ABC Environment

Might urbanisation be the most profound change to human society over the last century? What is globotics and what is it doing to the service sector? Why are people still cleaning the sewers in India and are we about to go to the moon?

US climatologist and geophysicist Professor Michael E. Mann talks climate change and the new economy.

Water Minister David Littleproud discusses the Government's new plan to protect native fish in the Murray-Darling Basin.

As summer approaches, communities along the Murray-Darling River system are again preparing for mass fish kills like those of last summer.

Desertification and land degradation affect the lives of around three billion people, according to UN estimates. Two ambitious projects aim at halting desertification and returning soil to productivity: the Great Green Wall project in northern Africa; and the Green Great Wall initiative in China.

This week, how actual straw could replace straws in the war on waste; how one farmer is recovering from the devastating NSW fires; and how debt is crippling parts of rural and regional Australia.

Drought policy debate stretches on, dam debate kicks on, water meetings hear community concern, new plant burger.

A Senate committee is looking at jobs for the future in regional areas, as the Morrison Government tries to encourage migrants to move to the regions and as existing fossil fuel industries face eventual shutdown.

A lot went wrong for the federal Labor Party on election night, but many believe an overly-ambitious and poorly explained climate change policy played a big role in their shock defeat. The party has flagged that its emissions reduction targets are up for review.

Climate change has been one of the most polarising issues in modern Australian politics for more than a decade, and there's little sign of a truce on the horizon. But it's an issue some MPs are eager to forge a better consensus on.

Disability advocates are calling on the activist group known as Extinction Rebellion to consider the rights of people with disabilities. Some politicians have called for harsher punishments to protesters, and say this week's demonstrations are doing the cause more harm than good.

Australia's incoming ambassador to the United States joins RN Drive to remark on the consequences if Turkey invades northern Syria.

Labor's Agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon will tell the Sydney Institute that the Labor Party should scrap its election target of a 45 per cent reduction in carbon emissions and instead adopt the upper range of the Coalition's target, a 28 per cent reduction. But the idea has been rejected by several of his senior colleagues.

Modern democratic politics have taken what could be called an 'optimistic turn': a kind of hyperbolic cheeriness in the face of a purported threat; an assurance that the future will be bright, and that only the man at the helm can deliver it. So there’s no need to be anxious. Political philosopher Romand Coles joins Waleed and Scott to discuss why this optimism is the antithesis of genuine democratic hope.

Many of us have wild and romantic ideas for what we'd like to happen to our remains after we die. Unfortunately, because of bureaucratic practicalities, many of these ideas don't work out as magically as we would have hoped. Well, architect David Neustein is proposing a solution which, he claims, is novel and romantic, but also practically possible.

Dogs and cats need a high-energy diet and producing pet food generates millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases. The choices we make when we feed our pets affect other animals, the environment and even our own well-being. Should we stop keeping meat-eating pets?

Liberal MP Tim Wilson and Labor MP Ed Husic join RN Drive to talk about the politics of the day.

Environment Minister Sussan Ley joins RN Drive to discuss ocean pollution, recycling and today's Extinction Rebellion protests.

Electric kettles are cheap as chips these days, so if yours breaks, you don’t need to wait long for a cuppa. But years ago, people used to repair broken appliances, rather than replace them. Could we go back to that approach? Hilary Harper took her bung kettle to one of the many volunteer repair cafes that are springing up around Australia.

Electric kettles are cheap as chips these days, so if yours breaks, you don’t need to wait long for a cuppa. But years ago, people used to repair broken appliances, rather than replace them. Could we go back to that approach? Hilary Harper took her bung kettle to one of the many volunteer repair cafes that are springing up around Australia.