Climate Change: Shifting the narrative

How can we adapt respond to and adapt to a future of climate change? Science Ambassador Kate Bongiovanni joined the discussion to find out.

The night began with an introduction by Dr Vanessa Lamb, School of Geography, and a Welcome to Country video featuring Wurundjeri Elder, Colin Hunter, and explaining respect for land, plants and animals.

Dr Lamb shared how the School of Geography participated in a Climate Retreat early this year to brainstorm what we can do to help with climate change.  The idea that emerged was “shifting the narrative.”  Dr Vanessa then introduced the panellists:

  • Dr Celia McMicheal is a health geographer who analyses climate change effects on human health and wellbeing. Her research into small Pacific island states and climate relates to displacement, e.g. relocation of a village due to coastal erosion, migrant and refugee health and climate change-related migration.
  • Dr Amy Prendergast examines deep time reconstructions of past climates from climate proxies and archives combined with archaeological evidence
  • Prof Jon Barnett uses the question “Who wins and who loses?” to study which groups are affected by climate change and how they can adapt and deal with these challenges. Jon also studies water management in various regions.

The panellists then delved into key questions on climate change.

Dr McMichael questioned what things mobilise the public and asked if melting ice and rising sea levels are enough to garner public attention. It’s important to also consider human health events, such as deaths in the 2003 heatwave in France or how the total hours of labour lost can impact GDP and if this hits closer to home for individuals in the community.

Dr Prendergast discussed the human environment interaction and what lessons we can learn from the past to plan for the future. She highlighted that historically, human communities have survived by making radical changes, such as the food they ate or tools and technology they used.  Dr Prendergast stressed how our society needs to change now and shift to a Climate Emergency status as there is only a short window in which to act to preserve our planet as it is. Dr Prendergast emphasised that personal actions are not enough; the government must act too and create new legislation, particularly surrounding renewable energy.

Prof Barnett shared his frustration with how, too often, we get stuck in a debate as to whether climate science is real. We need to accept this and move on to find a solution.  He agreed with Dr Prendergast that solutions need to include institutional responses, especially in the electricity sector.  Innovation and creativity are important for imagining better and more equitable futures. For example, Associate Professor Russell Drysdale, suggested the idea of taking a bicycle powered van around Australia to talk to people and promote action on climate change.

Dr McMichael discussed mitigation strategies and a shift in our thinking of climate change from focusing on risk to opportunity and optimism.  For instance, using more active transport also brings health benefits. Rather than thinking of climate change as the biggest population health risk, we should view it as the biggest population health opportunity because we have the chance to do great and large impact health innovations.  However, she cautioned against overstating the optimistic so much as to hide the difficulties of making changes.

Prof Barnett made three important closing points.  First, we need optimism to achieve anything.  Second, we need to invest in a knowledge base of scientific evidence on how we can adapt and live with these adaptations, rather than pouring money into climate models when we already know the dire predictions of the models. Third, governments need to be involved, including state governments. Governments exist to provide public goods and climate change is a threat to public goods.  We also need collective action to hold governments accountable.

The floor was then open to questions which included food production and shifting to native food sources, such as sweet potato, that can grow efficiently in our Australian climate. Other diet shifts such as eating less meat, using indigenous knowledge and land management, and the effect of air pollution on cognitive development.

We know that adaptation is possible. We’ve seen in places like Tuvalu, where the Pacific community is on the frontline of climate change. We just need to take more responsibility and shift our thinking to aid our environment and the world in which we live.

By Kate Bongiovanni, Science Student Ambassador.

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