Is Carbon Capture and Storage going to enable Australia to keep on burning coal? On this show we explore the feasibility of the technology and whether it is the best solution to the problem of global warming.Guests: Professor Ralf Haese from the Peter Cook Centre for CCS Research at the University of MelbourneCam Walker from Friends of the EarthGerard Drew from Beyond Zero Emissions

The Tasmanian State Government has just axed a nine year long, nation leading project monitoring pesticide residues in waterways. We speak with Anthony Amis about the importance of that monitoring program, and the alarming effects pesticides have on our health and the environment.See also the Australian Pesticides Map, Friends of the Earth Pesticides & Toxic Chemicals campaign, and the National Toxics Network.But first up, the Federal government has set the stage for their latest attempt to silence environmental groups. They’ve launched a parliamentary inquiry into the register of environmental groups receiving tax deductibility (GDR) status. Friends of the Earth is one of the organisations that has been singled out by Coalition MPs. Friends of the Earth are hitting back with a campaign appealing to the public for support.Guests: Cam Walker (Campaigns Coordinator, Friends of the Earth); Anthony Amis (Pesticides & Toxic Chemicals campaign, Friends of the Earth)

The NSW government is buying back Petroleum Exploration Licenses (PEL). We talk to  Louise Steer from Stop CSG Sydney about what it took to make it this far and what's next in the fight to rid Australia from fracking.Estimated millions of pieces of space debris are orbiting around the planet left over from space missions and satellites. Professor Steven Tingay, the director of the Curtin Institute of radio astronomy at Curtin University in Perth, talks to us about this problem and what his team of scientists in the Western Australian Desert were doing to track the debris.

On this week’s show we delve into the (not-so-fictional) universe of Cli-Fi, or climate change fiction. We hear from novelists Alice Robinson, and Naomi Oreskes.And later in the program, something that should be relegated to the world of fiction, but unfortunately is all too real. The duck shooting season has started again in Victoria, and so too has the campaign to stop it. We speak with Laurie Levy, long-time activist with the Coalition Against Duck Shooting.Guests: Alice Robinson (author and lecturer in creative writing at NMIT), Naomi Oreskes (author and Professor of the history of science at Harvard University), and Laurie Levy (Campaign Director at Coalition Against Duck Shooting).

This week on Earth Matters, we're tuning into Dr Vandana Shiva speaking in Sydney in February 2015.Dr Vandana Shiva is a scientist, ecologist, author and winner of the Sydney Peace Prize. She speaks about food sovereignty and seed freedom, the threats created by industrial globalised farming, industrial monocultures and the use of chemicals. She tells us about how genetic modification is first and foremost an industrial tool to collect royalties on seeds, monopolised by Monsanto and destroying farmers and biodiversity the world over. Find out more at www.vandanashiva.com and www.seedfreedom.info. The event "Planet on a Plate" was organised by the GM Free Australia Alliance and the Sydney Food Fairness Alliance.This week's show is #975 and was produced by Gem Romuld.

The Bunya Pine is an ancient and sacred tree. It's native to Cubbi Cubbi country in South East Queensland. It has long been an important food source for Aboriginal Australians and European colonisers are starting to catch onto the idea too. On this show we talk to Aunty Beverly Hand from Cubbi Cubbi country who organises the annual Bunya Dreaming; Patrick Evans from Maton who make a Bunya Pine Guitar; Bryant Wells the head chef at Tukka who cook with the Bunya Nut; Adam Burgess horticulturalist from the National Arboretum in Canberra which has a forest of 600 Bunya Pines; and Byron Joel who is a regenerative agricultural designer.Special permission given by Eliza Allard to podcast her song.