Dirt Radio

This week fresh from  Victoria's budget lock-up, Leigh Ewbank, co-ordinator for FoE's Act on Climate campaign, talks about the ways that the 2017 budget makes a gesture towards around climate change. But plans to make climate a major plank of the state's 2018 budget are now being mapped through FoE community conversations and outreach initiatives.

In March this year, Victoria became the first state in Australia to declare a permanent ban on fracking and on shore gas extraction. This ban was the result of a huge mobilization of communities right across the state, especially communities in regional and rural areas. To celebrate this long and hard fought win, Friends of the Earth held a special fundraiser celebration in Melbourne with a specia...

More than 85% of the Northern Territory is currently covered by petroleum and gas exploration licences and applications. Community members have significant concerns on the practice of "fracking" and the impacts of the unconventional gas industry, and want to see the practice banned. This week, Jimmy Cocking, Director at Arid Lands Environment Centre in Alice Springs talks about the 620km Northern...

Gene editing is a new bio-engineering technique that allows precision dicing and splicing of DNA – like a pair of molecular scissors - and, according to its proponents,  the process can be used to cure everything from AIDS to malaria. Louise Sales campaign co-ordinator of FoE’s Emerging Tech Project has been investigating. Dr. Michael Antoniou, specialist in molecular genetics at King’s College Lo...

At the end of 2015, the climate summit in Paris, COP 21, saw nearly 200 countries sign on to confront global climate change. In November 2016, there was a follow up conference in Morocco. But Australia is still dragging its feet to the table, and the Adani coalmine - the biggest in the southern hemisphere if it goes ahead - was given fast-track approval by the Queensland government and the Turnbul...

Australian summer 2016-17 is officially over, and it has been a weird and unsettled one. Sarah Perkins Kirkpatrick, research fellow at the University of New South Wales with a specialsm in climate extremes related to droughts and heat waves in Australia is here with Dirt Radio this week to explain why. The Yarra River has its own advocate. He’s Andrew Kelly, the Yarra Riverkeeper. The river runs f...

What is an environment campaigner and activist supposed to do in a post –truth world? In the era of 'alternative facts' and fake news? In a world being remade by Brexit, the victory of Donald Trump… and in Australia, the re-emergence of Pauline Hanson and the One Nation party? Cam Walker, campaign co-ordinator with Friends of the Earth in Melbourne, talks about FoE's future campaign alignments and...

 FoE's Ursula Alquier, key organizer with Lock the Gate Victoria and lead campaigner for Coal and Gas Free Victoria provides an up-date on the onshore gas mining ban declared last year by the Andrew’s Government and talks about the misinformation currently being circulated by the gas lobby. Anti-coal campaigner Maddie Egan from FoE Melbourne was one of the delegates at Friends of the Earth Interna...

The sun is setting on coal in the Latrobe Valley. We have already seen the closure of Hazelwood and the future of other plants looking in doubt. What will the end of coal look like in the Latrobe Valley? This week, Kate Wattchow, Friends of the Earth Latrobe Valley community campaigner, talks about community planning and preparation for a future beyond coal. Join the call for just climate action a...

Post Trump, post Brexit and the re-animation of One Nation. Progressive movements around the world pondering - where to next? This week on Dirt Radio, we begin to offer some locally focused answers. This is the building from the ground up edition. To start, Hayden Annable from Curvatecture talks about super adobe dwellings and how they get built with innovative, inexpensive and sustainable earthba...

Today we talked about the fossil fuel future of Victoria. It looks like the beast is stepping down, finally almost on its knees. Hazelwood is shutting down, no coal seam gas, no new coal and gas expension and Mantle, the mining company decided not to explore futher the Mirboo North region for coal. Victoria has been mining brown coal for a century. Unfortunately for them, brown coal is expensive,...

This week Dirt Radio heads off to Australia’s inland waterways to find out what’s lurking there, in the water we might be drinking. Friends of the Earth has just published a national survey that examines the health of our rivers and water catchments. And it’s not a pretty picture. https://www.facebook.com/16744315982/photos/a.355417745982.163108.16744315982/10154013389775983/?type=3&theaterThe Ada...

Rehab is required for America! Sam spent 2weeks in the US and she comes back with a bag full of inside info. Activism, election, tension, segregation, racism, black life matter, madness.... Is Australia an American Idiot? It's time to break our chains and be a fair and independent country. support the Standing Rock Dakota pipeline fighters on facebook here! listen American Idiot by Green day at th...

The Andrews state government in Victoria is coming up to the two year mark. That means they're halfway through this term of Parliament, with two years left before the next election. Friends of the Earth along with Environment Victoria, the Victorian National Parks Association, and the Wilderness Society are holding a series of community briefings to recap on what the government’s done so far with...

This week we talk burnout- what it feels like, how it is undermining our movement, and then go through five steps to help us all avoid it. Taking cues from an article on self care for camapigners on the Everyday Feminism website, Dirt Radio is joined by activist and artist Helen War to go through these important tips.

GECO, the Goongerah Environment Office in far East Gippsland has just been awarded the Bob Brown community environment prize for 2016. Ed Hill heads up GECO and he talks to Dirt Radio about the award, and explains some recent citizen science rainforest habitat surveys. The oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth's surface and contain 97 percent of the Earth's water. Less than 1 percent of the Earth's...

Dirt Radio is joined in the studio by 26 year old activist, Kat Woskett, to talk to her about her iconic banner drops in the #LetThemStay campaign, how she got into activism and climbing, and what her experiences have been like as a feminist living and working at blockade camps.

Alison marchant is a member of the Mt Moriac community (12 mins from geelong). She Joined Frack free moriac 3 and half years ago. She helped declare her towns gasfield free in 2014. Ali has Been part of the campaign to get onshore gas banned, working across western Vic with Chloe. Today Ali is over the moon cause her community won that war, not just a battle. While Victoria is pushing the darkside...

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR...?A just released Climate Institute report says limiting global warming to 1.5 C rather than letting it reach 2 degrees C could make a significant difference to the severity of extreme weather events and other environmental destruction. This week on Dirt Radio, we discuss the implications with Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, specialist in regional impacts of climate change at t...

At the moment the big question is around jobs, health and environment. It’s why most of us turns in the direction of the valley who is powering Victoria. The Latrobe Valley and the community there. Kate Wattchow is the local and the new community campaigner for Foe to link with this community, with local groups like Voice of the Valley and others to work towards a fair transition from Coal. www.vo...

We all know about infiltration of campaigns by undercover agents, and we were all shocked by the level of surveillance reveled by the Snowden leaks. So why are so many activists so lax when it comes to digital security? Phil Evans interviews Glenn Todd of ActionSkills about why digital security is so important and oulines 4 simple steps theat EVERY activist must take in order to begin to build a '...

Another in the Dirt Radio series exploring the backround, motivation and key radicalizing moments in the lives of long-time Friends of the Earth campaigners. This week Chloe Aldenhoven, currently Western District Lock the Gate Coordinator in the state of Victoriahttp://coalandgasfreevic.org/https://www.facebook.com/coalandgasfree/?fref=nfhttps://quitcoal.org.au/

Today I talked about the coming decision to potentially Ban Gas drilling in Victoria. The decision has been postponed in June cause election stuff and this month we are waiting for a huge news with the Lock the gate campaign. Chloe is with me today. She is the campaign coordinator for Lock the gate Victoria and she is working under the Friends of the Earth banner. Who will make that decision? http...

Yarra Riverkeeper, Andrew Kelly, talks about the job of a riverkeeper and about  'Protecting the Yarra River/Birrarung'. a recently released discussion paper calling for a full river system management plan for the Yarra, its tributaries and surrounding environments. The big four banks are still pouring huge amounts of money in coal mining in Australia. Despite warnings that, with the growth in ren...

Last week 19 Democrat senators in the US stood before Congress to talk about the machinery of climate science denial and the ways that the fossil fuel industry supports and funds this machinery. Graham Readfearn, Brisbane journalist and blogger, has been tracking the dark arts of climate denial over many years. This week he talks with Dirt Radio about 'the web of denial' revealed in the US Congres...