work on the planet halbert i'm great row and i'm terry more planet however is the show but all things environmental will be touching on a wide range of topics from climate change to chemicals in our water and commercial products deceptive system and l jubilant at planet halliburton we value and encourage your input so please send your questions suggestions and comments by emailing us at planet halliburton a queue at them dot com my direct question to our regular monthly feature ask agraea eighty eighty legal order the programme general could be something to do with a home or personal care product or about any environmental issue we'll try to match up your question with appropriate answer representatives of some one hundred and ninety countries from around the world are meeting in bonn germany from november the seventh to the sixteenth two thousand seventeen at the united nations twenty third climate summit since the united nations framework convention on climate change was ratified back and nineteen ninety four despite increasingly urgent calls by the world's climate scientists to cut greenhouse gas emissions co2 levels in the atmosphere continue to arise in a now stand at well over four hundred parts per million a level not experienced on earth in millions of years james hansen probably the world's most famous climate scientists pulls no punches about the consequences of the steep rise from the pre industrial levels of two hundred and eighty parts per million in a statement he released at the opening of the latest summit this is what he had to say i've come to note the greenhouse gas climate forcing are accelerating not decelerating in the sea level rise and ocean acidification are accelerating we confront a mortal threat now endangering only at first the very existence of island and low lying nations in the pacific and around the planet what's behind the failure of world leaders to act in the face of near of clear scientific evidence directly linking greenhouse gas emissions human cause greenhouse gas emissions to rising sea levels and extreme weather events that literally threaten the existence of island nations is it the sheer power fossil fuel companies in the climate change denial industry they financed or are there more systemic causes route in the very nature of our economic system capitalism if capitalism is implicated nor ecological crises are their alternative ways to organise our economies to operate in an ecologically responsible and sustainable manner to help a shed some light on these and related questions as well as efforts afoot to find ways out of our cascading environmental crises were joined by richard swift author of a recent book entitled s o s alternatives to capitalism it's a pleasure to welcome you to planet haliburton richard i give you a long time editor of the new international magazine and author of a number books including the no sought and the no nonsense guide to democracy the great revenue robbery how to stop the tax scam and say if canada and most recently s o s alternatives to capitalism what's the significance of the s o s in the title of the last book and what is about capitalism that warns and urgent distress signal well i think that while capitalism presents itself as a series of of good things individual prosperity free enterprise getting government off your back that this is largely caused become a cloak for a kind of autocratic economy ruled by huge financial institutions and globalized corporations it's a system of the economy that by definition is controlled by a few and the top at the top whom the rest of us are beholding too for our survival whether the us are individual workers or large governments even those who control capital and make calculations of profitability have traditionally treated nature as a kind of free input into production then have been willing to squander it without thinking too much about what the ecological consequences are in other economists these to a sea there's there's a kind of shift in the economics profession and there's a lot of ecological conversely there and they ve tried to change the sum of these calculations but this has been pretty stridently resisted by by those who control the capitalist economy i think the other thing about about capitalism is that it tends to feed on crisis and instability there's a famous old austrian conservative economic theorists named joseph schumpeter hoof who famously called this creative destruction and this is this is the kind of described destruction which comes out of continual crises in the economy we saw most recently i guess most dramatically in two thousand and eight when people had their jobs and their houses and their mortgages creatively destroy so i think that's another reason why capitalism is a system of this kind of insecurity that comes out of this creative destruction undermines people's sense of well being the way i think that the current phase of capitalism operates it is a very speculative kind of economy worthy the financial wealth the paper the paper wealth of of of sicily of the economic system is much much greater than the real economy i cant remember the exact statistics but something like thirty two one the real economy compared to the value of the economy as measured in stocks and bonds and derivatives and on futures trading and so that is an inbuilt instability to it which i think is also dangerous to an ecological system which really needs to have this kind of stable investment climate into the real economy too were to make to make sure that it can survive i think the ultimate logic of capitalism is that it was made popular by ayn rand that we all act we can have them the best and the healthiest society can be achieved out of the selfishness of each individual pursuing their own interests while i think in an era where we are faced with with global crises where we have to make collective decisions that this is a very short sighted and narrow sort of frame of reference for for looking at her for looking at how we can organize society were asking we have an economy which in a sense appeals to the worst in us when we need an economy which appeals to the best in us so i think in all those ways cat the capitalist economy is undermining our possibilities to survive ecologically in tourism isn't much public space for critical examination despite these kinds of crises and then maybe may may be doing in the middle of a crisis there is an opening for for a bit of time but there's not much said seems not much public space to talk about capless and how it works how it shapes and defines are our everyday lives let alone how it directly impacts the natural world the leaders of the main political parties and in this country and around the world and media commentators largely assume that a capitalist economy is the only one that's possible that there is no alternative to paraphrase margaret thatcher ronald reagan given the lack of popular discussion about the defining features and problems of capitalist economies perhaps it would be helpful for us too to new may be deceptive defined for people or listing some of the chief characteristics of a capitalist economy as well as some of the key problems that it read that it raises for working people and the environment in particular i think that obviously the private ownership of wealth is one of the main characteristics of capitalism the original vision of the people who who were the first if you want capitalist revolutionaries was that coming out of feudalism was that we would have their ideal was a republic of small holders of of and it was a very agrarian society at that time so was it was the idea that that everyone would have a little bit and then they would interact in order to to make an economy work through the market system but that form of capitalism if it ever existed did not exist for very long and certainly more just on the margins of the system in terms of its actual how how it now actually operates or think that just going back twice before that that now the idea of a free market there is no real free market i mean they're little markets markets are created by human beings are not a natural phenomenon so the markets that are created by human beings and say the car industry or petroleum or the mining industry arc are by definition because of the nature of the scale of those enterprises created by large dominated by large corporate entities and i think that kind of of a relationship of the large corporate entity to either the small the the worker whose employed or the community that's a fact did or the even the small stockholder who who would like to have a say in in you know what's happening with the eu with the particular enterprise in which they hold the stock is minimal the the decision making is existed a much higher level in that and really whether its on ecological issues or on labour issues or on community health issues most of us are just bystanders to economic decision making and i think that kind of undemocratic core is is the basis of what capitalism's all about an ironically the advocates of our present capitalism say that it's it it's the best fit with democracy but if you look at how capitalism exists in different parts of the world capitalism is sort of politically agnostic permit it can exist in the united states under donald trump it can exist in canada under under mr trudeau it can exist in russia under vladimir putin can exists under generals in latin america can exist in china as a sort of unduly under the aegis of the communist party so capitalism adapts itself to which upper profitable so that so that any notion that capitalism gives us democracy is i think shaky so when critical comments about our economic system do get made all sorts of adjectives appear to be attached and an appear to take the brunt of the criticism as in corporate capitalism or neo liberal capitalism laissez faire capitalism financed monopoly capitalism and so on the emphasis on qualifiers suggests that a more socially responsible variant or type of capitals and maybe like green capitalism for example is possible and send can somehow resolve some of the problems created by more harsher versions do you think that a kinder gentler variant of capitalism is possible even desirable in your view well i mean one when it would be easier if we if we could achieve a sorter ecologically sustainable fair society without having to have major disruption so if you could if you could get capitalism to be that then then that would be saved us all a lot of trouble but i personally think it's a bit of a longshot i mean i know capitalism does very allotted means very operates in very different ways in the congo in sweden our current approach to two economic life is very much in a globalization of capitalism so that there is a sort of homogenized effects that that capitalism is starting to have around the world so that in a weather it's seen in shopping malls or how mining companies operate or you re taxes restructure your way you know you could see it most recently in in some of these trade agreements where there's these investors state clauses which allow for corporations to sue even if they have invested they could soothe the host government based on the fact that laws have been passed or regulations have been put forward that's that's denied them the potential possibilities to make profit so i think that the two kind of car boat a green capitalism in that in the in that situation would be very very difficult in oh if you if you look at the way the public purse is being squeezed by the constant demands for austerity that that you got across the board and the connection of that too to those structure of the international tax system where basically the wealthy whether its individuals at the top one percent or top five ten percent or major corporations are avoiding paying large large amounts of their of their packs what they should be paid in taxes often this is legal lead that's versing said when you know someone raises please but that's not illegal it might not be illegal maybe it's been structured that way but it's immoral and and it undermines the possibility of government being able to to engage in meaningful ecological kind of programming or creating an ecological society because it just doesn't have the wherewithal to do it because the its treasury is being sucked dry and you add to that though the way in which a lot of of corporations used but you know what critics of the public or their public relations call greenwash where they use a kind of environmental kind of pitch to sell products which really doesn't fundamentally change the nature of production or the disposal of the product of its use words like natural and and environmentally friendly justice as a kind of marketing device really and and it's it's become such that capital the notion of making money has infected even the most the even the environmental ministries like canada's environment minister catherine mckinnon she she can hardly talk about environmental issues without talking about the fact that this is this is this is a potential investment boom for canadians to engage in in economic economic technologies for ameliorating environmental problems so its there's a way in which the the very notion of money making and profit calculation undermines any peace at any price real priority to given to two environmental regulation and protection in your book your very critical of capitalism and express an urgent need to replace it as fast as possible which are equally critical of soviet chinese systems built and acting in the name of socialism both the soviet chinese systems adopted very authoritarian political structures as well as capitalist production methods denigrated the environment in ways that rival in some cases surpassed the ecological damage caused in and by western industrialized nations what can we learn from the mistakes of the of the soviet and chinese attempts to create an alternative to capitalism will i think there's not very much in the way of good examples there the one possible exception being hugh ban a special period when it was kind of cut off after the idea that the fall of the berlin wall and the russians refusing to pump in aid or by cuban sugar and they had to to launch on a ten or fifteen year programme in which was basically ecological agriculture because they couldn't afford to buy the the heavy chemical inputs that that industrial agriculture demanded so there's that but usually what did what the chinese and the russian examples have been is is a commitment to unthinking growth which is also a product of of cat corporate capitalism and andy and a commitment to to some fantasy like mega projects where they would you know the three gorges dam in china being one example and which she back and back in the day and stalinist russia another shifting of entire river systems thousands of miles sir with all kinds of unforeseen ecological consequences in the russian case the drawing up of the sea of our resolve in central asia there's so that time and time again i think i think the the commitment to growth create commitment to training compete with an ape but what was happening in the capitalist world has has made in a sense the the communists their own worst enemy in terms of either the structure of their their economy the lack of democracy and the and the real way in which ecological impact have been ruled out there been a number of recent efforts to revisit the ecological perspectives of classic social socialist writers like karl marx and friedrich engels for example and john bellamy fosters marx's ecology and the metabolic riff capitalism's war on the planet this work come is animated considerable discussion when within what's called unequal socialist framework do you think that these efforts have uncovered a credible ecological road not taken so to speak within classical marxism and what's your take on eco socialism well i mean i think eco socialism is the hope with some form of because socialism in their many variants as it is is the hope for the future because you need to combine you need to combine ecological sanity with some kind of fairness because so often when programmes of of economic of ecological remediation or put forward a weathered climate change or or dealing with chemical spills or or the closing of polluting industries it's it's the poor or working people who end up bearing the burden and and this makes them hostile and suspicious of of psychological of ecological issues so that without the fairness of that kind of fairness built into an environmental mute movement which is a kind of socialist fairness if you want then i think there is a real danger that term that working people and and and sort of the kind of populist anti ecological upsurge which is used by people like donald trump and and vladimir putin and all kinds of people to kind of undermine real ecological change unopposed positive way is almost inevitable i would say i think that done in terms of marks and under the metabolic rift and i think that's a reading of marks for sure and i think it's it's promising a promising exploration of marks and john bellamy foster whose theatre monthly review i think he's he's written extensively on this unease made a strong case my personal thinking is that there's a lot in march that goes in all manner of rice highlight the bible in some ways you can take out of marks but everyone i want i want to take out of it i'm exaggerating a little bit but so there is that marks but there is also the marks a view of the forward march of progress of the idiocy calling the idiocy the countryside the the marx who believes in in the most up to date technologies though the angles who believes in the administration of things that's a fairly undemocratic notion nurse saw you i think that i think that its while its useful to have that you know to look back and marks and fine things that are that it will help make an ecological case i think you should also not be afraid to depart from marks and say well marks didn't quite get this right or marks didn't really deal with this i mean things have moved on a lot from from myanmar marks has road to two in a word gettin into the well into the to the first quarter of the twenty first century now and there's a lot of different things that marks never never could have considered i'm i'm a big fan of tony hearten and antonia negro who also have done their own updating of the radical tradition but in them for me which a more kind of with marble rupture from the old school and i think they deal with ecological issues and issues of of popular democracy in in quite a creative interesting fashion so i think i'll think there's a lot of potential contributors to this echoes socialist rebirth and hopefully there be a fertile debate in which you know into something really positive can emerge we're gonna put a few of those links that we ve talked about no you ve talked about up on the planet halliburton website for people who want to take a deeper dive any the themes at tat tat we we we talk about today in your book you indicate that it's not enough for social movement seeking fundamental change to engage in an anti capitalist protests in a chapter in total what we should stand for you put it this way if we are to create a rupture in the circular logic that there is no alternative we need to propose one that gives people the hope that their lives could and should be better and the insecurity and tedious hardships engendered by the current speculative regime of creative destruction can be dealt with your programme for change has three main elements de growth bringing financed under control and the changing the way that current wage labour system operates us try to get a taste a little taste of of each of these with maybe starting with the growth what do you mean by it and why is it essential well there's a d growth movement that's that's gone going in europe by its infringes deak vessels which is maybe a better way of putting it because it means both to stop growing and stop believing saudi growth is kind of that it's kind of a grenade word it's like you throw it out therein and the ideas to shock people because growth is gino is motherhood and fatherhood have you know it's as god in the past it's true there's no there's not a politician in the country who doesn't speak fair with economic growth and encourages so so the idea d growth is that we need to really to really think what's important in how we live and and really kind of have a society which has based its not i think it's it's d growth mostly caught the notion de growth mostly is about the the physical flow through of goods in the product in the physical production system so i dont think that the people who are advocates of de grosvenor square quite a number of them now i don't think they're talking about you know i d growth in in in in care services or de growth and in cultural activity or a de growth in in in in in public transportation i think they're talking about a d growth in the production of goods and i think it's it's very much from the sort of clay is caught i went to irish i've been to a couple of the big international d growth conferences and then one there was one in leipzig in germany over two years ago and i guess three years and and it was very impressive there was about three thousand delegates and fur and all socialists like myself what was really promising was that most of them are under thirty and they were very enthusiastic to rethink the values of why how we live in society what this should be about so it's a question of of kind of of re casting life tomorrow too to be more about the richness of relationships our relationships with each other our relationships to the polities in which we exist are relationships to nature and the environment and less about quantitative accumulating of goods and if you look at actual gross statistics we are de growing and we're going to d grow it's a question of how we do it if you look at growth rates in the economy back in and the of the second world war you had growth rates of six seven eight nine percent now year if you get a rose weight rate of point zero point five zero for censure considered you're doing very well your soul and even china where you know that in the global south the global growth rates of or so i believe in a country like china the growth rates are starting to to retreat so there's going to be de growth in some kind of fundamental way so the question is how is it going to happen is it going to be a planned democratic fair process where you know d it spread across the advantages and disadvantages of gibraltar spread across society or is it going to be the case where you known the rest of us are going to d grow and the and the wealthier gonna libyan gate guardian community surrounded by security guards and already you're seeing the world fraught with environmental refugees and and and i think that the de growing in a sort of conscious thoughtful way is is definitely one of the things that could underpin a negro affair eco socialism so that the second part of your proposal is about bringing financed under control and you argue that socializing of capital markets is essential if people are to control capital rather than capital controlling people are you advocating for public ownership of the banks and financial services sector and if so why do you see this as being key to creating a truly sustainable economy oh i think i think there is no doubt that that the finance needs to be a public utility you know it has to be something that that there is democratic control over that we have to be making decisions as a community based on where we want to invest our wealth because the way it's being done now through through speculation and corruption attached to that and and and very dubious very dubious kind of paper wealth in the economy is just not something which is either sustainable economically or sustainable ecologically so we we have to work out a system whereby you know we as communities despite decide what we're gonna do with our wealth in order to to build a collective future for us which with which we can live in our current ecological possibilities and the way it structured now that's that's just not going to occur in an already you can see all kinds of attempts to build alternative banking structures whether it's the cask popular movement in quebec or credit unions around the world and they vary in terms of their successes and failures in other something like even in our inner in a conservative red state in the united states like north dakota there's this is a state may that has somehow survived from the progressive era had not been done away with and when the reason has been done away with as it has a very nice very definite relationship with public finance and being able to to to provide public finance when its needed at reasonable rates to be able to support farmers in the agriculture and and the and the heads of the state banks in inane in north dakota make you know ten percent of what major bank executives make either in the private sector ten percent or or even five percent or one percent in some cases so you know is it's it's closer means to finance system that's publicly controlled which is a public utility which is closer to the two to people and closer to us making decisions as the community because the current line is just not doing that and a third party or programme calls for serious changes to the wage labour system as a principle means by which income is distributed in a capitalist economy you argue that expanded social programmes and a guaranteed basic income is to all would be a matter of right or should be a matter of right and it would have the potential for rallying people into the banner of an alternative to up to a growth oriented future growth machine both expanded social programmes and a guaranteed annual income have been strongly attacked by ruling elites and resisted in the neo liberal era there's also progressive resistance to the guaranteed annual income from those concerned that it would become a cupboard just further cut our further cuts to the steadily shredded social safety net that we have in this country and in other western countries why do you see the guaranteed annual income as being important to building a more environmentally sustainable and ecologically adjust alternative to capitalism will i think that the tying the distribution of up up up up societies wealth to the labour market is very limited i think that that is the notion that the notion that we need to have fallen for employment which we never ever gatt which is always something that the conventional labour movement wants is it it kind of is inevitably tied to growth where you know if everybody's working everybody's going to be doing be going to be doing jobs and the amount of production that's gonna have to take place in that in that scenario is going to be one that is incompatible with de growth is incompatible with an ecologically seen society cause we're just gonna be producing more and more and more and i think that that it also implies that there's an authoritarian relationship in a in most jobs i mean i ve been lucky i've been work i worked in a lot of worker controlled organization spittle most people don't have that luxury the small wages is one of the things you have to pay to have that luxury but most people don't have the luxury and they have a relationship where they spend most of their time most of their waking time working for a boss and in a profoundly undemocratic situation so i think that doing away with the centrality of the labour market and the centrality of jobs and people's lives is a more democratic way of organizing society so both and i think that the way in which the labour market is currently trending witches towards more and more precarious jobs particularly for younger people that people need to have other sources that they can stabilize count on four score income that's not tied to to a job i mean i know my my son for example he's had many many more jobs and i've had and he can be doing two and three and four at once just in order to survive survive and it's it's too difficult i think fur fur younger people to to deal with that situation so i think for all those reasons i think not not some kind of mickey mouse kind of minor guaranteed income but a significant guaranteed income which is accompanied by the same sort are better social services that there needs to be a public commitment to to redistributing wealth beyond you know unions fighting for more wages in the labour market me i won't union density assesses taken a catastrophic fall to so that the the role of her they had the capacity the trade union movement to actually move the yardsticks on that has been greatly diminished in a free trade area as well so but i guess one of the questions i wanted to ask about the three parts of that of this programme there they would be ambitious and they would be significant changes and all of them are gonna be seriously resisted by various components of the existing system why do you think that that this kind of programme would have any sort of a better chance of success let's say then than other programmes that have been advanced on the on the left in the past for redistributing redistributing income for example has been lots of proposals for for changing that or the proposal that we distribute socially necessary labour in a more democratic fashion but we also lower than the work week to try to bring it into conformity with with with the level of production is that's economically sustainable so i guess i do you think that this particular programme would be any more achievable more what would you think needs to happen in order for it to be to beyond the political a political agenda well you know i think that there's elements of it that are on the political agenda already certainly sir certainly the movement for tax justice has really raised the question about about finances a public utility de growth movement is is beginning to re gain traction in different parts of the world the movement fur for her guaranteed income is always a talking point its i think that together the three of them make fer a fairly straightforward advocacy of something that significantly different but is quite understandable by most people it's a kind of elegant really significant new deal in some respects yeah it's not like some meal we need to nationalize the commanding heights the economy or in i'm in this this is that given the left is very we need to have you know the party put forward correct program it's it's you know it's we need to have something that people can grab hold up you know will there be resistance absolutely where we win no guarantees do we need to fight for it absolutely because if you look at the other possibilities the way we're moving and whether its ecological crisis whether its political the current political rupture that's been going on the narrowing of political space in the and the gradual authoritarianism that's creeping in both in parliamentary democracies ended in strong men regimes in the global south and in eastern europe in places like output with in all these right wing racist movements it's an interesting time because there's both those kinds of really negative forces and then there's a lot of positive stop going on is a lot of rethinking of left traditions history sir there's lots of rethinking of the food economy there's a lot of rethinking of more democratic approach to energy more sustainable approach energy there's a lot of good stuff out there so i think we need a programme maybe it's not my programme maybe it's maybe i have elements a bed or maybe minds completely useless but we need to sort of bring a lot of those things together to present a coherent alternative for people so it's so they're not just blinded by you know they're all the same i am not interested in politics that there's a kind of moral lays out there that somehow we have to break through and this this is my this book i wrote to s o s alternatives to social to capitalism is is my attempt to make a cri de coeur saying we we absolutely have to do something and this is what i think we have a shot at doing in the file section of s o s some alternatives to capitalism castro proposal as less of a blueprint than a sketch of a possible route ottawa at what you call a maze there are two other possible sketches that have gained some local traction here in halliburton canny the leak manifesto and end the trick tat transition town movement what would you say to two about the key similarities either key cemeteries begin and end again the key differences between your programme but sand the leap and and transition town movements i think i'm familiar with both those those movements end and i am enthusiastically supportive of the mai i think what i ve done is i ve tried to pull in material from a range of different places i mean i i worked for for many years is an international journalists i've been connected to a lot of events in europe and a lot of movements in you in europe and in africa and latin america so i've tried to kind of merge those in and try to sort of bout neonazis see how different elements of a of a program run up against one another transition i think as a great movement i think it it it restricts itself a bit much too to individual communities and what happens in those communities when i think the changes need broad bright have broad societal implications that involve government policy in the way states are structured in the way economies restructured so i think they kind of dock on that question which is fair enough in so locked to just dealing with one community leap i think really concentrates on on climate change and you know that's vitally important but i think there's all kinds of other elements that can be brought into place i think a while i support both those movements i think that we need to ask some bigger questions so much to talk about and so little time to do it and i want to thank you richer for taking the time to join us too damn planet haliburton we're gonna put a whole as i said before we're gonna put a whole bunch of of references up on the on the website so people who want to take that deeper dive cannot can take a look at de growth from the commons and and you know the leap manifesto another other aspects of the kinds of things you ve been talking about today so hopefully we can have you back and and weakened dive into some of these elements even deeper so thanks again for joining us today how you survive thank you very much loan fund listeners recall that we had a previous episodes we talk to sheila's i'm an ample heaven from the halliburton highlands land trust about their bad project and so today were joined by paul heaven and sheila's imo once again to give us an update on exactly where this project stands is a bit of a background there's been a fine fungus infections call waiting no syndrome that's been all alive and kicking among the bad populations around the world but particular ontario and since two thousand and ten from what i understand these this white no syndrome has it actually resulting decline of between ninety nine percent of a bat populations but you you decided to get into a bad project and you and now have some interim results from from engaging the community so could you give us a little bit of an update we're that project stands and and how you engage in the community that the community support ok so that fabs absolute right terry there's been there has been a big decline in our inner about populations the fungus was actually first detected in ontario and twenty ten and we saw these declines in some of these hibernation sites of ninety two hundred percent share of our bats as a result we know that for over an hour of our eight species in ontario there now categorizes as endangered so what we try to do as the hellburners land trust as we realised that we don't really know what's going on with our beds in haliburton county what species we have or their distribution across the county and so so we launched our are a bad assessment project really to safety to get some background information on what was happening with our bets and we did this by by utilize protocol it we would have really worked well in the past and that is asked people get people involved in it and then find out what they knew about bats and then and then go out and and and and try and build on that and so that's exactly what we did we put out the early in the season through our companies with you and others we we told people about the bad the bad situation and we asked them to report any any bad observations that they were seen in the county of hebron and then i followed up with that and i went out and actually and and and met with some landowners and and and talk to them about what that say we're seen out there and then i put up a battery quarter on site and spat recorder records all the ultrasonic sounds the bats make while feeding and we can bring that back and actually actually identify what species they are actually brought a little clip of a bat with with me today just so you can actually hear what it is this this this clip is about a little brown my orders that well it's well i was feeding itself we want we want to play that is with you let's do that mrs brown my orders it's a little brown i noticed yet so just to be clear that's a that's a changing of the frequency of of the bad actual actual call due to to fit with the human the human ear that's right because you because recall is actually ultrasonic survive if i actually played it we wouldn't hear thing but it is an interpretation of fancy it it brings back down to freak z the frequency that weaken here and i am sorry that was just one bad feeding that's right that was one that videos and pass the microphone or pass my battery quarter and one from from haliburton and it so you can hear actually different speeds up and slows down such sends out really fast rapid calls that's actually when it's finding something homer united by sending out these calls really quickly and then when it finds in fees moves on and slows down again so it was very funny but please bear because i wanted the quick questions always came up from people was that these these barriers are actually to record us are the figures that poverty of everybody's microphones at other programs like no it wasn't it doesnt only records ultrasonic sounds and its causes above all we can hear someone who brought that information back and i ran it through some software and again we can identify what species they are by the different shape of the of the of that call and so there's a high frequency in a low frequency and sort of a frequency right where the most activity is happening in the colony of the of the call and we can run that through an and then define what species as so we had we had just a tremendous response from the public we have eighty three landowners actually report back to us with with bad observations and throughout the summer i was able to get out there at the fifty six sites and we put out the battery quarters for three to four nights at a time and so that we can give us a good data set for each if reach for each property other whether wasn't cooperative by any means was raided can certainly mesopotamia the quality of those calls but we had to work through that and maybe once was once we ran it through we actually discovered that we we we actually have all species in the in the county of haliburton so that that's that was great news of the four endangered species we found that the little brown my otis no one actually we just played that was probably the most common so we actually found it at twenty six of our sights and that's an endangered species that was great to see the other species of the small footed my otis try colored bat and and and northern my otis they are much they were much more cryptic we didn't get we didn't even see them as much and paul do we know why that is why is this for this particular species so prevalent him i think there are now i'm not sure if its a if its prevalence across the across a crowded which is just what we are able to identify these sites so it's not son ass they say in the population is greece is great it's just that the distribution is good at the moment we that we seem to have it most of our sights so that could change and over the years i think that another splash rate of s right because we don't know how many bass forgetting that each site because a single back could go past the bat requiring once many times or our whole bunch a basket goodbye once and we wouldn't know the difference so that says so it's hard to tell population but we are the distribution is good it seems to be right across the county i'd just like to add something to because paul went out to the four properties that the land trust owns manages and protects and i'm really happy to report that we have bad on all our land trust properties including some species that at risk incomplete nor as ireland for semi locked yes in fact i dont know why that surprises me that if it causes an island great yeah i think paul was saying that they they often feed along the edges where there's water so that that i guess this was the attraction sure maybe this would be a good point to just remind listeners above the ecological importance about popular why are we concerned why do we care why should we care should be about a boat that popular absolutely the bats are anew the tremendous aerial insectival so there are there eating insects just a tremendous amount of them in fact so much so that there is a single battle we two thousand mosquitos in the night i know that's important to me and everybody else that's nice getting invested forest but there is of course a they just basically maintain that balance so when you think of all the insects they can affect our forest industry agriculture as well as just just if the balance that they play and maintain those populations it's it's it's it it is incredible and small bad its weight in in in in insects every night and so they they really when you start thinking of the tens of thousands that can be can be out there and how many have what the what that impact can have it it is significant before we just drill down but more into wide knows syndrome up how does it how did it actually come to north america can give you gives a little better than the fungus actually is an invasive species so us it's a it's a fungus that really likes called la cool damp places so as it did it loves the caves that these that these these bats actually hibernate in and and so i believe that the fungus actually from europe and came over likely on them on the bottom of a boot in and was introduced into one cave sight and then from there is moved move from cave to cave and so that the importance of actually stand out of kay's we're we're bats are as it is it is really really it is really important because you can you can move that just a single sport can be transferred over to another but another bat another hibernation site and wipe out that whole population and so as we all have this little cage around throughout halliburton a things and it's really it is a very important strategy to stay out of them and enter and make sure you don't introduce introduced that fungus and you ve already mentioned that the populations are in decline and then y know syndrome is a big factor in that but are there other contributing factors in the decline that we can identify so that's the event that is the primary harm threat to due to the bats that said there are other stresses on the population that we can we can try and reduce and help by and that's what that's what we and halliburton hopefully can do it we're not gonna be fixed the white no syndrome ourselves up here by producing an eighty fungal or anything but we can protect the different routes sites that are theirs is a maternity ruth sites where you get groups of females and pups that group up their incredible incredibly important to the to the population because if you lose mums and puffs of an area you lose the whole population and so some point to protect those habitat management are we taking we should be trying to retain snags and things in our forests where these things can roost as well as just madness and end if you have an old building and you have you have bats utilizing maybe that building should be we should be left up and you can help the population that way so lots of different management gesture best measurement practices that we can adopt the trend to try and help the populations are all species of birds all wall eight species that are resident hunter equally susceptible to wait no sooner no so out of the eight we ve got three that's actually migrate and they will head off down south and and and so they don't hibernating these begin these be cave so they're not vulnerable but the other five species do and one of them the big ground that will actually hibernate and smaller groups and so it doesn't have when that when a little group gets infected it's not as dramatic along the population as as these other species where they hibernate up and tens of thousands have so one hibernation cyclists get hippicus hit with function you lose the all the bat small area as so so that's why the other for those five there are actually endanger costs actually believe that hibernate together and when you talk about this hibernation i'm curious because either sites in haliburton where we would have ten thousand bat hibernating some of the bigger my sites absolutely so there are some job certainly on the edges of of our of our of our county there's some big became caves in mind sites that are or can be can be used by by that populations as ammunition sites fisher and earth so are there any indications that the populations are rebounding coming back knots not yet know we're not seen that some we're not seen that yet again but this very little population data out there like ass the other thing where that's one one of the things we are approaching just trying to contribute a little bit too is trying to understand that this this distribution and and ends and what we have done so there's not does not some great baseline data so we had this many and now we have this right we can look at a cave site and say there used to be ten thousand here and now there's nothing so but let us have over all the big the big picture in terms of population is still pretty unknown i know the handle the land trust held it a bad house building workshop less last year and i understand you're gonna do that in the future as well but how does the building of those kind of bad houses contribute to stabilizing hurry or increasing back populations so certainly with the further the providing in another room site if if if if the forest is short of of snags or dead trees putting out a very savoury rapists out a conifer plantation or something like that of the addition of out of a bad house where it actually has like a little pocket funded to roost in is really important as as has become more sealed and attics become closed off a lot of our bat populations have actually moved into into anthropogenic structures like buildings and then things and so that as well as proper as has a becoming more sealed we're starting to lose that that that habitat as well so the introduction of the addition of an eye of a nice bat houses it is a great thing and it's really it's it is interesting to note that in europe there are actually building that houses in the buildings as others slats on the side of the houses where they bats can enter income and move in and out of the attic and then without any without any troubles the main thing is with with that you want to keep them out of the same area that you're you're using so it should be sealed inside so you never get a bad coming into the house but for about to be up in an attic may not be an issue in terry mentioned you bari held about building that box building workshop is there another one in the works plant yes absolutely end of last year's was very popularity was totally fallen we had a waiting room so we may try and hold to this year depending on interest and this year were partnering with the fish hatchery m will be having the bat box building workshop there last year paul came and i'm going to try to twist his arm and get him to come again and he told us everything we needed to know about bats and where the position europe batte box on the house and how to do that properly so so that that was excellent and it's quite easy to assemble we had pre made kits already waiting for people and so they really had to just assemble lorries but everybody had a great time doing that and i got some pictures back of finished kits hanging on the housel s great huge are you aware when these will happen the next time or you'll get that yeah it'll only happen in june but what i say to people is sign up for our free online newsletter land trust just go do just google halibut land trust in you and you'll get there and if you sign up for the news letter then you'll get advance notice of exactly when and where the workshop is so that's probably your best option yes in the vote probably fill up again so osgood selectively absolutely and will also be holding another bat information session last year we did that is well and this year i've been conversation with a very cool professor who does workshops and brings lives but people friendly pats to the presentation so we're trying to work on getting that to happen to and that will probably be around the end of may but again sign up for the for the free online newsletter and you'll be the first to know exactly where and when that will happen appalling and she'll want to thank you for joining us again today about planet alber will put a whole bunch of material is related to this up on the website and cooling links to your dear to your website so that people can connect with you with the next information sessions in that house building exercise after workshop the german plan in the summer so thank you once again for joining us really appreciate you taking the time to join us on planet element something like that i'm carry more i'm great row you ve been listening the planet halibut about all things environmental we really value questions in your comments however so drop us align planet celebrating actually with him darken thanks for listening see you 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