IMPACTS

Richard L. Howitt, BA Dip Ed Newcastle(NSW), PhD NSW

CROSS-CULTURAL NEGOTIATION OF SOCIAL CHANGE, POLITICS OF GEOGRAPHICAL SCALE, EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT.

Cross-cultural negotiation of social change

Native Title negotiations
As part of his ongoing work on indigenous responses to changing circumstances, Associate Professor Howitt continued work on cross-cultural negotiations between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.

A major project in South Australia, involving the development of negotiation procedures for a statewide agreement on native title was the major practical focus for this work in 2000. Associate Professor Howitt worked throughout the year as the principal consultant to the Native Title Unit of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement of South Australia. In this role he led a Technical Advisory Group consisting of social scientists, barristers, mediators and support staff and assisted Native Title Management Committees from across South Australia to secure more than $1 million to assist in developing a Native Title Congress which met several times during the year and which has agreed to proceed to wide-ranging negotiations with the state government, Chamber of Mines and Energy and Farmers’ Federation. Success of the negotiations will rely on a commitment of funds to resource the NTMCs themselves as negotiators on their own behalf, and to ensure appropriate monitoring and implementation of any subsequent agreements. A multi-million dollar budget has been prepared for consideration by Commonwealth and state bodies to ensure a just and sustainable outcome from this process.

Changing corporate cultures
Associate Professor Howitt has also continued work on corporate responses to structural change as part of an ARC Large Grant Project. This project is focusing particularly on transnational resource companies Placer Dome and Rio Tinto, and examining the impact of cross-cultural mining projects on the staff and corporate culture of the companies. The impact of changing environmental and human rights expectations is a particular target of this work.

Review the Changing Corporate Cultures project on the web at:
http://www.es.mq.edu.au/~rhowitt/CORPORAT/HOMEC.HTM

The Politics of Geographical Scale
Reconceptualizing the nature and implications of geographical scale has been a second major thrust of Associate Professor Howitt’s work in recent years. During 2000 he undertook several major commissions to write on this topic, with publication anticipated during 2001. A major paper reviewing the work of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas for thinking about scale issues in cross-cultural relationships is under revision for publication in the international journal Geoforum. A review of recent literature on geographical scale in Human Geography will be published in the forthcoming Blackwells Companion to Political Geography. A related chapter on ontological pluralism in contested cultural landscapes, co-authored with Dr Sandra Suchet, will be published in the Sage Handbook of Cultural Geography.

Material from the Scale Project can be found on the web at:
http://www.es.mq.edu.au/~rhowitt/SCALE/HOMES.HTM

Education for Social and Environmental Justice
Following the award of the 1999 Australian Award for University Teaching (Social Science) Associate Professor Howitt has undertaken a number of speaking engagements concerning the development of effective education for social and environmental justice. As part of the redevelopment of the curriculum in the Resource and Environmental Management program at Macquarie University, he introduced a new module titled ‘Mining and Human Rights’ in the course GEOS114 Global Environmental Crises in 2000. He also prepared an editorial on the issue of excellence in education for the Journal of Geography in Higher Education (see Publications).

Social Impact Assessment
The other major element of Associate Professor Howitt’s research in recent years has been practical and conceptual work on Social Impact Assessment. With Dr Sue Jackson (Northern Territory University), a paper on the methodology used in the Social Impact Assessment of the Alice Springs to Darwin Railway was published in a major SIA manual (See Publications). A proposal to introduce a new postgraduate unit on SIA was also presented for consideration, as part of a number of Masters-level courses at Macquarie University. Approval for this proposal was secured in early 2001 and the course will commence in 2002.

Human Health Impacts and Human Thermal Comfort

Peter Curson, MA Auck., PhD Tas
CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH STUDIES

Professor Peter Curson continued work on three broad projects with the field of climate and climate change and human health. The first is concerned with building an integrated environmental model of bubonic plague with particular reference to the ecology of natural or sylvatic plague. This model attempts to construct a disease system of the various factors responsible for the multiplication and transmission of plague and evaluate the impact of macro and micro-climatic factors on the disease agent, the primary and secondary host and the disease vector. The study is interested in assessing the microclimatic system responsible for the long term maintenance of reservoirs of natural plague and for assessing the potential impact of global climate change on plague risk. A second study in which climate and climate change plays a part concerns a large-scale reconstruction of an epidemic of dengue in southeastern Australia in 1925-26. This epidemic, probably the greatest outbreak of vector-borne infectious disease in Australian history, spread all over the eastern seaboard of Australia and produced upwards of 500,000 cases of dengue within a few months.

This study is not simply an exercise in historical geography or historical epidemiology. Dengue remains to this day a real threat to Australia’s public health, particularly in parts of Northern Queensland where epidemics are common, and the potential for the disease to spread to other parts of Australia remains high. Climate change may arguably affect the current distribution of the disease by influencing the life-cycle and current distribution of the mosquito vector. Reconstruction of this particular epidemic may provide us with clues about the distribution of vector-borne diseases in the future, particularly in the context of a changing climate. It may also tell us something about how societies mobilize to meet the threat of such crises and how human behaviour influences disease outbreaks and disease diffusion.

The final project involves a study of Drought and Human Health in the humid temperate zone. This study is an attempt to conceptualise the health impacts of drought,investigate epidemiologic vulnerability to drought and look at the health implications of drought for physical and psychological health in two case studies –one in the developing world and one in Australia. This study will form part of a book on Drought in the Temperate Zone to be published by Blackwell.

At the invitation of the Greenhouse Policy Unit of the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Professor Curson attended and presented a Keynote Address to a Climate Change Impacts and Adaptatio Forum held in Melbourne. Professor Curson’s presentation was on Climate Change and Human Health, with particular reference to the state of Victoria. Potential human health impacts of climate change in Victoria with particular reference to temperature extremes, vector and waterborne diseases and respiratory diseases and respiratory disease. In addition, the paper put forward an agenda for the future.

Paul J Beggs, BSc Macq., PhD Macq.

POTENTIAL IMPACTS OF GLOBAL WARMING ON MEDICATIONS AND HUMAN HEALTH

The objective of recent research in the area of human health impacts of climate change has been to examine the potential impacts of global warming on medications and human health. It has focussed on changes in near surface air temperature, examined via climate modelling, that may put adequate medication storage at risk. Of particular concern is the maintenance of the vaccine cold chain, which, even under current climatic conditions, is problematic in both developing and developed countries. Global warming has the potential to both reduce and increase the ability to maintain the vaccine cold chain, resulting from a reduction in areas experiencing ≤0°C, and an increase in areas experiencing≥8°C, and this would have impacts on the efficacy of immunisation programs. Adequate storage of medications required to be below 25°C or 30°C will become more problematic as there is a northward shift of these isotherms in the Northern Hemisphere, and a southward shift in the Southern Hemisphere.

For example, for the three periods modelled (annual, DJF, and JJA), average temperature reaches 30°C or more only during the Northern Hemisphere summer (Figure 1c and Table 1). The only regions currently experiencing such extreme temperatures are part of western Africa and two smaller areas around Saudi Arabia. There is considerable expansion of these areas with increased CO2 concentration (505 ppmv), plus the appearance of a small area in the central southern USA and, during the Southern Hemisphere summer, parts of central Australia (Figures 1e and f). The expansion during the Northern Hemisphere summer is from 1.04% of the land area to 2.29%, an increase of 1.25% and a more than doubling of the area (Table 1).

Table 1. Percentage of land grid points within each temperature range for each averaging period (annual, DJF, and JJA) and for 355, 430, and 505 ppmv CO2. The difference between 355 ppmv CO2 and 430 ppmv CO2, and 355 ppmv CO2 and 505 ppmv CO2 is also shown.

Figure 1. The average (a) annual, (b) DJF, and (c) JJA temperature at 355 ppmv CO2 (the legend units are °C). (d) to (f) show for corresponding time periods the 0°C (purple), 25°C (green), and 30°C (red) isotherms at this CO2 concentration (dotted) and 505 ppmv (solid)

Model results indicate that considerable land areas currently experience average daily maximum temperature (Tmax)≥30°C (Figure 2). On an annual basis such areas are largely restricted to a band across northern Africa and Saudi Arabia and Oman. There is a considerable expansion of these areas during the Northern Hemisphere summer, with the whole of northern Africa, much of the Middle East, and parts of the lower latitudes of North and South America, and southeastern China experiencing such extremes. The range is shifted substantially to the south in the southern summer, with relatively small parts of central Africa and South America, but a sizable portion of Australia within the range. With increased CO2 concentration there is, as before, generally a northward and southward shift of the boundaries. Perhaps the most significant expansions occur into northern Australia (annual), across southern Africa and further to the southeast in Australia (DJF), and across central Brazil (JJA).

A number of adaptive strategies have been outlined, including raising awareness of the impacts of climate on medications among both health care professionals and the public. This should modify behaviour and therefore reduce the risks of such adverse impacts. Other adaptive strategies include development of more thermostable medications and of more distinctive storage markings and information on packaging. There is also a need for improved reporting and surveillance of adverse drug reactions.

Figure 2. The (a) annual, (b) DJF, and (c) JJA average daily maximum temperature at 355 ppmv CO2 (the legend units are °C). (d) to (f) show for corresponding time periods the 0°C (purple), 25°C (green), and 30°C (red) isotherms at this CO2 concentration (dotted) and 505 ppmv (solid).