All Episodes
April 25, 2020
Yanna Badet helps us better understand local governance and it's relevance to the climate crisis
Yanna Badet (pictured)is a climate resilience and sustainability consultant and was one of the many speakers at the week-long no-fly conference organized by We Don't Have Time . Yanna represents Climate Reality and her discussion about Local Government and governance felt personally entirely relevant as my council, the City of Greater Shepparton in northern Victoria, Australia, only recently declared a climate emergency. Her suggestion that we "tell stories" about addressing the climate crisis …
April 22, 2020
Dr Andrew Glikson's paper in Arctic News
Dr Andrew Glikson from the Australian National University is a prolific author and his latest paper " The Fatal Road to +4° Celsius " is worth you time. Dr Glikson was recently kind enough to afford Climate Conversations the chance to chat with him and it was during that interview that he spelt out that it's not his intention to alarm people, rather just let the facts speak for themselves. He is an Earth and Paleo-climate scientist from the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian N…
April 14, 2020
Will Steffen talks about COVID-19 and the climate crisis
Will Steffen is one of Australia's great climate warriors and is not afraid to tell it like it is, letting the facts be the basis of the story. Will, a professor from the Canberra-based Australia National University was once a member of the Australian Government's former Climate Commission, but is now a part of the community-backed Climate Council . Asked what we could do as individuals about the climate crisis, the professor suggested we should obviously attend to our personal emissions, but t…
April 10, 2020
Dr Andrew Glikson doesn't aim to inflame the conversation, just deliver the facts
Andrew Glikson deals in the facts of the climate crisis and at no point sets out to alarm people, rather is the Earth and paleo-climate scientist from Canberra's Australia National University discusses the realities what's is happening to Earth's climate system. Dr Glikson has been prolific in his efforts to help people better understand the complications and implications of the climate crisis and it was an article in The Conversation - While we fixate on coronavirus, the Earth is hurtling tow…
April 7, 2020
Climate Conversations "travels" to the far west New South Wales to talk with Anika Molesworth
Anika Molesworth is from the new guard of climate activist, she breaks the mold fashioned around the older, grey-headed male or maybe what some call the "woke" conservationist from an inner city suburb, the latte-sipping left-wing ideologue who has never been outside the city limits. No, Anika is a farmer from far west New South Wales who works, lives and breathes in a world that is literally on the climate change front line. But she is more than a farmer, although she is a part of Farmers for …
April 3, 2020
John Pettigrew responds to climate emergency declaration by the City of Greater Shepparton
John Pettigrew (pictured) is a true "climate warrior" and has been since hearing former US vice president speak in Sydney on 2006 - 14 years ago. John, who is living under "house arrest" at his Bunbartha farm - directed by his children - because of the Coronavirus, is delighted that the City of Greater Shepparton has declared a climate emergency. He is pleased council has taken this decisive step and although looking forward to seeing what it does in response to its decision, he also argues t…
April 2, 2020
Some ideas about how the City of Greater Shepparton should tackle the climate emergency
The City of Greater Shepparton has declared a climate emergency. That, however, was the easy part, and now the hard work begins. The council, and its team, now need to have an impact, they need to do something to reach zero emissions by 2030 and along with that apply the idea of a climate emergency to all their activities. And of course, and at the same time, bring the community along with them. In reply to some critics, Robert McLean (pictured) penned a number of ideas about what the city shou…
March 31, 2020
City of Greater Shepparton declares a climate emergency
Eight of the nine councilors were at the March meeting of the City of Greater Shepparton council resulting in the vote to declare a climate emergency being evenly split - four saying "yes" to the emergency and four giving the idea the thumbs down. And that required the Mayor, Cr Seema Abdullah (pictured), to use her casting vote, which to the delight of those watching who had worked hard to see the emergency idea adopted, she said "yes" to the climate emergency motion. Because of the COVIG-19 …
March 31, 2020
Geelong's Mik Aidt talks about the climate crisis and The Sustainable Hour
Mik Aidt's (pictured) journey began in Denmark where he married an Australian girl, moved to Geelong in 2013 and fell, almost immediately, into the role of hosting his own radio show, The Sustainable Hour . The one-hour radio show, which he now has co-hosts, is now broadcast via Zoom as the radio station has gone into lock-down because of the Coronavirus. Mik, a believer in the power of community, has three children and attributes to them his passionate desire to do something about the quickly …
March 20, 2020
Podcasts to help us endure the Coronavirus pandemic
The Shepparton News has pointed to podcasts as a possible "thing" to help people navigate social distancing and social isolation during the present Coronavirus pandemic. That is unquestionably true (I'm biased), but will we be using the valuable experiences from the pandemic to help us better understand what we can do both as individuals and a a community to find our way through the climate crisis. The Coronavirus, or at least news about it, has claimed all the world's major news sources, pushi…
March 18, 2020
The good and bad of the Coronavirus
Thinking about what is good about the Coronavirus.
March 15, 2020
Conflicted about the Coronavirus and the climate crisis
The Coronavirus has brought some alarming difficulties, chief among them the deaths of many people, and serious social dislocation and disruption and yet if looked at through the climate crisis prism alone it has been a good thing as it has cut the world's carbon emissions and if this trend continues it could lead to the first fall in carbon emissions since 2008. The 2008 drop in emissions was brought on by the then global financial crisis and this health crisis is having an equally massive imp…
March 11, 2020
The myth of the Paris Agreement
Rarely do the realities of achieving the Paris climate agreements ever get mentioned or explained. Should all those countries which signed up to the 2015 Paris undertakings honour those commitments, then the world is bound for global temperature increases in excess of three degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Christiana Figueres, who played a key role in the Paris discussions, is presently touring Australia to promote her new book, " The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis "…
March 8, 2020
Greta Thunberg speaks truth to power
Swedish teenage climate activist. Greta Thunberg (pictured), recently told the European Parliament's environmental committee that it was surrendering. It realized its house was on fire, went outside, smelt the air went back inside, finished their meal and then went to bed. Greta dismissed the law as "empty words" and accused the EU of "pretending" to be a leader on climate change.
March 7, 2020
Meg Pethybridge talks about RiverConnect
Accountancy was dull and boring, leading to a disenchanted Meg Pethybridge (pictured) abandoning those studies and in thinking about her real passion, the environment, she joined the Shepparton-based organization, RiverConnect , about 18 months ago. RiverConnect is an initiative of the Shepparton-Mooroopna community to acknowledge the Goulburn and Broken rivers as the heart and soul of the community and is funded jointly by the City of Greater Shepparton and the Goulburn Broken Catchment Manage…
March 5, 2020
Nicole sees the climate crisis and waste as inextricably linked
Nicole Wells (pictured), inspired by her three children, is doing all she can to enrich the life of her small rural community, ease the crushing waste problem the world faces and better equip people to deal with difficulties arising from the climate crisis. Nicole is acutely aware that many see the efforts of one person as so inconsequential, and yet conscious of that, she believes the efforts of the individual are critical and together can make a difference to our waste problems and the mitig…
March 3, 2020
Janet Stanley talks us through bushfires and the climate crisis
Associate Professor Janet Stanley (pictured) from the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne understands the implications and complications of bushfires and talks about those issues with Climate Conversations. Janet also has a keen interest in urban design and sees a distinct link between how we design our villages, towns and cities and keeping people safe during the climate worsened bushfire season. Like all of us concerned about the climate crisis, Janet can be…
March 2, 2020
Communicating the science of the climate crisis
Dr Jenny Martin (pictured) teaches effective communication skills to science students at both undergraduate and Masters levels at the University of Melbourne , subsequently she has a unique understanding of why it is so difficult to help others understand the science of the climate crisis. She has been to Antarctica with Homeward Bound ; she has seen the climate crisis free from the filters of the modern world; she has wept at what she saw and returned from that all-female expedition, a changed…