Dirt Radio

The Australian government has used an environmental activist who became involved in the “alternative music scene” as an example of violent extremism, in a booklet aimed at helping teachers identify students who are becoming radicalised and linked to terrorism. Her name is "Karen", and she's with Dirt Radio this week to explain how she came to have such a high public profile and why the government...

The almost 600 environment groups that hold tax-deductibility status in Australia are being scrutinised by a federal government inquiry, with reports that more than 100 of them face being struck off the list. And Friends of the Earth has been specifically targeted. As Dirt Radio went to air this week, the inquiry was holding its session in Melbourne. FoE's Melbourne based campaign co-ordinator Cam...

"From country to city, we come together to protect our land, our water and our health from unconventional gas. Help us send a clear message that fracking and gasfields will never be welcome in Victoria". That's Lock the Gate Victoria, on their website. This week, we hear about the humble beginnings of the Lock the Gate campaign in NSW, the move into Victoria and the extensive and successful commun...

Front Line Action on Coal’s Leard Blockade is the first coal mine blockade camp in Australia. And the longest. Starting in August 2012, over 3 years, hundreds of people made history by visiting the the Blockade campsite and participated in a variety of activities to show opposition to the destructive Whitehaven coal mine. This week, Dirt Radio looks back on the Blockade and Front Line Action on Co...

When you take the Green Pledge you choose 5 actions from a list of 10 that can see you reduce your carbon emissions by up to 50% and create potential for broader political change. Funds raised will help Friends of the Earth Melbourne campaign for a world powered by renewables, not dirty fossil fuels. Comedian and tireless campaigner Rod Quantok, 2015 Green Pledge ambassador explains, in the first ...

The yakka skink is a robust lizard around the same size as a blue tongue lizard. And the ornamental snake is a brown, grey-brown or black snake growing up to 50 cm in length with a prefeered habitat within, or close to, habitat that is favoured by its prey – frogs. These were the little critters pivotal to overturning the approval of the Carmichael coal mine – a A$16 billion mine, rail and port pr...

A planning blunder led to the destruction of almost 900 towering old native trees after VicRoads severely underestimated the environmental impact of a highway project it is managing.  WHAM (Western Highway Alternative Mindsets) is a community campaign pushing back and asking why. Dirt Radio talks with Wham's spokesperson about how it happened. Coal is cheap, renewables are expensive: the Abbott go...

That's what Professor Simon Chapman called members of the most recent inquiry into wind energy. This is what he had to say: 'I have... catalogued and publicised public statements about 244 different diseases and symptoms said to be caused by turbine exposure. These include, in all seriousness, herpes, haemorrhoids, and disoriented echidnas. Look for yourself and be amazed. These public statements...

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a secret trade agreement that will adversely affect the environment, worker’s rights, cost of medicines, internet freedoms, food safety, intellectual property rights and indigenous rights. The TPP covers 40% of global trade and will impact 800 million people in the partnering nations. The deal is being negotiated behind closed doors in secret. The content wil...

The Barmah-Millewa Collective has decided its time for a new name: the 'River Country Campaign'. This is an exciting evolution in our campaign, which points to a broadening effort to protect the ecosystems of the Murray-Darling Basin and to support land and water justice for Indigenous peoples. This week Dirt Radio hears from Morgana Russell, the campaign's new co-ordinator. as she talks about her...

A moratorium on the extraction of unconventional gas, better known as fracking, was introduced in 2012 by the former Coalition government due to community pressure. The moratorium expires mid-2015. Labor pledged an inquiry before any change would take place, and this week the inquiry holds a session in Melbourne. In the first part of Dirt Radio, we hear about how communities all across the Gippsla...

“Enemy forces" are dug in and poised in the jungles of Northern Australia waiting for thousands of allied troops to storm ashore and drop from the skies for the nation’s biggest war game — Talisman Sabre 2015. More than 30,000 soldiers, marines, sailors and flyers from Australia, the US, New Zealand and Japan will participate in the exercise scenario. This week a Dirt Radio discussion of the impli...

East Gippsland, forest heartland of Australia deserves to be protected and promoted as the great tourism asset it is, not logged at a loss to the taxpayer. GECO is an independent grassroots environment organisation based in East Gippsland dedicated to protecting the remaining old growth forests of the region. They're holding a a weekend of threatened species surveying workshops, forest walks and c...

Some disturbing information from the America's Navy website:More than 33,000 U.S. and Australian personnel will participate in the biennial military training exercise Talisman Sabre 2015 in Australia July 4-19. Talisman Sabre, jointly sponsored by the U.S. Pacific Command and Australian Defence Force Headquarters Joint Operations Command, will incorporate U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Forc...

This is James Inhofe. He's a senator in the state of Oklahoma: "God's still up there, the arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous". The problem is he's been the Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. This is the committee that has oversight on environmenal matters in the US. And this is...

The Coalition government seems to be intent on trying to silence anyone who stands up for the environment. The House of Representatives Environment Committee is now conducting an inquiry into environmental groups who are eligible to receive tax-deductible donations. While the chair of the Committee has assured Friends of the Earth ‘it’s not a witch hunt’, it is hard to see this as anything but ano...

Once a year, 3CR's Radiothon takes off, raising enough dosh to keep broadcasting and 'activating the airwaves', with programs like Dirt Radio, and a bunch of other enviro-focused shows and with lots of progressive and activist oriented content. This week, we hear about why, in the Abbott era of environmental outrages, programs like Dirt Radio and organizations like Friends of the Earth are more im...

On May 31, the No Room for Racism campaign co-hosted a forum on racism and Islamophobia with the Islamic Council of Victoria at the Richmond Town Hall in the City of Yarra. United Patriots Front, a breakaway group from Reclaim Australia, attracting neo-Nazis and white supremacists, insisted on holding a 'counter-rally' on the street. This week we attempt to unpick and analyze the underlying social...

Weather Stations is a global project which places literature and storytelling at the heart of the conversations around climate change. Launched in 2014, the Weather Stations project harnesses the transformative power of words to imagine, in the context of a threatened environment, how we might live our lives differently. Five partner cities are involved - London, Warsaw, Dublin, Warsaw and Melbour...

This week, sounds and voices from FoE's 40th birthday shindig, and we hear why FoE is unique and a much admired part of the environment movement in Australia.

Across the country a growing network of concerned citizens are taking on large multinationals and government to defend their right to clean air, water, a safe climate and for social justice. CounterAct provides training in direct action skills, campaigning and community organising across Australia. Their aim - to increase capacity and skills of grassroots activists and encourage a culture of skill...

Friends of the Earth celebrates its 40th birthday this week. Actually, the 40th was last year, but there was so much campaign work to do, there wasn't time for a celebratory break. But this year, a post 40 knees-up has been scheduled. From the start, the anti-nuclear campaign has been central to FoE's development as an ENGO in Australia, and in this show we hear from Jim Green, long time national...

Tom Civil’s work can be found in many tucked away nooks of the city and the bush. He is interested in how street art and graffiti create community, mark space and act as a human-scaled anarchic form of urban architecture. He's also a street artist who wants to connect his practice to environmentla activism and social justice. This week he talks about his work with Dirt Radio. Then, from street art...

The fossil fuel extraction industries are ready to roll across regional Australia - searching for and digging for coal seam gas. They say it's imperative to keep the economy rolling. So do the politicans. The consequences of such extraction seem to be peripheral. John Fenton is an American farmer, and one day the fracking industry knocked on his door with a proposition. This week on Dirt Radio we...

This week, we hear about the Earthworker Co-operative, an initiative started up in the state of Victoria to involve workers in environmentally sustainable manufacturing. There's also a discussion of the Yes2Renewables' campaign promotong wind energy.