Earth Matters

This week we talk to Sue Bolton, Socialist Alliance Councillor for Moreland, about whether human population really is a major cause of environmental destruction.

The South Australian Government is promoting a plan to import high-level radioactive waste from around the world, and dump it in SA. Government teams armed with shiny banners and scale models are making 100 “Know Nuclear” visits around the state. We followed them to the remote north, into the heart of the Anangu-Pitjantjatjara-Yankunytjatjara lands. To guide us in this journey, we hear from the in...

Today we report on the Goongerah Environment Centre's Threatened Species Day 2016 action, where they presented an invoice to the Victorian Treasurer, Tim Pallas, for over $2 million dollars of citizen scientist's work.  Recordings from the Threatened Species Day action feature Ed Hill (Goongerah Environment Centre), Samantha Dunn & Janet Rice (The Greens) and Callum (Wildlife of the Central Highla...

The good news is that unconventional gas mining has been banned in Victoria! On this show we speak to Alison Marchant from Friends of the Earth and Lock the Gate about the campaign that brought this about. The bad news is that funding has been cut from ARENA, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. We speak to Suzanne Harter from the Australian Conservation Foundation about what might be driving t...

In a land drenched with sunshine, the towns of Alice Springs and Port Augusta are perfect candidates for renewable energy transitions. Coal power is closing down in Port Augusta, SA, and the “Repower” campaign has its eyes on the prize: Australia’s first solar thermal plant to supply the grid. Meanwhile, Alice Springs locals confront NT Chief Minister Adam Giles’ recent decision to spend $75m on g...

The first Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) was established in 1998 in South Australia and the Indigenous Rangers program has been operating since 2007. There are now 60 IPA's and 109 Ranger groups employing 777 Indigenous Rangers. Earth Matters speaks with Chantelle Bowden, Ngurrara Indigenous Ranger and Sophia Walter from Country Needs People, about the significance of the IPA's, the Rangers progr...

Australia is transitioning towards renewable energy, but it is just as necessary to consider the transition away from fossil-fuel based forms of electricity production. Changing the status quo means making hard political decisions, fighting vested interests, and making sure that ordinary people aren't left behind. On this episode of Earth Matters we look at Hazelwood Power Station as an example of...

On 25 July, the ABC aired an episode of Four Corners showing the conditions of abuse in juvenile prisons in the NT, and in particular the Don Dale centre in Darwin. The footage brought the horrific realities of the juvenile prison system to TV screens across the country, shocking millions. However, it was not shocking to the families of Aboriginal people impacted by the criminal justice system eve...

There are more than 50,000 abandoned mines in Australia, and around 75 per cent of mines close unexpectedly or without proper site rehabilitation plans.   The Australian Conservation Foundation and the Mineral Policy Institute have released a report highlighting what they characterise as “systemic and structural failures in the regulation of mine closure and rehabilitation.”   Bali is a top touris...

On this weeks show we are joined by Anne Harris to talk about the report 'Ditch Coal: The global impacts of the UK's addiction to coal' and how they are linking up those at the global mine sites for the UK's coal. The people of Bulga on Wonnarua country in the Hunter Valley, have been battling to stop an expansion of Rio Tinto's coal mine. After seven years of legal cases & several wins in the cou...

On this week's show we talk to Dr Peter Spooner who is a vegetation ecologist from Charles Sturt University about proposed changes to NSW's biodiversity laws. We also hear archival audio of Dr Vandana Shiva from the year 2000. She was speaking at the 'Global Capitalism, Local Responses' seminar which was hosted by RMIT, on the eve of the World Economic Forum’s Asia Pacific Summit.

Feeling hopeless is an understandable response in the face of climate change. In fact, an emerging field of research is focusing on the mental health impacts of our changing climate. This can be in the wake of natural disasters such as floods and bushfires, but also the slower creeping effects of climate change like drought and displacement. But the biggest environmental threat to life in Australi...

This week features a speech by Sam Castro from Friends of the Earth's Economic Justice Collective about the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and the ramifications for our environment.  The ISDS clause could have dire effects on the ability of community campaigns to stop destructive projects.  More plastic has been been produced in the first 10 years of this century than the whole of the last. ...

Prominent Canadian eco-socialist Ian Angus delivers a talk about his new book "Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System". Ian Angus starts from the point of the socialist's responsibility to earth sciences, then moves to fighting within the material reality of the new geological epoch of the anthropocene.

This week,the Geelong Star super-trawler been trawling through the small pelagic fishery on Australia's eastern sea board, catching protected species and controversy along the way. Also on the program,In June 2015 Energy Resources of Australia, the operator of the Ranger uranium mine that sits on the lands of the Mirrar people in Kakadu, announced it was shelving a planned expansion. Dubbed Ranger...

This week we’re listening to poets, spoken word artists, activists and musicians who are changing hearts and minds with their art. Movements for change and justice come alive in the mouths of artists, and it’s a well known fact that a perfectly delivered rhyme can impart understanding in a way that a lecture never can. The themes in this episode range from colonialism, climate change, Aboriginal s...

The climate is changing, and so is our world. But what does that sound like? Anja Kanngieser and Daniel Jenatsch’s ‘A story of extinction’ is a sonic story meditating on climate change, the anthropocene, and capitalism. Katharine Round and Leah Borromeo of Disobedient Films teamed-up with composer Jamie Perera to create ‘Climate Symphony’, a one minute composition sonifying climate change. Anita M...

It’s a story that involves stolen country, stolen generations, and the threat of a stolen future — the fight against a national nuclear waste dump in South Australia. Just one site has been ‘shortlisted’ for a national nuclear waste dump. Wallerberdina, at the foot of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. The proposed site is on the lands of the Adnyamathanha people, and they don’t want any nucl...

On one fine Newcastle day, two thousand people gathered from across the country to participate in a collective resistance to the industries fuelling climate change, at one of its most important sites; the world’s biggest coal port. In a spectacular display of people power, diverse groups blocked the coal port shipping channel, the only coal train line and occupied coal loaders with a common call t...

Following on from discussions between Uncle Robbie Thorpe and Boe Spearim, Earth Matters explores the relationship between the crimes of genocide and ecocide. Our special guest is Clinton Pryor from the Matagarup Refugee Camp.

Environment East Gippsland set a legal precedent in 2009 when they successfully sued Vic Forests in the Supreme Court of Victoria. Since then a swag of endangered species of flora and fauna have been discovered in Vic Forests logging coups, thanks to the work of citizen scientists. So Environment East Gippsland are back in the Supreme court taking Vic Forests to task. We also discuss the disastrou...

The people of the Carteret Islands, a coral atoll off the coast of Bougainville, in Papua New Guinea, have been called the world’s first climate refugees. Like many low-lying islands in the Pacific, the Carterets have been experiencing the effects of climate change first-hand. They have watched as their shorelines have been eroded by the sea, king-tides have swept right across their small islands,...

This week we tune in to the campaign to stop the Great Australian Bight from becoming an oil field. Kokatha elder Aunty Sue Coleman-Haseldine and Breony Carbines from the Clean Bight Alliance Australia tell us what is at stake and why they don't trust the company that brought us the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Rosemary Lester, Yankunytjatjara-Anangu woman is finding ways to get information out to rem...

The first part of the show is a discussion with Isaac Astill from 350.org Australia about the financial troubles of Peabody Energy and the declining profitability of fossil fuels. To celebrate 3CR's 40th birthday we have dedicated the second part of the show to archival audio from 1999 of an interview with legendary environmentalist and unionist Jack Mundey.

 We speak with Martin Baker from Greenpeace's Coal and Water Project about the release of 'The Great Water Grab' a report that maps the deepening water crisis with current and proposed coal mines all across the world. Then we join TPP Union and Communities Roundtable at a rally last week protesting the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and the selling out of people and planet for corporate profi...