer and a red line through it. It was just pathetic."
His next discovery was arguably even more shocking.
"The penalty for that council breaching those consent conditions consistently now - and I'm going to warn people, this is, this is going to be frightening - the enforcement is a sad face stamp. So, you know, you can get those little round stamps that have a smiling face and a sad face? Well… if you failed to meet the consent conditions, you get a sad face stamp. So every month or every six months they had their six months' worth of monitoring and they would get this report back from the regional council with sad faces on it.
"So no wonder, of course nothing ever got done about it. Imagine if you were speeding or drink-driving and your enforcement was a sad face stamp? We would get nowhere."
In the book, Joy offers the view that for civilisation to go on, we need to drastically reduce our consumption.
"Our only choice is whether we manage our way down to a much simpler life and much, much less consumption, or we have Armageddon and we end up there anyway. I personally think that I'd much rather manage our way down…
"I'm talking about this kind of stuff all the time and I get labelled 'Dr Doom'. I was at a public meeting just the other day and I thought, you know, actually business as usual - if we carry on doing what we're doing - that's doom."