The SEI Podcast Series
Episodes
Storytelling for Earthly Survival
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the SEI podcast series, explore the power of storytelling in offering new ways of seeing, feeling, and understanding our relationsh...
Communities in an era of compounding disasters: stories of hope from the Northern Rivers
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The 2026 Iain McCalman Lecture was delivered by Dr Rebecca McNaught as she shares lessons from the ground-up of communities stepping up in extraordina...
How to Weather Together: Feminist Practice for Climate Change.
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the SEI podcast series, hear from leading voices on feminist approaches to climate change, Professor Astrida Neimanis&nbs...
Rethinking growth: Post-growth, de-growth, donuts and well-being
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Unpack the growth paradigm and hear from thinkers reimagining economies built around well-being, climate justice, and living within planetary boundari...
What ‘nature positive’ means in practice
25 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
‘Nature positive’ is everywhere but what does it really mean? In this instalment, hear expert insights on its use in policy, conservation, and fin...
Reimagining democracy: how diverse knowledges are creating more-than-human justice
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of the SEI Podcast Series hear from leading environmental figures to explore models of more-than-human governance, drawing from Ind...
Climate justice in the midst of climate turbulence
30 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of the SEI Podcast Series, hear from leading voices as they discuss Australia’s urgent climate, housing and energy challenges, ex...
How nature can strengthen Greater Sydney's flood resilience
27 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of the SEI Podcast Series, discover how nature-based solutions can be integrated into urban and coastal planning to build resilienc...
Co-creating futures: embedding Indigenous knowledges in environmental research
09 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 2025 Iain McCalman Lecture was delivered by Dr Mitch Gibbs as he reflected on his journey as an Indigenous researcher, exploring how collaboration...
Climate finance and debt, loss and damage (Climate justice and loss and damage in the Pacific conference)
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As climate change accelerates, Pacific Island nations face the twin challenges of increasing climate vulnerability and financial constraints that limi...
Civil society organisations and self-organising communities (Climate justice and loss and damage in the Pacific conference)
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As climate change intensifies, Pacific Island communities are facing profound losses of land, livelihoods, cultural heritage, and ways of life. How ca...
Multispecies justice, loss and damage (Climate justice and loss and damage in the Pacific conference)
27 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
As climate change intensifies, Pacific Island communities are facing profound losses of land, livelihoods, cultural heritage, and ways of life. How ca...
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development's insights on loss and damage
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of the SEI Podcast Series, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development Professor Surya Deva unveils his Climate Justice: Loss...
Meeting the moment: lessons from the 'once in a lifetime' investment of the Biden Administration in Environmental Justice
22 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of The SEI Podcast Series, renowned scholar Kyle Whyte will share his experiences serving the Biden administration, environmental j...
Will putting a price on nature protect it?
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of The SEI Podcast Series, hear from experts from as they explore if valuing nature economically can lead to responsible environmen...
Natural solutions: seawalls are not the only climate buffer
26 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of The SEI Podcast Series, hear from experts as they explore the potential of nature-based solutions, like wetlands and mangroves, ...
Grassroots Resilience
21 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Experiencing a disaster is often the catalyst for communities to realise the importance of being prepared, particularly when people have been forced t...
Six Months On
21 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During and after disasters, social media platforms become critical communication tools that enable the sharing of information, linking of donations an...
Everybody Pitches In
21 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Community-led actions are enabled through their ability to draw on local networks, skills and knowledges to respond swiftly and flexibly in times of c...
Know Your Neighbours
21 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Disaster-affected communities frequently emphasise the need to ‘know your neighbours’ – know who they are, what their needs and plans may be and...
Coordinating the Boats
21 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Flood-affected communities do not remain idle when the need is urgent. This vignette covers one way in which community members organised a system of t...
Stories are the Toolkit
21 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, communities across New South Wales have faced catastrophic bushfires and floods. These have been described as ‘unprecedented’ in ...
Centring nature in the transformation of urban spaces
24 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of SEI's four-part Climate and Biodiversity Crises Series, in partnership with Henry Halloran Trust, an expert panel will disc...
We can't save the climate by destroying nature
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of the SEI podcast series, it is discussed how the biodiversity crisis is inextricably linked to the climate crisis, and we can’t...
Oceanic narratives: interweaving past, present and future
29 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of the SEI Podcast Series, writer Dr James Bradley joins new scholarship that reckons with humanity’s complex relationship ...
The 2024 Iain McCalman Lecture: Multispecies mourning - grief and resistance in an age of ecological undoing
12 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
At the 2024 Iain McCalman lecture, Dr Sophie Chao considered how mourning has become a necessary disposition of our times: one that enables us to crea...
Sustainability@Sydney x SEI: Threads of life
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How can we balance the need to halt biodiversity loss against human needs for shelter, fuel, and nutrition? Could a more multidisciplinary approach he...
Episode 4: Critical mineral mining for renewable energy: how the EU is shaping regulation
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the final episode of the Unearthing Critical Minerals series, Professor Susan Park sits down with Dr Jewellord (Jojo) Nem Singh, an Assistant Profe...
Episode 3: Comparing mining industries: Australia, Canada and South America
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Professor Susan Parks sits down with political scientist Dr Donald Kingsbury as they delve into the contrasting experiences of mining...
Episode 2: Navigating the impacts of global critical mineral supply chains
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Professor Susan Parks sits down with geographer Dr Lian Sinclair to understand how critical minerals impact the communities and envir...
Episode 1: Unearthing the importance of critical minerals
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Professor Susan Park will unpack what are critical minerals and why they are key in our fight against climate change? Renewable energ...
The power of multidisciplinary research in addressing UN Sustainable Development Goals
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
University of Sydney researchers discuss the recent United Nations Global Sustainable Development Report and how multidisciplinary research can help a...
Building power within and beyond the university
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this instalment of Grounded Conversations, political theorist Alyssa Battistoni joins Sydney Environment Institute researcher Anna Sturman to discu...
Preparing for the unpredictable: communities reducing disaster risk
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, Australia has been battered by catastrophic bushfires and floods exacerbated by climate change. It is also clear from these shock eve...
Adapting our food systems
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Industrial agriculture is a key contributor to the climate crisis, which threatens the resilience of our food systems. A panel of farmers and research...
Stories of courage: Part one – caring for wild animals during bushfires
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the face of worsening climate disasters, the Sydney Environment Institute's Shoalhaven project seeks to understand the work being done by communiti...
Stories of courage: Part two – caring for domesticated animals during bushfires
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the face of worsening climate disasters, the Sydney Environment Institute's Shoalhaven project seeks to understand the work being done by communiti...
Stories of courage: Part three – caring for farmed animals during bushfires
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the face of worsening climate disasters, the Sydney Environment Institute's Shoalhaven project seeks to understand the work being done by communiti...
Nobel Prize laureate Steven Chu on paths to a sustainable future
25 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize laureate and former U.S. Secretary of Energy during the Obama administration, presents new data on climate change ...
Indigenous philosophies and practices of multispecies justice
29 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What if politics were reoriented to take responsibility for planetary flourishing? Such an orientation has been labelled multispecies justice. While i...
Financing adaptation or adapting finance
23 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Financial experts discuss the rapidly transitioning landscape of climate finance to explore how a variety of public and private financial actors are r...
Critical minerals: Can Australia mine its way out of the climate crisis?
19 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A panel of experts and climate activists discuss Australia’s race to mine critical minerals for renewable technology and the consequences of an unre...
Capitalism, colonialism and multispecies justice
09 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How has capitalism and colonialism rendered multispecies injustice business as usual? A panel of experts unpack this issue and consider what alternati...
Grounded Conversations: Farhana Sultana
02 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
SEI Director Professor David Schlosberg sits down with multidisciplinary scholar Professor Farhana Sultana to discuss a broad range of pressing climat...
Just adaptation and the role of social capital
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How can we adapt all sectors of society to respond to climate pressures? In the first event of SEI’s Climate Adaptation series, leading political sc...
Reimagining our future: communities confronting the realities of climate change
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us understand the gravity of the climate crisis and what needs to be done, so what’s standing in our way? What will it take for our future t...
The 2023 Iain McCalman Lecture: Harnessing the transformative potential of climate governance
27 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How can Australia successfully transition and adapt its interconnected social and technological systems as the climate crisis intensifies? Environment...
Multispecies economic justice: property in focus
27 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Property and ownership are at the core of global crises so how can we rethink our relationship with property and redistribute it in the interests of j...
Building resilience in Australia's electricity infrastructure: planning for resilience
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hear from a multidisciplinary range of experts as they assess the stability and resilience of our electricity grid in the face of increasing climate d...
The politics of mitigation, adaptation and suffering
01 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hear from experts as they unpack how responses to the climate crisis have been organised by business, government and civil society, and what possibili...
Reducing climate disaster risk: insights from communities, government and industry
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What will it take for communities, the private sector, and government, to build preparedness and resilience in the face of increasing disasters? For ...
Reimagining Environmental Responsibility After the State of the Environment Report
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In response to the dire findings of the recent State of the Environment Report, this panel will explore the political, economic and ideological constr...
Worlds of Gray and Green: Mineral Extraction as Ecological Practice
17 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sociologist and SEI’s 2023 Environmental Humanities Visiting Fellow Sebastián Ureta, explores how the waste produced from mining interacts with hum...
A Disorderly Transition: What Technologies Do We Need?
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A panel of chemists and social scientists unpack current alternative technologies on the path to decarbonisation and the complex social implications t...
Redefining Who Matters: Institutionalising Multi-species Justice
05 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In a time of environmental crisis and heightened social and political tension, a panel of SEI experts call for institutionalising justice for all spec...
Renewables and Rural Australia: Community Experiences in NSW
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Hear from MPs and the authors of a major study on the social impact of large-scale renewable energy in rural communities as they launch their ground-b...
The Battle for a Future - Farming and Extraction
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the third event of SEI’s Communities on the Frontline Series, in partnership with University of Sydney's Institute of Agriculture, SEI research l...
Conversations With Coal Miners about Climate Change
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the second event of SEI’s Communities on the Frontline Series, filmmaker Kim Nguyen sits down with coal industry representatives and climate acti...
Why Can’t We Talk About a Just Transition From Coal in Australia?
02 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How is the concept of a ‘just transition’ understood? In the first event of SEI’s Communities on the Frontline Series, we hear from researchers ...
Building Communities of Care for Food Systems Change
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
SEI Postdoctoral Fellow on the FoodLab Sydney project, Kate Johnston, explores the potential of care to address our broken food systems and inform our...
Never Again or Never? Environmental Justice in Australia
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Usyd Philosophy Society (PhilSoc) in partnership with Sydney Environment Institute present a discussion on the legal and philosophical limits to e...
Book Launch: Subjects of Intergenerational Justice
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Leading environmental scholars highlight the value Indigenous philosophies have for solving global environmental problems as we launch Christine Winte...
Emotion and Anxiety in Environmental History
06 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Environmental historians, like others who study and write about the environment, have long worked with the emotional and psychological impact of envir...
How Can Finance Address Climate Change?
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In public discussion, climate finance is often bandied around with banks positioning themselves as positive actors in addressing climate change. But w...
The Toxic Greed of Australia’s Gas-Led Recovery
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
NSW communities have for decades battled against an influx of large-scale resource extraction projects and fossil fuel industry adjacent developments....
From Denial to Delay: Moving Beyond Australia’s Fossil Fuel Addiction
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why is the Australian Government accelerating the expansion of coal and gas exports as other nations commit to emission reduction targets, and what co...
Unravelling The Capitalist State
12 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this PhD Seminar, SEI Doctoral Fellow Anna Sturman draws upon her thesis to explore the capitalist state as a key terrain of inquiry for environmen...
Heal Country Series: Law of the Land
06 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lecturer in Environmental Politics, and SEI Postdoctoral Fellow-Multispecies Justice, Dr Christine Winter explores this year's NAIDOC week theme 'Heal...
The Invisible Now: Writing Crisis and the Future Imaginary
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Warning: The podcast contains explicit language. Just as COVID-19 has laid bare the racial, gender, and economic inequalities upon which our societies...
Heal Country Series: Heal the Nation and Secure the Future
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Lecturer in Indigenous, intergenerational, environmental and multispecies justice, and SEI Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Christine Winter explores this year...
Writing The More-Than-Human
30 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today, a range of disciplines are discovering or perhaps acknowledging the many and marvelous capacities and qualities of beings other than humans, th...
USU Enviro Week: Changing Our Food System From Within
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Eating ties us to the social and environmental challenges inherent in our food system. It is a system that is currently unsustainable and rife with in...
Philosophy on the Ground: Changing Values in a Changing Climate
05 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The University of Sydney Philosophy Society’s (PhilSoc) Philosophy on the Ground series takes everyday issues in the public discourse and shows how ...
Critical Companions Series: Objects of Science and Culture
21 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Critical Companions Series celebrates innovative and rich thinking. The series aims to traverse disciplinary silos to provoke different perspectiv...
Critical Companions Series: Ocean Pools Project
28 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Critical Companions Series celebrates innovative and rich thinking. ‘Critical Companions’ are individuals within the Sydney Environment Instit...
Wild Policy Book Launch
28 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Anthropologist Tess Lea has recently launched her remarkable new book, 'Wild Policy: Indigeneity and the Unruly Logics of Intervention'. Drawing on he...
Salmon And Acorns Feed Our People
10 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
International guest Professor Kari Marie Norgaard joins Professor Jakelin Troy to discuss violence, denial, cultural identity and Norgaard’s latest ...
Nature in Culture: Casting Climate in a 'Niue' Light
30 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Pacific has been at the forefront of climate change’s most immediate impacts over the years, with rising sea levels threatening communities, the...
Nature in Culture: Overturning Aqua Nullius
17 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Water is the lifeblood of civilisations, ecosystems and cultures, however, for years this source of life has been exploited and polluted. As the threa...
Protecting an Intimacy Between Karuk and River
11 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
International guest Kari Marie Norgaard, Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, joins Dr Christine Wi...
Nature in Culture: Nurturing Oysters Naturally
03 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Pacific Oyster is an invasive species. As it moves along the coast, it ‘colonises’ the rocky shoreline. And as with settler colonialism, this ...
Nature in Culture: Multi-Sensory Mapping with the Marind People
20 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sophie Chao has worked with the Marind people of Indonesian West Papua for over a decade. With them, she has watched as the Indonesian government and ...
Reducing the Impact of Heatwaves: Bodies, Housing, and Cool Suburbs
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Penrith hit an all-time high of 48.9 degrees in early January – for a day it was the hottest place on the planet. The climate-changed projections fo...
Everyday Militarisms: Hidden in Plain Sight
24 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Militarisms are all around us, but they're often hidden – not in the sense that we can't see them or taste them or touch them, but in the sense that...
Our House Is on Fire: How Universities Can Become Advocates for Climate Action
04 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dr Tanya Fiedler in conversation with Professor Michael Mann and Professor Christopher Wright. In the wake of the catastrophic bushfires that have dev...
Questions of Management and Policy Amidst Australia’s Bushfire Crisis
02 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An interdisciplinary panel considers how government and industry should best respond to climate-related disasters, which will only become increasingly...
The 2020 Iain McCalman Lecture with Dr Dinesh Wadiwel
17 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
'Swinging the Pendulum Towards the Politics of Production: Animal-Based Food and Environmental Justice' Dr Wadiwel explores the impact of animal agric...
Violence in Plain Sight
10 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Humans seem to agree on few ethical principles, but one that seems to be near universal is that unless it serves the ultimate purpose of peace, violen...
Swimming Into The Blue Humanities
31 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
From the shipwrecked swims of Odysseus and Robinson Crusoe to the immersive poetry of Byron and Whitman, swimming captures the human experience of env...
The Failure of CSR in A Warming World
25 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this panel discussion, a group of academic experts and business practitioners discuss how businesses might change their approach to environmental a...
The Toxic Management of Mining Legacies
08 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mine rehabilitation and mine closure is at first glance much less “spectacular” than the arrival of a new mine – there are rarely protests, bloc...
Book Launch: Sustainable Materialism
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This recording is from the Sydney Environment Institute's launch of David Schlosberg and Luke Craven’s new book Sustainable Materialism, a work that...
Adapting Climate Science For Business
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Climate science and the models it uses to project climatic changes over the 21st century were designed to answer big picture policy questions at the g...
How Are Businesses Responding to Investor Pressure on Climate Change?
12 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Many businesses are already feeling the effects of climate change. As a consequence, investors are expecting far greater insight and transparency arou...
Why Investors are Worrying About Climate Change
28 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Why are financial regulators, investors and other entities demanding greater insight into the financial risks and opportunities posed by climate chang...
Making Space I: Bodies, Space and the Anthropocene
07 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The future of our planet is unlikely, unpredictable, innovative and deeply interwoven; an improvisation at a planetary scale. As our world continues t...
Culture, Trust, and Systems: Local and Democratic Politics for the Anthropocene
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This Sydney Environment Institute and Sydney Ideas event examined a variety of ways of rethinking local politics for more sustainable and democratic e...
'The Sea, The Sea’ by Alexandra Spence
13 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
An original piece by Alexandra Spence. The piece was inspired by the work of retiring SEI Co-director Professor Iain McCalman and performed as part of...
The Inaugural Iain McCalman Lecture
07 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
To celebrate the career of retiring Co-director Professor Iain McCalman the Sydney Environment Institute launched an annual lecture aimed at highlight...
Climate Change and the Media
06 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last twenty-five years, the weight of evidence about the causes and consequences of climate change have become compelling, and yet little act...