The SEI Podcast Series

According to recent reports, 1.2 million Australians regularly struggle to put good, healthy food on the table. From low incomes to high living costs, casualised labor markets to government policies, more and more Australians don’t have enough money to eat or to eat well. In policy jargon, problems like these are often referred to as food and nutrition insecurity. This panel focuses on the problem...

Since the global food crisis of 2007, agricultural land has become an attractive asset for large private corporations and state-owned entities wanting to secure food supplies. These investments have had varying effects. At times, they have been associated with forced removals of pre-existing landholders with weak tenure rights. On other occasions they have driven up local property prices and alter...

Australians spend more than half a billion dollars on bottled water every year. But as people sip on the chilled H2O, rarely do they question the processes of manufacture, packaging and transportation that are needed to achieve that convenience. This panel examines the impacts and reasons for the shift from the tap to the bottle and debates the implications of transforming water from a common reso...

2016 is a critical time for Indonesia’s rainforests. An area of forest the size of Germany has been lost in the last 25 years, driving species to the brink and threatening the global climate. At the height of last year’s forest fires, Indonesia was emitting more carbon than the entire US economy. Kiki Taufik, the Global Head of Greenpeace’s Indonesian Forests Campaign outlines why protecting Indon...

For the past decade, Australian policy makers and the media have been altering the public narrative and framing of ‘climate change’ despite the science remaining consistent. Among those, local councils have been developing Climate Change Adaptation Plans (CCAP) to educate the community despite many being pressured to avoid using the term ‘climate change’. Analysing the language utilised within tho...

Tuesday 12 April 2016 Recent research into the human body biomes and fecal microbial transplants (FMT) has led to better understanding of both the important function of bacteria in our bodies and the ecological systems that sustain us. These include microbiota – ecologies within the body. Prof Kathy High (USA) is an interdisciplinary artist working in the areas of technology, science and art. She...

Fundamental changes in global energy production pose significant challenges for Australia. In particular, as the recent Paris climate agreement highlights there is now international consensus among nation states for dramatic reductions in carbon emissions. Combined with the technological disruption of low cost renewable energy technologies, it is clear a global transition towards a low-carbon econ...

Wednesday 23 March 2016 Our love affair with coastal living is at risk. Coastal properties and infrastructure systems in Australia are being significantly impacted with intensified storm surges and beach erosion processes. As the environment changes, there is mounting interest in local values in the literature on climate change adaptation and planning. But this appears to raise more questions than...

Today as the population of our planet is on the rise, as energy needs are growing and CO2 emissions are threatening livelihoods around the globe, it makes sense to look back to understand how societies have dealt with energy expectations, energy needs, and energy transitions in the past. This talk by Professor Christof Mauch - Director (jointly with Helmuth Trischler) of the Rachel Carson Center f...

There’s been great debate over the years about pesticide use in the production of our fruit and veggies. California’s lucrative strawberry industry has been a clear example of where there have been regulatory battles over the use of chemical fumigants - two, in particular, methyl iodide and chloropicrin. One side of the argument, from the activists, is that they would harm the body while industry...

It has been well publicised that eliminating meat consumption can help the environment. But with the average Australian consumption of red meat at around 111kg/year, that isn’t likely to happen any time soon. How can we still enjoy meat but in an ethical and safe manner that improves our climate footprint? Could eating meat at the later stages like mutton improve the environmental impact? And are...

Climate change is the greatest challenge we will face this century. Indeed, the worst-case scenarios paint an unimaginable vision of large tracts of the Earth rendered uninhabitable, the collapse of global food production, mass species extinction, the acidification of the oceans, substantial sea-level rises and storms and droughts of growing intensity. Yet, despite the need for dramatic economic a...

For two weeks at the beginning of December, world leaders and climate negotiators will meet at COP 21 Paris to agree the parameters of a new global climate treaty. What are the chances of success in Paris compared to previous efforts at agreement? How might we assess the meeting? What would ‘success’ entail, and what implications might this have for domestic policy, existing fossil fuel infrastruc...

In recent years, we have seen an explosion in the number of community organisations that orient themselves around the production and distribution of food. These food justice groups often focus on improving the availability and quality of food in urban environments, on reducing food waste, and on building local economies. How, though, does the “justice” of food justice manifest itself in practice?...

Raw milk was linked to the death of a Melbourne toddler last year. It stirred a major debate about the dangers of drinking non-pasteurised milk, labelling around raw milk and the need for tougher regulations. On the flip side, those pro raw-milk and raw-cheese claimed the issue had been sensationalised. Milk is an important food for many people, providing the calcium needed for our bones and vario...

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. 'People, Culture and Country' Session with Steven Wantarri Janpijimpa Patrick, Walbiri, NT Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. Curtis Taylor is a filmmaker, screen artist and a young Martu leader. Growing up in the remote Martu desert communities and in the city, Curtis hasgained both traditional Martu knowledge and a Western education. After finishing school in 2008, Curtis workedas Community Coordinator and Youth Development Of...

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. 'Cultural Heritage Protection' Session with Harold Furber, Arrente, Desert Peoples Precinct, Alice Springs, NT Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. 'Success Stories' Session with Adrian Burragubba, Wangan and Jagalingou, Central QLD Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. 'People, Culture and Country' Session with Paul Spearim, Gamilaraay, NSW Film Reference: https://www.facebook.com/paul.spearim/videos/vb.1182132496/10206981386951441/?type=2&theater Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. 'Success Stories' Session with Dr Anne Poelina, Nyikina Mangala, WA Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Defence of Country: Aboriginal people Dealing with the impacts of globalisation in Australia. Cultural Heritage Protection Session with Clayton Lewis, Nyoongah Aboriginal Heritage Action Alliance of WA Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thursday 23 July 2015A conversation with Professor Dipesh Chakrabarty (University of Chicago, Visiting Fellow Sydney Environment Institute, University of Sydney)‘If, indeed, globalization and global warming are born of overlapping processes, the question is, How do we bring them together in our understanding of the world?’In his pathbreaking essays on ‘Climate and Capital’, Dipesh Chakrabarty has...

Thursday 30 July 2015Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Special Rapporteur for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations. She has been a long time environmental activist in the Philippines. She has extended her activism to work with Indigenous peoples on these issues globally. She is co-author with Gerry Mander of a book Paradigm Wars: Indigenous peoples Resistance to Economic Globalisation. This...

Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Dr Kumi Naidoo has a confronting message for Australia: “The world is now moving on climate change and Australia is being left behind because the Abbott Government is in thrall to the fossil fuel industry”. Born in South Africa, Dr Naidoo became involved in his country’s liberation struggle at the age of 15. In 1986, he was arrested, charged with vio...