The EcoPolitics Podcast

Does the environmentalist motto, ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’, point us towards sustainable food systems’ solutions? In this episode, Dr. Navin Ramankutty from UBC and Ken Meter from the Crossroads Resource Center in Minneapolis explore whether locally produced foods, provided by small-scale farmers, are inherently more sustainable than that which comes from larger producers many miles away. The discussion suggests that scale and proximity are not necessarily correlated with better environmental performance across the board, but that there are still good reasons for building strong food systems at the community level, and ensuring that small scale farmers can earn a sustainable livelihood.

Aotearoa/New Zealand's dairy sector contributes 1/4 of that country's greenhouse gas emissions. Dr John Reid (University of Canterbury), and Dr. Hugh Campbell (University of Otago), show us how Māori sustainability values are having a growing influence on the sector's response to the challenge of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Recorded on World Water Day, in this episode, we speak with Dr. Farhana Sultana, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and the Environment and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University to discuss all things water. Our conversation touches on the human right to water and sanitation, the ways in which water is a cross-cutting, multisectoral entity, and how governance of water, and further, privatization, is complicated, and can often be detrimental, to ensuring our rights to water.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. James Meadowcroft, Professor in both the School of Public Policy and Administration and in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University. He sheds some light on how the environment became a defining issue in the discipline of Political Science, and shares how an organization called the Transition Accelerator works to advance technological, business and social change for a more sustainable future.

In this episode we speak to Cristina Coc, Executive Director of the Julian Cho Society and Spokesperson for the Toledo Alcaldes Association/Maya Leaders Alliance, and Filiberto Penados, Chair, Julian Cho Society about the connections between indigenous rights and land conservation. Together, we take a closer look at the fight for recognition of the Maya people's rights to land in Belize. Overall, we conclude that this struggle is a global struggle, not just for indigenous rights to land, but for survival of all on a just and healthy planet.