Terra Informa

This week on Terra Informa we share the first part of an interview with Eriel Deranger, Executive Director and co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action, one of the organizations behind Reject Teck. Reject Teck a grassroots campaign challenging the Teck Frontier oilsands project and the Canadian government, that has made headlines at COP25, Fire Drill Fridays, and in other news. Eriel has a lot of knowledge to share about the Teck project, the larger resource development process in Canada and Alberta, and organizing to protect the environment and take climate action.

Update: As of February 23, 2020, the Teck Resources Ltd has withdrawn the Frontier mine project from the environmental assessment approval process.

This week, Terra Informers Charlotte Thomasson, Andy Silva, and Shawn Hou discuss the different forms that climate action can take. What are the differences between collective and individual action, and is one more important than the other?

This week, we’re bringing you the second and final part of a two-part series on the Canadian Energy Centre Ltd., alternatively known as the Energy War Room introduced by Alberta’s UCP government. In this episode, Terra Informers Sonak Patel and Hannah Cunningham discuss what the CEC does, and its potential implications for environmental journalism. We also feature more audio from a talk on the Canadian Energy Centre done as part of the Parkland Institute’s 2019 Fall Conference by David Climenhaga and Dave Cournoyer.

This week, we're bringing you part one of a two-part series on the Canadian Energy Centre Ltd., alternatively known as the Energy War Room introduced by Alberta's UCP government. In this episode, Terra Informers Sonak Patel and Hannah Cunningham discuss what the centre is, why it was created, the funding and organization behind it, and its staff. We also feature audio from a talk on the Canadian Energy Centre done as part of the Parkland Institute's 2019 Fall Conference by David Climenhaga and Dave Cournoyer.

Stay tuned for next week, where the second episode will focus on the work that the Canadian Energy Centre does, and the implications it has for environmental journalism.

Program Log.

This week, we’re bringing you an archive episode from October 2018, featuring Terra Informer Dylan Hall and author Stephen Jenkinson. In this episode, they explore concepts related to elder-hood, age, grief and death, and what these evoke when viewed through eyes apprehending the relentless destruction of diversity.

To help celebrate the end of a brutal coldsnap here on the Canadian prairies, this week's episode features an archive that is all about green and growing things! We'll hear Terra Informer Amanda Rooney speak with Dr. Natasha Meyers, a professor of anthropology at York University, about our relationships with plants and how we might be able to re-conceptualize them.

After reading an article entitled “How to grow livable worlds: Ten not-so-easy steps“, Terra Informer Amanda Rooney wanted to share the idea of the Planthropocene with listeners! Amanda got to speak with the author of the paper, Natasha Myers, about her relationship with plants, planthropology and how you might reconceptualize your relationship with plants.

We will also hear from Terra Informers Sonak Patel, Hannah Cunningham, and new recruit Curtis Blandy about some of their most memorable chlorophyll-ed relationships.

The devastating bushfires in Australia have been front and center in the news this month, with a total area of around 8.4 million hectares burned as of the 6th of January. The images of smoke plumes visible from space and eerie orange skies reminded us here at Terra Informa of the wildfires in the Amazonian rainforest this past summer. So, this week we are revisiting an archive episode from August 2019, where we discussed the state of the wildfires and Terra Informer Elizabeth Dowdell interviewed interdisciplinary scholar Cristiana Seixas about her work on socio-ecological systems and protecting the environment in Brazil. 

This week, Terra Informers Elizabeth Dowdell, Carter Gorzitza, and Hannah Cunningham sit down to reflect on 2019. What inspired us? When did we feel the most connected to the environment around us? How many animal carcasses did we each see?

We here at Terra Informa are very excited to be planning some excellent episodes for the new year! Do you have an idea for a story that you'd like to hear on the show? If so, shoot us a message at [email protected]!

This week on Terra Informa, we revisit a timely episode from this past summer's coverage of the 2019 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Listen as Terra Informer Dylan Hall interviews fashionista and not-for-profit educator Jess Montgomery of Think The World Differently. Montgomery holds an MA in the History and Theory of Contemporary Art from the San Francisco Art Institute, where she wrote her thesis on the role that fashion can play in perpetuating or challenging over-consumption. She is also a contributor to Not Just A Label, a designer platform for upcoming artists.

We wanted to revisit this story over the holiday season because a central theme of the interview is the environmental and social impact of the fashion industry.  This time of year we are bombarded with messages to "buy this" and "consume more", and while there is a growing trend in waste- and gift-free practices, we still have a long and complicated system to unravel if we want to mitigate the negative impacts of over-consumption. Another reason to re-air the interview is the pressure to dress fashionably at holiday parties and social events. As Montgomery will explain, this doesn’t mean you have to mean buy something new. There are many ways to be an ethical and sustainable consumer while still getting your fashion fix.

This week on Terra Informa, we're bringing you the first of two weeks of archive episodes as we take a brief break for the holiday season. In this episode, we revisit our 'All About Birds' episode that originally aired in June of this year, where Terra Informer Charlotte Thomasson talked to resident Nature Nut, John Acorn, about local bird songs and birding stories, with audio captured by Terra Informers live in Edmonton, Alberta, near Drumheller, Alberta, and on Saturna Island in British Columbia.