Daily Archives for August 9, 2021
The Oceans in 1000 Years?
Australians are 3 times more worried about climate change than COVID. A mental health crisis is looming
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Rhonda Garad, Monash University; Joanne Enticott, Monash University, and Rebecca Patrick, Deakin UniversityAs we write this article, the Delta strain of COVID-19 is reminding the world the pandemic is far from over, with millions of Australians in lockdown and infection rates outpacing a global vaccination effort.
In the northern hemisphere, record breaking temperatures in the form of heat domes recently caused uncontrollable “firebombs”, while unprecedented floods disrupted millions of people. Hundreds of lives have been lost due to heat stress, drownings and fire.
The twin catastrophic threats of climate change and a pandemic have created an “epoch of incredulity”. It’s not surprising many Australians are struggling to cope.
During the pandemic’s first wave in 2020, we collected nationwide data from 5,483 adults across Australia on how climate change affects their mental health. In our new paper, we found that while Australians are concerned about COVID-19, they were almost three times more concerned about climate change.
That Australians are very worried about climate change is not a new finding. But our study goes further, warning of an impending epidemic of mental health related disorders such as eco-anxiety, climate disaster-related post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and future-orientated despair.
Which Australians are most worried?
We asked Australians to compare their concerns about climate change, COVID, retirement, health, ageing and employment, using a four-point scale (responses ranging from “not a problem” to “very much a problem”).
A high level of concern about climate change was reported across the whole population regardless of gender, age, or residential location (city or rural, disadvantaged or affluent areas). Women, young adults, the well-off, and those in their middle years (aged 35 to 54) showed the highest levels of concern about climate change.
Read more:
The rise of ‘eco-anxiety’: climate change affects our mental health, too
The latter group (aged 35 to 54) may be particularly worried because they are, or plan to become, parents and may be concerned about the future for their children.
The high level of concern among young Australians (aged 18 to 34) is not surprising, as they’re inheriting the greatest existential crisis faced by any generation. This age group have shown their concern through numerous campaigns such as the School Strike 4 Climate, and several successful litigations.
Of the people we surveyed in more affluent groups, 78% reported a high level of worry. But climate change was still very much a problem for those outside this group (42%) when compared to COVID-related worry (27%).
We also found many of those who directly experienced a climate-related disaster — bushfires, floods, extreme heat waves — reported symptoms consistent with PTSD. This includes recurrent memories of the trauma event, feeling on guard, easily startled and nightmares.
Others reported significant pre-trauma and eco-anxiety symptoms. These include recurrent nightmares about future trauma, poor concentration, insomnia, tearfulness, despair and relationship and work difficulties.
Overall, we found the inevitability of climate threats limit Australians’ ability to feel optimistic about their future, more so than their anxieties about COVID.
How are people managing their climate worry?
Our research also provides insights into what people are doing to manage their mental health in the face of the impending threat of climate change.
Rather than seeking professional mental health support such as counsellors or psychologists, many Australians said they were self-prescribing their own remedies, such as being in natural environments (67%) and taking positive climate action (83%), where possible.
Many said they strengthen their resilience through individual action (such as limiting their plastic use), joining community action (such as volunteering), or joining advocacy efforts to influence policy and raise awareness.
Indeed, our research from earlier this year showed environmental volunteering has mental health benefits, such as improving connection to place and learning more about the environment.
It’s both ironic and understandable Australians want to be in natural environments to lessen their climate-related anxiety. Events such as the mega fires of 2019 and 2020 may be renewing Australians’ understanding and appreciation of nature’s value in enhancing the quality of their lives. There is now ample research showing green spaces improve psychological well-being.
Sebastian Pichler/Unsplash
An impending epidemic
Our research illuminates the profound, growing mental health burden on Australians.
As the global temperature rises and climate-related disasters escalate in frequency and severity, this mental health burden will likely worsen. More people will suffer symptoms of PTSD, eco-anxiety, and more.
Read more:
New polling shows 79% of Aussies care about climate change. So why doesn’t the government listen?
Of great concern is that people are not seeking professional mental health care to cope with climate change concern. Rather, they are finding their own solutions. The lack of effective climate change policy and action from the Australian government is also likely adding to the collective despair.
As Harriet Ingle and Michael Mikulewicz — a neuropsychologist and a human geographer from the UK — wrote in their 2020 paper:
For many, the ominous reality of climate change results in feelings of powerlessness to improve the situation, leaving them with an unresolved sense of loss, helplessness, and frustration.
It is imperative public health responses addressing climate change at the individual, community, and policy levels, are put into place. Governments need to respond to the health sector’s calls for effective climate related responses, to prevent a looming mental health crisis.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Rhonda Garad, Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow in Knowledge Translation, Monash University; Joanne Enticott, Senior Research Fellow, Monash Centre for Health Research and Implementation (MCHRI), Monash University, and Rebecca Patrick, Director, Sustainable Health Network, Deakin University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
We asked landholders how they feel about biodiversity offsets — and the NSW government has a lot to learn
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Roel Plant, University of Technology Sydney and Laure-Elise Ruoso, University of Technology SydneyWhen land is cleared to make room for urban growth, infrastructure, mining, and so on, developers are often required to “offset” their environmental damage by improving biodiversity elsewhere. This could mean, for example, planting trees along a river, or building shelters for animals that lost their habitats.
In New South Wales, one mechanism to fulfil this requirement is the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme, and a NSW parliamentary inquiry into this scheme is currently underway. The inquiry will look into the scheme’s administration, transparency and oversight, and will investigate the ability for private landowners to engage in it.
This is where our research comes in. We interviewed landholders in Greater Metropolitan Sydney during 2019 and 2020 to find out if they can — and want to — participate in biodiversity offsets.
Our findings suggest the NSW government would be wise to open up its offset scheme to make it more equitable, diverse and socially acceptable.
Recent controversies
Australia is considered an international forerunner when it comes to biodiversity offsetting, with all Australian states and territories having some form in place (complemented by federal provisions).
But over the years, biodiversity offset schemes have been marred with controversy, particularly recently.
In April, The Guardian Australia revealed a single company had made more than A$40 million by buying land and then selling offsets on that land to the state and federal governments. The new inquiry is a direct response to this news report.
How landholders come into it
Landholders are essential to making biodiversity offsets successful. They play a pivotal role in how offsetting functions on the ground, and in safeguarding its outcomes.
For example, landholder work could involve removing stock, weed control, pest fauna management, fencing off the site or building nest boxes for birds whose trees were cut down.
To get involved in biodiversity offsetting in NSW, landholders must first enter an agreement with the government to enhance and maintain the biodiversity values of their land, in perpetuity.
They often generate a one-off profit when they enter the agreement, and receive yearly payments from the government to manage their land. These payments are funded by, for instance, developers and mining companies, who have been required under law to offset their developments.
But while it’s been shown biodiversity offsets readily meet developers’ needs, the diverse perspectives of landholders remain poorly understood.
This knowledge gap is what inspired us to undertake research with landholders in Greater Sydney. This included conducting interviews with landholders and land managers, both participants and non-participants in the scheme.
Can landholders participate?
Four factors determined whether landholders participated in the scheme: experience, financial and staff resources, access to information and technical support, and property size.
Several participants had a good understanding of the scheme because of prior experience or involvement. Some had access to financial and staff resources (such as lawyers and property managers), while others were given information and technical support.
Having support like this gave them confidence to enter into an agreement and manage the land appropriately. One landholder told us:
I think I knew enough people who’d done it to know that they’d got through all of that [management of the land] without too much concern.
In contrast, landholders unable to participate generally didn’t have experience, resources, support or large properties. They often relied on online information and had a poor understanding of the scheme. They had many concerns, especially financial. One barrier they identified, for example, is the cost of the initial ecological assessment of the land.
A non-participant said:
We don’t want to outline money for something that we don’t really understand or know anything about and might not happen.
Do landholders want to participate?
A variety of ethical, financial, technical and governance-related factors influenced a landholders’ willingness to participate in offsets. Some don’t consider nature as something that can be substituted, and fundamentally disagreed with the very principles of offsets:
We shouldn’t be clearing [t]here and then growing stuff here. We just shouldn’t be clearing there.
Others consider the rules of the scheme not stringent enough to achieve positive ecological outcomes. Some have reservations about their technical ability to do the conservation work, and question the likelihood of “nature complying” with stated ecological outcomes.
Some landholders seek compensation only for their conservation actions — in other words, making a profit isn’t their goal. For others, the prospect of a profit is a determining factor, with some hesitant to participate because it would take away from potentially more lucrative property development options:
I suspect there’ll be rezoning of land and all sorts of things, so if we do [offsetting] we’re going to lose that potential.
And some landholders perceive participation, in perpetuity, interferes with their right to sell their land. They see the scheme as potentially diminishing the land value, or putting unnecessary burden on the next landowner.
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What needs to change?
These findings tell us two things about the current scheme:
- financial and information barriers create unequal opportunities across landholders
- the scheme doesn’t cater to diverse conservation perspectives.
The NSW government should loosen up the narrow neo-liberal market principles underpinning the scheme and open it up to a wider range of landholders. As an immediate first step, the government could introduce a more equitable model for sharing the costs of the initial ecological assessment.
It could also open the scheme to a wider range of conservation perspectives.
Offsetting is meant to be used as a last resort, according to globally accepted standards for development projects.
Read more:
Can we really restore or protect natural habitats to ‘offset’ those we destroy?
If developers and the government clearly demonstrate habitat destruction is completely necessary and offsetting really is a last resort, then we expect broader acceptance among landholders. Further research is required to learn how the government could achieve this.
Such reforms would give the scheme a stronger social license to operate and ensure it meets its policy objectives better.
Importantly, opening up the scheme would make it more transparent, so that future excessive profit seeking, with questionable conservation outcomes, can be prevented.
Roel Plant, Adjunct Professor, University of Technology Sydney and Laure-Elise Ruoso, Senior Research Consultant, University of Technology Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Kevin's Walk on the Wild Side 