Soil Matters Soil Matters

Angela Gallego-Sala joins us in this episode to discuss their peatland research. This episode is being on International Bog day which is on the 24th July. Angela is a professor at the University of Exeter and is a specialist in peatlands. Angela is working to understand why peatlands form in certain places and other places not and is working towards improving the mapping of peatlands globally. Peatlands are wet, carbon rich ecosystems where dead plant material, or OM, is not given the opportunity to break down. For this reason, peatlands store large amounts of carbon and even play a role regulating the Earth’s climate.

SPOILER ALERT: Angela expects that peatlands may expand with human-induced climate change because this is what we’ve witnessed under previous periods of climate warming.

We also discuss the implications that accompany protecting peatlands from agricultural land use in developing countries with widespread poverty. Angela is also a member and organiser of C-PEAT - an international consortium of peatland scientists, attended the COP26 in Glasgow to contribute to the Peatland Pavillion. Angela also contributes to PAGES, an international palaeoclimate research group.

Soil Matters respectfully acknowledges all indigenous peoples connected to the soils and lands across this planet. We particularly offer respect to the elders past, present, and emerging that are, have been, or will be caretakers of peatlands.

Angela Gallego-Sala:

https://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/tropeacc/team/angela-gallego-sala/

https://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Angela_Gallego-Sala

This is a queer coming of age story about Jacq's journey into weed and women. The Northern Ireland peatlands are the backdrop during this defining journey and we discuss the role of their home soil, these beautiful and windswept landscapes.

Jacq Doherty is a local expert in cannabinoid edibles around Amsterdam. The pilgrimage to become the head baker of weed edibles has been inseparable from their inner and outer journey exploring queer women.

Amsterdam coffee shop recommendations:
La Tertulia
on the Prinsengracht. Mother & Daughter owned. Organic weed, organic drinks etc, clean and cool place! Best vegan edibles in the city 😉

Yeah the Otherside
in the East. It's a shop owned by gay ppl.. It’s a nice place to sit. They are old school!

Coffeeshop Amsterdam
in Haarlemerstraat. Part of the Amsterdam genetics which is a franchise. Is Jacq's local. It's not queer per se but there are often queers in it. It’s open, friendly and good quality. Part of a franchise.

This episode was recored on Friday 7th May 2021 at radiopatapoe.nl

Yoshi Maezumi has completed a huge amount of research comparing two major fire drivers - humans and climate change. And spoiler alert! Humans always win. Yoshi’s work has focused on the Holocene, the most recent geological period. The Holocene is a warm period, that follows the highly variable Pleistocene and begins about 11,500 years ago.
Yoshi has done a huge amount of work to understand fire behaviour in South America. Yoshi has worked on understanding the role of fire in human crop cultivation throughout the Holocene. Yoshi’s work has increased our understanding of the ways humans have used fire to modify the landscape to aid crop cultivation. This understanding is a contrast to the view that indigenous peoples were almost entirely hunter gatherers.
This episode was recorded on 10th December 2021.
yoshimaezumi.wixsite.com/paleoecology
twitter.com/yoshi_maezumi

Dave van Wees uses satellite data to produce world class fire emission estimates and has even found novel new uses for this method - such as estimating the carbon sink capacity over time.
50% of global land area burned by fire during an average year occurs on the African continent.
Indonesian peatland fires can be equivalent to ALL anthropogenic emissions in 1 year! That’s a lot of emissions!
Land and ocean sinks continue to sequester carbon at the same rate (compared to 60 years ago) despite more GHGs in the atmosphere.
This was a knowledge rich, fascinating and stellar episode that was broadcast live on radiopatapoe.nl from the VU Amsterdam on 3rd December 2021. Thank you Dave for a ripper podcast. I wish you all the best on your journey!

In this episode I interview Stefanie Wells. Stephanie wells is a champion of Sextinction Rebellion, working in the Erotic Department of Extinction Rebellion Amsterdam. As well as being a hardcore climate activist, Stefanie Wells is a fabulous anti-fashion-designer from the Netherlands. We speak about the XR erotic calendar that has been produced for 2022. In this episode, Stefanie gives us a how-to on how to become an anti-fashion-designer and we touch on ways to make trash fabulous.

This episode was broadcast live on radiopatapoe.nl on 5th November 2021 from Nieuwland.cc.

We review the outcomes of the COP26 thus far. 
Short-term GHG emissions reduction targets (proposed policy enacted before 2050) will lead to 2.4 degrees of warming by 2100. 
Long-term GHG emissions reduction targets (proposed policy enacted before 2070) will lead to 1.9 degrees of warming by 2100.
Global Checkpoints to become annual. The next checkpoint will occur in late 2022. This is to motivate governments and industries to work to reduce emissions before 2030.
We review the net-zero GHG emissions targets here: https://eciu.net/netzerotracker
The episode was broadcast live on radiopatoe.nl on 10th November 2021.