CLIMATE ACTION RADIO SHOW

APRIL 1ST 2024

Produced by Vivien Langford

D O N ' T    L O O K   A W A Y.

FROM PLUMES OF SMOKE IN THE FOREST, FROM FUGITIVE METHANE NEAR GAS WELLS AND FROM STARVATION IN PALESTINE

Guests: 

Dr Philip Zylstra - Curtin University and UNSW -Expert at nipping bushfires in the bud.

https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/prescribed-burning-could-be-making-...

Piper Rollins Climate Campaigner from Australian Conservation Foundation 

https://www.acf.org.au/australia-dramatically-underreporting-gas-and-coa...

David Rovics with his new album Notes from a Holocaust 

https://davidrovics.bandcamp.com/album/notes-from-a-holocaust

Don't look away from actual Bushfire Behaviour

Associate Professor Philip Zylstra, from Curtin University, said: “If they’re too tall to catch fire, plants calm bushfires by slowing the wind beneath them. If disturbance kills those taller plants, replacements regrow from the ground and add to the fuel. 

Prescribed burns are a fire mitigation tool used with the aim of reducing fuel load to minimise the intensity and severity of fires.  

However, while prescribed burns can sometimes decrease flammability in the short term, the way they disrupt forest ecosystems can create longer periods of additional flammability.  

“Very frequent burning close to homes or control lines could create defendable spaces, but large, remote and infrequent burns maintain the landscape at maximum fire risk because they undermine the natural controls that forests place on fire," Associate Professor Zylstra said. The remote areas that burn have often been extensively logged eg Eden NSW

Don't look away from methane : 

An investigation by ACF and the global non-profit Clean Air Task Force last year detected methane escaping from more than 100 sources at 35 industrial sites in Queensland and NSW.  “When it comes to rapidly reducing Australia’s most potent climate heating pollution, cutting methane emissions from the coal and gas industry is low hanging fruit.”

Methane emissions are believed to account for about 30% of the global temperature rise since the industrial revolution.

Don't look away from Palestine

David Rovics' new album of songs was composed between October and December 2023

He says "  I wrote them to bear witness to the genocide of the Palestinian people that continues by the hour as I publish this album."

Hear the drones above your head
What were the last words that she said
Before she joined the thousands dead
As the bombs rain down