| Topic | Audiofile | Other Material |
|---|---|---|
| Algae: the green revolution From the website: "What does the word algae conjure up for you? Images of green scum floating on top of your garden pond or toxic blooms wreaking havoc on aquatic life and closing your local beach? In actual fact, algae are far from being nature’s supervillains. These primitive microorganisms are responsible for sustaining the health of our oceans and providing fifty per cent of the air we breathe. And algae could soon be doing a lot more for the planet. If we learnt how to harness their penchant for prolific growth and their powers of photosynthesis, algae could solve many of our energy, food and climate challenges." |
MP3 | UTS: Deep Green Biotech Hub UTS: Climate Change Cluster |
| Swarm
intelligence and insect infrastructure From the website: "Despite having brains smaller than a grain of sand, ants manage vast communication networks and operate complex supply chains. Even brainless slime moulds can design transportation networks to rival those built by human engineers. As we grapple with rapidly urbanizing cities, could we look to the insect world to solve our infrastructure woes?" |
MP3 | Insect Behavior and Ecology Lab, University of Sydney |
| An
agricultural insurgency (regenerative farming) From the website: "As drought becomes more common, salinity increases and the effects of climate change take their toll on our agricultural land, there is increasing evidence that a complete rethink of how we farm the land is required. Is it possible to work with the land rather than treat the landscape as a hostile enemy needing to be brought into line. Charles Massey has been gathering stories from farmers around Australia about farmers who are increasing their productivity, ironically often by doing less." |
MP3 | Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, by Charles Massey |
| The
farmer's son (on more environmentally conscious beef-farming)
From the website: "As a youth John Connell left Ireland and the family farm to pursue a life as a documentary maker in Australia. A few years later he went back determined to master farming with all its hardships, heartbreak and occasional beauty. His book about cows - and a winter season spent raising them has become a best-seller. " |
MP3 | The Cow Book: A Story of Life on a Family Farm, by John Connell |
| Bats:
maligned, malicious or misunderstood? From the website: "Bats have been misrepresented in art and literature for centuries in the West. Their terrifying image has been entrenched in our collective consciousness through Durer’s engravings, Milton’s poetry, Gothic novels and horror films. With climate change and habitat loss reducing global bat populations at an alarming rate, is it time we tackled chiropterophobia and became more bat-friendly?" |
MP3 | Bat, by Tessa Laird |
| Capitalism and the chicken nugget In this episode, Raj Patel notes that if in the distant future an archeologist examines the remains of our current epoch, what s/he would discover is radioactivity, plastic and chicken bones. Chicken bones? How that could possibly be is discussed in this episode, which delves into the aspects of capitalism that don't get discussed often enough, namely the effects of our markets on the environment, on resources, and on humans |
MP3 | A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, by Raj Patel and Jason Moore |
| Insect Holocaust Insects make up 75% of animal biomass on the planet, and they are dying at an alarming rate, which may lead to unknown and potentially devastating environmental consequences. In this episode, Tanya Latty of the University of Sydney discusses this with Phillip Adams; in the process she covers pesticides, habitat destruction and climate change. This was a particularly good episode as Dr. Latty explains things very clearly, which complements Phillip's incisive interviewing style. |
MP3 | Tanya Latty's website |
| Ecomodernism Jonathon Symons discuses his new book: Ecomodernism: Technology, Politics and the Climate Crisis. He argues that technological innovation may be the most important ingredient in the fight against climate change. |
MP3 | Dr. Symons' book |
| The forest-maker From the podcast website: "Australian agronomist Tony Rinaudo earned his nickname, 'the forest-maker', from 35 years of ground breaking work in Africa. When he first arrived in Niger in 1981, Tony found himself surrounded by arid terrain which proved hostile to his initial attempts at tree-planting. But a couple of years later, he hit upon an innovative solution to re-greening the local landscape - and it did not involve any kind of planting at all. Tony pioneered 'Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration' (FMNR), a sustainable system of land management, that has revolutionised reforestation across Africa and beyond." |
MP3 | Forest Maker Website |
| Myths about Renewables This episode primarily centers around a critique of Michael Moore's new documentary recently released on YouTube, but in the process debunks many myths circulating in main stream and social media about renewable energy. |
MP3 | A review of Moore's Movie
Planet of the Humans |
| Unprecedented fires in California and Australia signal the dawn of the 'fire age' As the recovery from our Black Summer of fires continues, historic fires are raging across the West Coast of the United States. Some fire experts suggest that 2020 is a turning point in fire; that we've entered a new 'age of fire' and that we must now adapt to our fiery fate (Broadcast: Thu 1 Oct 2020) |
MP3 |
Something more: JASON 1979 report on climate change