Human progress is no excuse to destroy nature. A push to make ‘ecocide’ a global crime must recognise this fundamental truth

Scientists recently confirmed the Amazon rainforest is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, due to uncontrolled burning and deforestation. It brings the crucial ecosystem closer to a tipping point that would see it replaced by savanna and trigger accelerated global heating.

This is not an isolated example of nature being damaged at a mass scale. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this month confirmed global heating is now affecting every continent, region and ocean on Earth. That includes Australia, which is a global deforestation hotspot and where the Great Barrier Reef is headed for virtual extinction.

In the face of such horrors, a new international campaign is calling for “ecocide” – the killing of ecology – to be deemed an international “super crime” in the order of genocide. The campaign has attracted high-profile supporters including French President Emmanuel Macron, Pope Francis and Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

Making ecocide an international crime is an appropriate response to the gravity of this harm and could help prevent mass environmental destruction. But whether it does so will depend on how the crime is defined.

Defining Ecocide

The global campaign is being led by the Stop Ecocide Foundation. Last month an independent legal panel advising the campaign released a proposed amendment to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It would make ecocide a crime, defining it as:

unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.

Defining a new international crime is a tricky balance. It must:

• capture the gravity, nature and extent of the harm
• set appropriate, but not impossible, standards of proof
• set moral standards that other international laws should follow.

The draft definition marks an important step in getting ecocide on the international agenda. And it does a good job of defining and balancing the core elements of ecocide – “severe” and either “widespread” or “long-term” damage to “any element of the environment”.

Laudably, these core elements show a concern for ecosystem integrity, human rights to a healthy environment, and the way grave damage to ecosystems can have devastating local and planetary consequences well into the future. This is a significant achievement.

Despite these strengths, lawyers and scholars, including ourselves, have identified problems with the definition.

Read more: Repeating mistakes: why the plan to protect the world’s wildlife falls short

Towards An Ecological Approach

A key concern is that the proposed definition considers only “unlawful” or “wanton” acts to be ecocide.

Most environmental destruction is not illegal. We need look no further than Australia’s land clearing laws or, indeed, federal environment law which has comprehensively failed to protect nature.

Under the proposed definition, lawful acts are only ecocidal if they are “wanton” – defined as “reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic and benefits anticipated”.

This condition assumes some ecocidal damage is acceptable in the name of human progress. According to the panel, such “socially beneficial acts” might include building housing developments and transport links.

This assumption furthers the human-centred privilege and “get-out-of-jail” clauses that have so weakened international environmental law to date.

We are not saying that housing, transport links or farms should not be built. But, in a period some scientists are calling the sixth mass extinction, they cannot come at the expense of crucial species and ecosystems. Sustainable development must respect this boundary.

The assumption also fails to recognise the gravity of ecocide. Such trade-offs – formally known as “derogations” – are rejected by international conventions governing slavery, torture, sexual violence, and fundamental human rights.

For example, the Convention Against Torture states:

no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

An international crime of ecocide must meet a similar standard. It should recognise that all forms of life, and the ecological systems that support them, have value for their own sake.

This perspective is known as multispecies justice. It holds that human well-being is bound to flourishing ecosystems, which have an intrinsic value outside the human use for them.

Genocide – the annihilation of human groups – is recognised as a crime against humanity. As political philosopher Hannah Arendt argued, genocide is an attack on human diversity that erodes the “very nature of mankind” and poses a grave threat to global order.

In the same way, the definition of ecocide should recognise that acts which destroy biological diversity, and lead to species extinction, threaten the very nature and survival of Earth’s multi-species community.

In Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, the Balkans and more recently Myanmar, millions were killed and dispersed under a crime against humanity known as “ethnic cleansing”. Yet this killing and dispersal is happening to non-human communities as we write. The vast habitat destroyed by deforestation is as important to displaced animals as our homes are to us.

And this is a shared calamity. Mass environmental destruction is an attack on the foundations of all life that makes up the biosphere, of which humanity is only a part.

Read more: There's no end to the damage humans can wreak on the climate. This is how bad it's likely to get

What Should Be Done?

The Stop Ecocide Foundation says the proposed definition will now be “made available for states to consider”.

As they do so, we ought to work towards a definition of ecocide that puts non-human lives at its centre. The crime of ecocide must be defined in a way that honours its victims – the myriad beings of the Earth.

In the meantime, political efforts to rein in biodiversity destruction must become an urgent global priority. And citizens can press their governments to criminalise the ecocidal acts that have become business as usual.

The Stop Ecocide Foundation chair Jojo Mehta provided the following response to this article:

The “unlawful or wanton” threshold is important, for the following reasons.

The other international crimes are based on acts which are already criminal under national laws. Not only would it be a stretch to expect states to accept a completely new across-the-board offence at international level, but it would crudely cut across both national legislation and the work of all those improving regulation and best practice.

With the word “unlawful”, existing laws in their specificity are given much needed reinforcement, and the evolution of new ones is supported. Thus the crime will dynamically grow more powerful, while respecting differences between national bodies of law.

“Wanton” addresses cases where the activity is legal but the likely destruction is disproportionately severe. It shouldn’t be assumed that the social and economic benefits mentioned are those of investors or wealthy consumers, nor that these will outweigh damage.

Effects, including cultural effects, on local and indigenous communities, and the wider implications of ecological harm, must be considered too.

This definition doesn’t aim to prevent each and every form of environmental harm – that is the job of national laws and regulations - but to make it clear that provoking the worst harms is a deeply serious crime worthy of sitting alongside genocide and war crimes. This is an incredibly powerful and – we believe – a profoundly transformative message.

Read more: Ordinary people, extraordinary change: addressing the climate emergency through 'quiet activism' 

Anthony Burke, Professor of Environmental Politics & International Relations, UNSW and Danielle Celermajer, Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Great Australian Dream? New homes in planned estates may not be built to withstand heatwaves

The design and construction of new homes in Australia may leave residents vulnerable to heatwaves and local councils can do little to fix the situation, our new research has found.

Our study focused on the Jordan Springs development at Penrith in Western Sydney. We found the estate may not be fit to withstand future heatwaves, potentially putting residents at risk and leaving them dependent on increasingly expensive air conditioning.

Australians are already experiencing significant heatwaves. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this month warned heatwaves will become even more frequent, intense and longer.

Rising house prices in Australia’s major cities are driving many people to more affordable housing estates on the city fringe. But without interventions from state governments and local councils, such estates may be unsustainable as heatwaves intensify.

Exacerbating Hot Temperatures

Jordan Springs is a ten-year-old planned housing estate located 7km from Penrith. As of the 2016 Census, the estate was home to 5,156 residents. It currently consists of 1,819 homes and it is forecast to grow to about 13,000 residents in 4,800 homes.

Our research involved:

• collecting secondary information about the area, including climate forecasts, regional growth forecasts and planning law
• conducting surveys and interviews with residents, government and council officials and scientific experts
• examining the estate’s physical exposure to heat through aerial imagery and ground cover analyses.

Inland suburbs are significantly hotter than those on the coast, due to the lack of cooling coastal breezes. That is true of Penrith, which lies 60km west of Sydney’s central business district. On average, Penrith experiences three times more days above 30℃ than the CBD.

Jordan Springs is compliant with building regulations and individual homes are compliant with NSW’s Building Sustainability Index (BASIX). However, we found the estate’s built environment exacerbates the region’s hot temperatures and exposes residents to higher indoor temperatures. This points to a need for better planning regulations and building design.

We suspect our findings may be true for other planned estate developments across New South Wales and Australia, but more research is needed to confirm this.

Read more: Houses for a warmer future are currently restricted by Australia's building code

What We Discovered

Homes in the estate are built close together, with minimum side and rear distances from adjoining properties of 1.8m and 6m respectively. This can prevent air flow and allow heat to accumulate during the day. The close proximity also reduces space for vegetation.

The estate’s streets are wide and buildings are low. This reduces shade and maximises exposure to the sun of roofs, roads and other hard surfaces.

Almost 59% of Jordan Springs is heat-trapping hard surface cover such as concrete and asphalt. This compares to just 10% combined tree and shrub cover. A lack of greenery can contribute to the accumulation of heat.

Houses, roofs, and surrounding surfaces (such as roads, walls and fences) are generally dark-coloured, which increases heat absorption. For example, dark roofs have been recorded as 20-30℃ hotter than light coloured roofs (see images below).

The NSW government last week recognised the problem dark roofs pose in hot weather, announcing light-coloured roofs will be mandatory in new homes in parts of southwest Sydney.

At Jordan Springs, we found some houses were poorly insulated and draughty. Yet many of these homes still attained a high BASIX star rating for energy efficiency.

The Conversation sought a response from the developer, Lend Lease. A company spokesperson said given the technical nature of the findings, it could not provide an adequate comment by deadline.

Read more: Buildings produce 25% of Australia's emissions. What will it take to make them 'green' – and who'll pay?

A Persistent Problem

During heatwaves, the built environment can exacerbate already dangerous conditions for humans. Many people turn on their air conditioners to beat the heat, increasing energy use and leading to higher electricity bills.

So why does this situation persist?

One councillor believes the profit imperative of developers is a factor, telling us:

the developers are only thinking about their shareholders and directors … I don’t believe that the developer is eco-friendly.

Meanwhile, a scientific expert said:

Today people don’t build double brick because of the cost […] they are about building fast and moving on and building more because of the profit they make […] everything must be cheap or else you can’t be fast.

In recent years there have been media reports of private certifiers signing off on buildings which do not meet planning guidelines. One local councillor told us this can result in homes that don’t perform well in hot weather.

And even if councils could enforce stricter rules, they risk losing interest from developers – and associated financial benefits. A frustrated council official said if one council had strict rules around housing developments and heat, and the neighbouring council did not, then:

developers are more likely to go there to build housing … It’s a tricky balance. We still want growth, and we want to work with developers, but we want to improve how we are doing things.

So Where To Now?

Clearly, many planned housing estates are not fit-for-purpose in our changing climate. But residents can take action to help their homes and estates stay cooler in hot weather.

Where possible, install heat-resistant features such as blinds, shades and awnings to increase passive cooling and reduce air conditioning dependence. Plant trees and shrubs in home gardens and encourage communities to engage in estate-wide greening initiatives.

Councils and developers should ensure prospective residents understand the benefits of light-coloured materials, passive design and urban green space. This will encourage them to make more informed decisions during the construction process.

But ultimately, the responsibility to ensure the heat-resilience of current and future housing rests with state governments and developers. While building new homes and returning profits is important, the well-being of citizens in a warmer world must be the paramount concern.

Read more: The world endured 2 extra heatwave days per decade since 1950 – but the worst is yet to come 

Victoria Haynes, Research Officer, University of Sydney; Dale Dominey-Howes, Professor of Hazards and Disaster Risk Sciences, University of Sydney, and Emma Calgaro, Research Associate, Sydney Policy Lab, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This shy little wallaby has a white moustache and shares its name with a pub meal. Yet it’s been overlooked for decades

Am I not pretty enough? This article is part of The Conversation’s new series introducing you to Australia’s unloved animals that need our help.

For many people, the term “wallaby” may describe a single species, or rather just a small kangaroo. So you may be surprised to learn there are actually more than 50 known species of wallaby in Australia.

The parma wallaby (Macropus parma) is one of Australia’s smallest. It’s no larger than a house cat, with a body length up to 55 centimetres and a tail about the same length again. It has thick, brownish-grey fur, and a defining white moustache.

But this is about as much as can be said for its appearance, as even its moustache is common to many other wallaby species, such as the yellow-footed rock-wallaby.

Here, we aim to defend the voiceless. The parma wallaby’s failure to charm with either its looks or charisma has condemned it to obscurity by the general public and wildlife researchers alike, potentially dooming it to extinction.

The Parma’s Resurrection

So overlooked is the parma wallaby that for more than 30 years, it was presumed extinct until 1966, when a feral population was discovered on Kawau Island, New Zealand.

The species was introduced there a century earlier by former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Sir George Grey, who’s zoological interests led to Kawau becoming home to a menagerie of exotic animals.

This sudden rediscovery resurrected the parma from the pages of natural history books, prompting a reintroduction program to re-establish the Kawau Island population in Australia. This occurred on two occasions, once on Pulbah Island in Lake Macquarie, and near Robertson, NSW. But both attempts were considered abject failures, with all reintroduced, marked individuals found dead, mostly due to predation by dogs and foxes.

Despite this unsuccessful program, the sudden spotlight on the species led to its rediscovery on the mainland in 1972 near Gosford, NSW. Soon after, a state-wide parma survey was conducted.

An Elusive Species

But since then, its ecology has largely gone unstudied and, once again, the parma has faded to obscurity.

The IUCN Red List — the pre-eminent assessment of the conservation status of the world’s biodiversity — has relied on a guestimate of population size, placing it at under 10,000 individuals.

Despite little monitoring the species is still considered only “near threatened” on the Red List, but events like the Black Summer bushfires may have significantly reduced its population.

Read more: Meet the broad-toothed rat: a chubby-cheeked and inquisitive Australian rodent that needs our help

As a result of its cryptic nature and very recent rediscovery in the wild, there is scarce known about the ecology of the parma wallaby. We don’t even know the exact origins of its name.

We do know its preferred habitat is moist eucalyptus forest with thick, shrubby understory. It shelters there during the day, often with nearby grassy areas as, at night, they typically feed on grass and herbs. They’re also found in rainforest margins and drier eucalypt forest, but to a lesser extent.

The Parma Wallaby Is Under Threat

We also know the parma wallaby’s range is in decline and has been since European colonisation.

The species once occurred from southern Queensland to the Bega area in the southeast of NSW. Now, its range is confined to the coast and ranges of central and northern NSW. It’s patchily distributed throughout cool, high-altitude forests along the Great Dividing Range.

It weighs around 5 kilograms, placing it in the critical weight range category. This means it’s vulnerable to feral predators, such as dogs, cats and foxes.

Read more: One cat, one year, 110 native animals: lock up your pet, it's a killing machine

Another major threat facing parma wallabies is habitat destruction from catastrophic bushfires.

The 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires killed, injured or displaced an estimated three billion animals. Over half (55%) of the parma’s key habitat was severely burned. Coupled with the loss of those that would have perished in the flames, the species is now considered vulnerable in NSW.

Saving The Parma

The recent bushfire Royal Commission raised the issue that Australia doesn’t have a comprehensive, central source of information about its native flora and fauna. This is especially urgent, given seemingly “drab” species like the parma wallaby that have gone unnoticed for too long.

All species rely on interactions with a plethora of other species to survive in a complex system from which humans are not exempt. But with so little known about these interconnected relationships, we don’t know what the broader impacts to the ecosystem would be if one species disappeared.

Read more: 3 billion animals were in the bushfires' path. Here's what the royal commission said (and should've said) about them

Imagine a Jenga tower where each species is a wooden block. You can never really be certain which block you remove will cause the tower to collapse. Australia has an appalling extinction record, and we can’t afford to be playing Jenga with our biodiversity — whether it’s a boring bird, an ugly fish or just another wallaby.

Our ongoing research aims to help fill this conservation gap. We focus on a range of conservation actions the parma wallaby needs immediately.

These include carrying out field surveys to gauge the extent of their survival, and identifying the places that need refuge vegetation recovery. Refuge patches of bushland are important because they provide parma wallabies escape routes and places to hide, helping protect them from predation.

But You Can Help, Too

Given the breadth of catastrophic fires is expected to increase under climate change, we can all help threatened species like the parma wallaby bounce back.

Come bushfire season, you can reduce the fire risk around your home by clearing anything that could fuel a fire — long grass, weeds and leaves on the ground and in guttering.

The parma wallaby, like many other little mammals, is vulnerable to introduced predators, especially cats. By keeping your cat indoors, you could be sparing the lives of 186 animals per year.

You can urge your politicians to value Australia’s unique and precious biodiversity. They are the ones who will ultimately determine whether our threatened species survive or go extinct.

Finally, you can volunteer. There are many volunteer-based conservation projects all over Australia, run by government agencies, charities, and universities.

With the ongoing pandemic travel restrictions, there’s no better time to experience the rich biodiversity this country has to offer, and discover less celebrated, but still fascinating, species like the parma wallaby.

Elliott Dooley, PhD Candidate, University of Newcastle and Matt Hayward, Professor of Conservation Science, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This bird’s stamina is remarkable: it flies non-stop for 5 days from Japan to Australia, but now its habitat is under threat

Imagine having to fly non-stop for five days over thousands of kilometres of ocean for your survival. That’s what the Latham’s Snipe shorebird does twice a year, for every year of its life.

This migratory shorebird, similar in size to a blackbird, completes this gruelling migration to warmer climes, where it prepares itself for its return flight and the next breeding season.

Unfortunately, their wetland habitat is now being lost to development and other pressures, putting this tough little bird at risk.

Read more: Be still, my beating wings: hunters kill migrating birds on their 10,000km journey to Australia

A Feat Of Incredible Endurance

Latham’s Snipe breeds in northern Japan and parts of eastern Russia during May-July and spends its non-breeding season (September to March) along Australia’s eastern coast.

Like other migratory shorebirds, it has incredible endurance, undertaking a non-stop, over-ocean flight between its breeding and non-breeding grounds.

It arrives at its destination severely malnourished and spends the Australian summer months building up its strength and body fat to complete its long return flight.

Unlike many other migratory shorebird species in Australia, you won’t find Latham’s Snipe in large flocks enjoying picturesque estuaries and bays. Instead, it hides away in thickly vegetated wetlands during the day to avoid local predators.

Their characteristic brown mottled feathers help them hide in wetlands.

Large eyes high on their heads allow them to see far and wide. Their exceptional eyesight helps them constantly scan for dangers at night, when they forage for food in open wet and muddy areas.

Latham’s Snipe is the ultimate sun-seeker. It breeds in the northern hemisphere when the snows have melted and the weather is warm, then returns to the southern hemisphere to take advantage of spring rains, warmer weather and food-rich wetlands.

It spends its entire time in Australia feeding, resting and growing new flight feathers in preparation for the long haul back to Japan in autumn.

No Food And Nowhere To Rest

Latham’s Snipe, formerly known as the Japanese Snipe, was once a popular game bird. Hunting and wetland loss during the 20th century have contributed to a decline in Latham’s Snipe in south-eastern Australia.

The signing of the Japan Australia Migratory Bird Agreement in 1981 has stopped snipe hunting in both countries. However, their wetland habitat continues to be lost due to land development and drying of wetlands.

Imagine flying for five days straight, arriving at your destination emaciated and exhausted, only to find your habitat has disappeared. No food and nowhere to rest. This is the crisis facing Latham’s Snipe and many other migratory shorebird species.

No Formal Protection For Many Of Its Wetlands

Under the Australian government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, any grouping of 18 or more snipe at a wetland site is considered nationally important. Unfortunately, however, development on snipe habitat still occurs.

In 2014 — triggered by a plan to allow housing construction on an important snipe wetland area — a team of passionate researchers and citizen scientists banded together to initiate a monitoring program of Latham’s Snipe in south-west Victoria.

After the first year of the monitoring, the Latham’s Snipe Project expanded to other parts of the country with help from a large number of dedicated volunteers and professionals.

The story from this monitoring is still unfolding but two clear patterns are emerging:

1. Latham’s Snipe often congregate in urban wetlands; and

2. the majority of these important wetlands have no formal protection from development or disturbance.

7,000km, Non-Stop, In Three Days

Between 2016 and 2020, the Latham’s Snipe Project started tagging snipe with small electronic devices to try and learn about their migratory routes.

The team uncovered an amazing migration from a female snipe captured in Port Fairy. She left her breeding grounds in northern Japan and flew directly to south-east Queensland in three days, a non-stop flight of around 7,000km. A trip that might normally take around five days, this incredible individual did in three.

This is one of the fastest bird migrations on record and highlights how demanding these over-ocean migrations are. It also shines the spotlight on the critical importance of good quality wetland habitat when the snipe return to Australia.

Urban development continues to threaten Latham’s Snipe habitats. Several snipe sites in eastern Australia are at risk from housing developments and large infrastructure projects.

However, a different way of doing things is possible.

Eco-friendly developments like the Cape Paterson Ecovillage in Victoria provide hope. Here, researchers and citizen scientists have worked with the developer to help design conservation areas within the development to protect and restore wetlands for snipe.

Such progress is heartening, but a critically important next step is to make changes to local planning schemes that explicitly recognise wetlands for Latham’s Snipe.

Read more: Birds use massive magnetic maps to migrate – and some could cover the whole world 

Birgita Hansen, Senior Research Fellow, Federation University and Better Data for Better Decisions Constellation Leader, Food Agility CRC, Federation University Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Robber barons and high-speed traders dominate Australia’s water market

What began as an informal arrangement between neighbouring farmers, where one farm’s surplus water could be transferred to another, has over the past two decades morphed into a complex set of commodity markets whose annual turnover exceeds A$1.8 billion.

When the Murray–Darling Basin water markets were established, little consideration was given to training farmers or equipping them with the tools they would need.

“Many older farmers struggle even to use a smartphone,” one farmer told us in research for our book Sold Down The River, to be published this week. “They simply can’t use the water trading platforms.”

But others can, to their huge advantage. “Being a water broker is a lot like buying and selling shares or any other financial asset,” one investor said last year.

“There is no depreciation, there’s no goodwill, there is no maintenance and repairs. There are not many asset classes that are that good.”

The 2015 film adaptation of Michael Lewis’s bestselling The Big Short ends with a chilling line.

Investment genius Michael Burry had predicted the 2007 US housing market collapse and the ensuing financial crisis but, the movie said, was now “focusing all of his trading on one commodity — water”.

In a shocking report delivered to the treasurer in February, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found “scant rules governing the conduct of market participants, and no particular body to oversee trading activities, undermining confidence in fair and efficient markets”.

In particular, water market intermediaries such as brokers and exchange platforms currently operate in a mostly unregulated environment, resulting in a lack of clarity regarding the role brokers play, and permitting undisclosed conflicts of interest to arise.

Trading behaviours that can undermine the integrity of markets, such as market manipulation, are not prohibited, insider trading prohibitions are insufficient, and information gaps make these types of detrimental conduct difficult to detect.

The report has shifted the debate about water in the Murray-Darling Basin. Regulators, politicians, officials and researchers all realise that something has gone horribly wrong.

Scant Rules, Little Oversight

At the beginning of the water trading experiment, little effort was put into defining the goals of water trading, or how its success would be measured.

Read more: The Murrumbidgee River's wet season height has dropped by 30% since the 1990s — and the outlook is bleak

Yet despite that oversight, it’s easy to conclude that on any relevant measure the market has failed. It has failed the environment. It has failed farmers and towns. It has failed to recognise the rights of Indigenous Australians. And it has failed in its basic function of allocating water to where it can best be used.

Like a plane crash, the market failed because crucial systems and backups broke down simultaneously.

Here are the top four fractures in the multi-point failure:

• Essential design steps weren’t taken. The designers spent little time on ensuring proper market conduct and integrity. There are multiple exchanges and at no particular moment is there a clear picture of the market value of water rights, even within the same valley. Large irrigators appear to be taking water over which they don’t have rights and selling it outside the markets to farmers of walnuts and other thirsty crops, leaving dying rivers in their wake.

• To ensure the water market was “liquid”, the designers removed restrictions on who could own and trade water rights. Then they took the extraordinary step of exempting traders from regulation that would normally apply to financial markets and markets for commodities. External traders used tactics no one anticipated including market manipulation and high-speed trading.

• The Commonwealth Water Act gave responsibility for overseeing the markets to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, whose expertise is competition, rather than the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, whose expertise is in finance. A 2014 regulation expressly exempted basic tradable water rights from the definition of “derivative” under the ASIC Act.

• There is little precision in the water policy debate. Terms such as “hoarding”, “efficiency”, “speculation” and “investment” are used without consistency or clarity. People in and around the Murray-Darling Basin have been talking over each other for years, allowing rorts that should have been caught early to persist.

Added to these are a series of counter-intuitive tax advantages and subsidies that drive water rights away from the best land toward arid lands far down-river.

The Silence Is Deafening

A giant policy experiment is sucking hundreds of millions of dollars each year out of the Murray-Darling Basin, and it is sending water away from our most productive land and what used to be our most vibrant food-bowl communities.

The federal government has had the report of the Competition Commission’s water markets inquiry since February. The silence is deafening.

Read more: Water injustice runs deep in Australia. Fixing it means handing control to First Nations

In our research and in our book, we have mapped out a way forward for allocating scarce irrigation water and balancing the management of our largest river system.

Indigenous rights, environmental sustainability and food security are but some of what’s at stake.

Scott Hamilton, Strategic Advisory Panel Member, Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, The University of Melbourne and Stuart Kells, Adjunct Professor, College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Flies like yellow, bees like blue: how flower colours cater to the taste of pollinating insects

We all know the birds and the bees are important for pollination, and we often notice them in gardens and parks. But what about flies?

Flies are the second most common type of pollinator, so perhaps we should all be taught about the bees, the flies and then the birds. While we know animals may see colour differently, little was known about how fly pollination shapes the types of flowers we can find in nature.

In our new study we address this gap in our knowledge by evaluating how important fly pollinators sense and use colour, and how fly pollinated flowers have evolved colour signals.

The Way We See Influences What We Choose

We know that different humans often have preferences for certain colours, and in a similar way bees prefer blue hues.

Our colleague Lea Hannah has observed that hoverflies (Eristalis tenax) are much better at distinguishing between different shades of yellow than between different blues. Other research has also reported hoverflies have innate responses to yellow colours.

Read more: The mystery of the blue flower: nature's rare colour owes its existence to bee vision

Many flowering plants depend on attracting pollinators to reproduce, so the appearance of their flowers has evolved to cater to the preferences of the pollinators. We wanted to find out what this might mean for how different insects like bees or flies shape flower colours in a complex natural environment where both types of insect are present.

The Australian Case Study

Australia is a natural laboratory for understanding flower evolution due to its geological isolation. On the mainland Australian continent, flowers have predominately evolved colours to suit animal pollination.

Around Australia there are plant communities with different pollinators. For example, Macquarie Island has no bees, and flies are the only animal pollinator.

We assembled data from different locations, including a native habitat in mainland Australia where both bees and flies forage, to model how different insects influence flower colour signal evolution.

Measuring Flower Colours

Since we know different animals sense colour in different ways, we recorded the spectrum of different wavelengths of light reflected from the flowers with a spectrometer. We subsequently modelled these spectral signatures of plant flowers considering animal perception, allowing us to objectively quantify how signals have evolved. These analyses included mapping the evolutionary ancestry of the plants.

Generalisation Or Specialisation?

According to one school of thought, flower evolution is driven by competition between flowering plants. In this scenario, different species might have very different colours from one another, to increase their chances of being reliably identified and pollinated. This is a bit like how exclusive brands seek customers by having readily identifiable branding.

An alternative hypothesis to competition is facilitation. Plants may share preferred colour signals to attract a higher number of specific insects. This explanation is like how some competing businesses can do better by being physically close together to attract many customers.

Read more: Plants use advertising-like strategies to attract bees with colour and scent

Our results demonstrate how flower colour signalling has dynamically evolved depending on the availability of insect pollinators, as happens in marketplaces.

In Victoria, flowers have converged to evolve colour signals preferred by their pollinators. The flowers of fly-pollinated orchids are typically yellowish-green, while closely related orchids pollinated by bees have more bluish and purple colours. The flowers appeared to share the preferred colours of their main pollinator, consistent with a facilitation hypothesis.

Our research showed flies can see differences between flowers of different species in response to the pollinator local “market”.

On Macquarie Island, where flies are the only pollinators, flower colours diverge from each other – but still stay within the range of the flies’ preferred colours. This is consistent with a competition strategy, where differences between plant species allow flies to more easily identify the colour of recently visited flowers.

When both fly and bee pollinators are present, flowers pollinated by flies appear to “filter out” bees to reduce the number of ineffective and opportunistic visitors. For example, in the Himalayas specialised plants require flies with long tongues to access floral rewards. This is similar to when a store wants to exclusively attract customers specifically interested in their product range.

Our findings on fly colour vision, along with novel precision agriculture techniques, can help using flies as alternative pollinators of crops. It also allows us to understand that if we want to see a full range of pollinating insects including beautiful hoverflies in our parks and gardens, we need to plant a range of flower types and colours.

Jair Garcia, Research fellow, RMIT University; Adrian Dyer, Associate Professor, RMIT University, and Mani Shrestha, Postdoc & International Fellow, Disturbance Ecology, Bayreuth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s coastal waters are rich in Indigenous cultural heritage, but it remains hidden and under threat

When people arrived in Australia more than 65,000 years ago, they landed on shores that are now deep under water. The first footprints on this continent took place on these now-submerged landscapes.

More than 2 million square kilometres of Australia’s continental landmass — an area larger than Queensland — was drowned by sea-level rise over the last 20,000 years. This land was once home to thousands of generations of Indigenous peoples.

Read more: Australia's coastal living is at risk from sea level rise, but it's happened before

Despite the scale of this vast drowned cultural landscape, Australia has fallen behind international best practice in locating, recording and protecting submerged Indigenous cultural places.

Last year, our team reported the discovery of nearly 300 stone artefacts submerged on the continental shelf off northwestern Australia.

This discovery demonstrated that submerged Indigenous sites are likely to exist around the continent, but remain unknown due to a lack of investigation.

Read more: In a first discovery of its kind, researchers have uncovered an ancient Aboriginal archaeological site preserved on the seabed

The Big Picture And The Local Scale

In two new studies published in Australian Archaeology, we outline approaches to help us better understand and manage Indigenous underwater cultural heritage.

Through a two-pronged approach at both the local and regional level, we review big data to predict the location of sites. We also put boots on the ground and divers in the water to find and record them.

At the local level, our research at Murujuga in northwest Australia indicates we must combine archaeological data from above and below the water to understand the past landscape at periods of lower sea level.

Drawing on evidence from across terrestrial, coastal and submerged environments, we found archaeological material in all three zones.

Our study also aligns archaeological practice with histories of Indigenous Australians, who describe cultural landscapes extending into Sea Country. Some oral histories describe past sea-level rise and drowned cultural landscapes.

At the regional scale, our study shows how research into submerged landscapes can be expanded across Australia. Taking the Northern Territory as a case study, we assessed the potential for archaeological material to be preserved on the seabed.

National environmental frameworks, such as Marine bioregional plans for Australia’s seabed focus largely on marine biodiversity and habitats, only acknowledging archaeology through a selection of historic shipwrecks.

With few regional or state-level mechanisms in place to inform marine management planning, Indigenous underwater cultural heritage has been ignored or marginalised. There is now an opportunity and an ethical obligation to integrate Indigenous perspectives and traditional knowledge into marine science research.

Threats To Underwater Indigenous Heritage

Indigenous underwater cultural heritage is threatened by a variety of activities, including dredging, offshore cables and pipelines, seabed mining, and oil and gas exploration.

Such developments can cause significant damage and even explosions and fires in the sea, as witnessed recently in the Gulf of Mexico.

We can expect increased pressure on coastal and submerged sites with the increasing impacts of climate change. Without mechanisms to consider the archaeology in the intertidal zone of Australia (the transitional area between land and sea) and the seabed, such disturbances will occur out of sight and out of mind.

Some state and local laws protect underwater cultural heritage, but these vary across the country. The national Underwater Cultural Heritage Act also does not adequately protect Indigenous cultural heritage.

The UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage protects all heritage greater than 100 years old, including both colonial-era sites and Indigenous underwater cultural heritage. But Australia’s national policy currently does not align with the convention.

Our Systems Must Change

Archaeologists working in partnership with Indigenous communities must take a central role in scientific research, management of marine environments and industry-led campaigns, incorporating archaeology into environmental impact assessments.

Industry has begun to respond. One company, Woodside Energy, for example, has acknowledged the importance of this issue, and has engaged with the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation. The company says it has

sought to understand the potential heritage values of the submerged cultural landscape for the proposed Scarborough pipeline.

This is a new paradigm for the offshore sector in Australia and a sign of things to come as industry and policy-makers respond to scientific advances and new knowledge.

Coastal peoples all over the world have made a significant contribution to human history. Only through underwater archaeology can we fully understand these past peoples who called coastal environments their home.

Jonathan Benjamin, Associate Professor in Maritime Archaeology, Flinders University and ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University; Chelsea Wiseman, PhD Candidate, Flinders University; John McCarthy, ARC DECRA Fellow, Flinders University; Peter Jeffries, CEO of Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, Indigenous Knowledge, and Sean Ulm, Deputy Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Cook University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Decaying forest wood releases a whopping 10.9 billion tonnes of carbon each year. This will increase under climate change

If you’ve wandered through a forest, you’ve probably dodged dead, rotting branches or stumps scattered on the ground. This is “deadwood”, and it plays several vital roles in forest ecosystems.

It provides habitat for small mammals, birds, amphibians and insects. And as deadwood decomposes it contributes to the ecosystem’s cycle of nutrients, which is important for plant growth.

But there’s another important role we have little understanding of on a global scale: the carbon deadwood releases as it decomposes, with part of it going into the soil and part into the atmosphere. Insects, such as termites and wood borers, can accelerate this process.

The world’s deadwood currently stores 73 billion tonnes of carbon. Our new research in Nature has, for the first time, calculated that 10.9 billion tonnes of this (around 15%) is released into the atmosphere and soil each year — a little more than the world’s emissions from burning fossil fuels.

But this amount can change depending on insect activity, and will likely increase under climate change. It’s vital deadwood is considered explicitly in all future climate change projections.

An Extraordinary, Global Effort

Forests are crucial carbon sinks, where living trees capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to regulate climate. Deadwood — including fallen or still-standing trees, branches and stumps — makes up 8% of this carbon stock in the world’s forests.

Our aim was to measure the influence of climate and insects on the rate of decomposition — but it wasn’t easy. Our research paper is the result of an extraordinary effort to co-ordinate a large-scale cross-continent field experiment. More than 30 research groups worldwide took part.

Wood from more than 140 tree species was laid out for up to three years at 55 forest sites on six continents, from the Amazon rainforest to Brisbane, Australia. Half of these wood samples were in closed mesh cages to exclude insects from the decomposition process to test their effect, too.

Some sites had to be protected from elephants, another was lost to fire and another had to be rebuilt after a flood.

What We Found

Our research showed the rate of deadwood decay and how insects contribute to it depend very strongly on climate.

We found the rate increased primarily with rising temperature, and was disproportionately greater in the tropics compared to all other cooler climatic regions.

In fact, deadwood in tropical regions lost a median mass of 28.2% every year. In cooler, temperate regions, the median mass lost was just 6.3%.

More deadwood decay occurs in the tropics because the region has greater biodiversity (more insects and fungi) to facilitate decomposition. As insects consume the wood, they render it to small particles, which speed up decay. The insects also introduce fungal species, which then finish the job.

Read more: Wood beetles are nature's recyclers – with a little help from fungi

Of the 10.9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide released by deadwood each year, we estimate insect activity is responsible for 3.2 billion tonnes, or 29%.

Let’s break this down by region. In the tropics, insects were responsible for almost one-third of the carbon released from deadwood. In regions with low temperatures in forests of northern and temperate latitudes — such as in Canada and Finland — insects had little effect.

What Does This Mean In A Changing Climate?

Insects are sensitive to climate change and, with recent declines in insect biodiversity, the current and future roles of insects in deadwood are uncertain.

But given the vast majority of deadwood decay occurs in the tropics (93%), and that this region in general is set to become even warmer and wetter under climate change, it’s safe to say climate change will increase the amount of carbon deadwood releases each year.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the amount of carbon dioxide released is still only a fraction of the total annual global deadwood carbon stock. That is, 85% of the global deadwood carbon stock remains on forest floors and continues to store carbon each year.

We recommend deadwood is left in place — in the forest. Removing deadwood may not only be destructive for biodiversity and the ability of forests to regenerate, but it could actually substantially increase atmospheric carbon.

Read more: Photos from the field: zooming in on Australia's hidden world of exquisite mites, snails and beetles

For example, if we used deadwood as a biofuel it could release the carbon that would otherwise have remained locked up each year. If the world’s deadwood was removed and burned, it would be release eight times more carbon than what’s currently emitted from burning fossil fuels.

This is particularly important in cooler climatic regions, where decomposition is slower and deadwood remains for several years as a vital carbon sink.

What Next?

The complex interplay of interactions between insects and climate on deadwood carbon release makes future climate projections a bit tricky.

To improve climate change predictions, we need much more detailed research on how communities of decomposer insects (such as the numbers of individuals and species) influence deadwood decomposition, not to mention potential effects from insect diversity loss.

But insect diversity loss is also likely to vary regionally and would require long-term studies over decades to determine.

For now, climate scientists must take the enormous annual emissions from deadwood into account in their research, so humanity can have a better understanding of climate change’s cascading effects.

Read more: Trees can't save us from climate change – but society will always depend on forests – podcast 

Marisa Stone, Adjunct Research Fellow, Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, Griffith University; David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University; Kurtis Nisbet, Scientific Officer, Griffith University, and Sebastian Seibold, Adjunct Teaching Professor, Technical University of Munich

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

1,600 years ago, climate change hit the Australian Alps. We studied ancient lake mud to learn what happened

If you’ve ever visited Australia’s highest peak — Mount Kosciuszko — you might remember the long uphill trek to the summit past some of Australia’s most picturesque and rugged landscapes. Vibrant snow gums, boardwalks with meadows of exquisite alpine plants, and blinding patches of snow.

As you approach the summit, a quartet of stunning blue lakes appear, created by glaciers during the last ice age that carved new valleys out of the mountain.

Lakes like these are windows to the past, offering an opportunity to understand how our climate and environment has changed over hundreds to thousands of years. One such lake, Club Lake — so-named for its resemblance to a suit in a deck of cards — was the focus of our new study.

After studying the lake’s sediment, we learned the Australian Alps experienced a sudden climate change about 1,600 years ago that brought a long spell of warmer conditions. What makes this sudden warming event particularly interesting is that it bears striking similarity to today.

Climate Change In The Australian Alps

The Australian alpine region is the traditional home of a number of Aboriginal groups, including the Ngarigo, Walgalu and Djilamatang people. It is also home to highly diverse flora and fauna that occur nowhere else, from billy buttons (Craspedia costiniana) known for their vibrant yellow rosette of tiny flowers, to the broad-toothed rat and its chubby cheeks.

But this unique wildlife is under immense threat from climate change.

By 2100, Australia may warm by at least 4℃, with bushfires becoming more frequent and devastating. The fragile alpine ecosystem will be hit particularly hard by these changes.

Read more: Meet the broad-toothed rat: a chubby-cheeked and inquisitive Australian rodent that needs our help

Many of Australia’s alpine species are already near their climatic limits, and are constrained by altitude. They’re at risk of becoming regionally extinct if their climatic thresholds are exceeded. As the temperature warms, treelines move upslope to cooler temperatures, pushing alpine flora and fauna to higher elevations. At some point they can go no higher — they’re squeezed out of their niche.

The critically endangered mountain pygmy-possum, for example, relies on the seasonal snowpack for winter hibernation, but increased temperatures are limiting this habitat.

A Dip Into The Past

Our study showed Club Lake holds vital clues to the link between rising temperatures, loss of native plant species and more frequent fires in the Snowy Mountains.

Lake sediments are used all over the world as indicators of climate and environmental change because of the unique way they trap material. A body of water can act as a seal that ensures sediments are largely undisturbed over time.

We extracted sediments from the bottom of Club Lake to a depth of 35 centimetres. This equates to about 3,500 years of history, approximately 100 years for each centimetre.

To work out how temperatures have changed over this time, we looked for the presence of molecular fossils, called “lipid biomarkers”. Analysing these biomarkers in the laboratory can tell us what the temperature in the environment was like, hundreds or thousands of years ago.

In the 3,500 years we examined, we detected a gradual warming trend. Superimposed on this, we found a sudden warming event that started 1,600 years ago, and lasted about six centuries. We suspect it was due to an atmospheric phenomenon linking higher tropical sea surface temperatures to southeastern Australia.

We’re not yet sure how much of Australia was affected by this warming, but other research from 2018 measured similar temperature changes in stalagmites from the Yarrangobilly caves 50 kilometres away.

What Happened During This Climate Change?

During this unusual warmth, alpine herbs and shrubs declined, while the abundance of trees, particularly eucalyptus, increased. We know this by looking at grains of pollen preserved at different depths within the lake sediment samples, which indicates what types of plants were growing nearby.

We also found small particles of charcoal, produced by bushfires, embedded within the sediment layers. This showed the changes in vegetation also coincided with greater fire activity.

What surprised us most, however, was discovering a large increase in mercury at this time.

Mercury, which occurs naturally in the environment, is the only metal that’s liquid at room temperature, and is particularly sensitive to temperature changes. Higher temperatures enhance mercury deposition from the atmosphere, and our study shows a five-fold increase in mercury flux 1,600 years ago.

Industrial activities over the last 150 years, such as burning coal, have increased the abundance of mercury significantly. Our findings suggest future climate change is likely to increase the risk of mercury exposure not just in cities, but also in the seemingly remote Australian alpine environment.

Mercury contamination is a significant public health and environmental problem. At certain levels it’s poisonous to the nervous system, and it does not easily degrade.

Read more: A tale of two valleys: Latrobe and Hunter regions both have coal stations, but one has far worse mercury pollution

What Can We Do?

Insights from the past can help governments, environmental agencies, and scientists come up with effective strategies to protect the vulnerable flora and fauna of the Australian Alps. But it’s not just changes in climate they’ll have to contend with in future.

There are other perils, such as soil erosion and habitat fragmentation from the legacy of sheep and cattle grazing, and tourism. Invasive pests and pathogens are likely to further reduce the resilience of these alpine ecosystems.

Restoration programs over the last 50 years have aimed to revitalise the natural vegetation in the Kosciuszko National Park following 135 years of grazing — finally banned in 1969 — and the environmental damage caused by the Snowy River Hydro-Electric scheme.

More recently, the federal government has committed A$3.5 million towards recovery from the devastating 2019-2020 bushfires. Incorporating Aboriginal knowledge into mainstream fire management is essential for tackling future crises.

This is the critical time for climate action to protect this unique and iconic Australian landscape.

Read more: Double trouble as feral horse numbers gallop past 25,000 in the Australian Alps 

Zoë Thomas, ARC DECRA Fellow, UNSW; Haidee Cadd, Research associate, University of Wollongong, and Larissa Schneider, DECRA fellow, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We studied 100 years of Australian fatherhood. Here’s how today’s dads differ from their grandfathers

Today’s Australian fathers are believed to be more “hands on” and engaged with their children than the stereotypical absent breadwinner of generations past.

However, our research exploring Australian fatherhood between 1919 and 2019 has found that while men’s family roles have changed, deep-rooted societal and cultural forces keep them from being the kind of fathers many of them would like to be.

The Breadwinner Of The Early 1900s

Our research examined oral history interviews with (and about) fathers from diverse backgrounds, along with archival sources including letters, diaries and government files. Our goal was to better understand the experience of Australian fathering over the past 100 years.

We found a key factor shaping the history of Australian fatherhood has been the demands of paid work and the enduring power of the provider role — even in situations where dads are not the sole earners.

While the breadwinner father is hardly a uniquely Australian phenomenon, the ideal became institutionalised here in distinctive ways.

The 1907 Harvester Judgement, a landmark court ruling, established the principle that the male basic wage should support a wife and three children. This decision, which in turn ensured lower wages for women, remained the basis for setting Australia’s minimum wage until the 1970s.

Male breadwinner assumptions shaped not just the country’s wages but also welfare and tax policy, so that it simply made better financial sense for fathers to work and mothers to stay at home with the kids. This entrenched a gendered division of labour in family roles that would last for generations.

The Great Depression then made many fathers failed breadwinners. Geoffrey Ruggles, who was born in rural Victoria in 1924, recalled in an oral history interview that when his war-veteran father lost work, his mother was “forced to scrub other people’s washing”.

Humiliation fuelled marital discord and damaged Ruggles’ relationship with his father. He found an alternative father figure in his navy officer uncle:

[My uncle] had a lot of glamour about him […] an extrovert, a bright outgoing, merry man. A contrast to my father who was a sad sack. So Uncle Tom was a great fellow to be with, he gave me tools and helped me to start things like that, and fostered an idea of innovation – of doing what I wanted to do.

The sons of struggling Depression-era families often grew up determined to be good providers for their own families.

Many were also veterans who sought the stability of “traditional” family life. These men became the stereotypical, Holden-driving, breadwinner fathers of the “imagined fifties”, counterpart to the stereotypical 1950s housewife.

These stereotypes are not entirely wrong. The sole-breadwinner father is often assumed to be the historical norm, but in fact this family arrangement was broadly achievable for only a brief time between the early 1950s and 1970s. For the only time in Australian history, many working-class families could manage on one wage.

By the mid-1970s, however, recessions, deindustrialisation and the casualisation of the workforce shattered the economic security of the (male) “job for life”. At the same time, feminism and equal pay were mounting a new challenge to the male breadwinner stereotype.

Read more: Nurturing dads raise emotionally intelligent kids – helping make society more respectful and equitable

The “New Man” Of The Late 20th Century

History is so often circular. The sons of the postwar, breadwinner fathers wanted to do things differently from their dads, too.

In another oral history interview, Peter, a man born in Melbourne in 1956, recalled:

As a teenager in the 1970s […] most of the guys that I knew had lousy relationships with their dads. And I think that was really common […] a lot of them had been to war, they’d come home and their role was to build a family, you know, build a financial basis for it so they worked long hours and they just really didn’t seem to relate to their sons.

We all got on really well with each other’s mothers. But the fathers were very distant figures and it’s very different from today.

The social, cultural and economic transformations sweeping Australia from the mid-1970s brought new opportunities and expectations for fathers. Feminism and the growing numbers of working mums challenged traditional gender roles in families and contributed to the emergence of the popular ideal of the “new man” by the 1980s.

Fathers of this generation were more likely to be present at the births of their children, and to be physically and emotionally “present” dads.

The inevitable outcome of these changes, some assumed, would be a dual worker-carer model of family life in which mothers and fathers have more equal parenting roles.

Read more: How Hemingway felt about fatherhood

The “Modified Breadwinner” Family

Yet, today’s fathers still find their working lives to be a significant barrier to their ability to be active and engaged fathers.

Since the mid-1990s, the most common family formation has been the “modified breadwinner” model. Mothers typically return to work after having children, usually part-time, while the full-time working father earns the primary wage.

Read more: The fatherhood penalty: how parental leave policies perpetuate the gender gap (even in our 'progressive' universities)

Although fathers are caring for children slightly more than in the past, time use surveys confirm how much more time women spend doing childcare today compared to men. The unpaid labour of household and family management still largely falls on mothers, with dads “helping”, as homeschooling during COVID has laid bare.

Fathers interviewed in the late 1990s and early 2000s express a desire to be more involved, but are tied to paid work that limits the time and opportunity for parenting. Many speak of the stress of trying to meet expectations at work, as well as home, and some feel excluded from family life.

Peter, a man born in the mid-1950s in Victoria, recalls:

I was probably working pretty long hours and a lot of the duties were left up to my wife to do […] Even on the weekends, I found that if the kids had a choice of who they would go with, they tend to choose my wife anyway. I found that distressing quite often.

I never used to get home from work till 7:00-7:30. My job was to earn money, and the only time I did stuff around the house was on the weekend and for the kids.

The fathers who spend the most time with their children tend to be those living in less typical family types, including single and stay-at-home dads.

Gay male couples with kids are less detached from their children’s daily care than fathers in heterosexual couple families, perhaps because they are able to evade the “gender baggage” that influences men’s and women’s roles in families.

The Parenting Paradox

Today’s Australian fathers face a striking paradox. They are expected to be more “hands-on dads”, yet there’s been little systemic change in their working lives (including access to, and uptake of, parental leave and flexible work). There’s also been little change to gendered roles in family arrangements: a situation that, admittedly, many fathers have been happy to roll with.

Most fathers are still working long hours and many are concerned about how little time they have to be engaged fathers. Today’s dads may not view breadwinning as their raison d'être, but the breadwinner model of Australian fatherhood is not yet “history”.

Kate Murphy, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History, Monash University and Alistair Thomson, Professor of History, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

From bespoke seats to titanium arms, 3D printing is helping paralympians gain an edge

Major sporting events like the Paralympics are a breeding ground for technological innovation. Athletes, coaches, designers, engineers and sports scientists are constantly looking for the next improvement that will give them the edge. Over the past decade, 3D printing has become a tool to drive improvements in sports like running and cycling, and is increasingly used by paralympic athletes.

The Paralympics features athletes with a diverse range of abilities, competing in a wide range of different categories. Many competitors use prosthetics, wheelchairs or other specialised components to enable them to perform at their best.

One interesting question is whether 3D printing widens or narrows the divide between athletes with access to specialised technologies, and those without. To put it another way, does the widespread availability of 3D printers — which can now be found in many homes, schools, universities and makerspaces — help to level the playing field?

Forget Mass Production

Mass-manufactured equipment, such as gloves, shoes and bicycles, is generally designed to suit typical able-bodied body shapes and playing styles. As such, it may not be suitable for many paralympians. But one-off, bespoke equipment is expensive and time-consuming to produce. This can limit access for some athletes, or require them to come up with their own “do-it-yourself” solutions, which may not be as advanced as professionally produced equipment.

3D printing can deliver bespoke equipment at a more affordable price. Several former paralympians, such as British triathlete Joe Townsend and US track athlete Arielle Rausin, now use 3D printing to create personalised gloves for themselves and their fellow wheelchair athletes. These gloves fit as if they were moulded over the athlete’s hands, and can be printed in different materials for different conditions. For example, Townsend uses stiff materials for maximum performance in competition, and softer gloves for training that are comfortable and less likely to cause injury.

3D-printed gloves are inexpensive, rapidly produced, and can be reprinted whenever they break. Because the design is digital, just like a photo or video, it can be modified based on the athlete’s feedback, or even sent to the nearest 3D printer when parts are urgently needed.

Read more: Paralympians still don’t get the kind of media attention they deserve as elite athletes

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

An elite athlete might be concerned about whether 3D-printed parts will be strong enough to withstand the required performance demands. Fortunately, materials for 3D printing have come a long way, with many 3D printing companies developing their own formulas to suit applications in various industries - from medical to aerospace.

Back in 2016, we saw the first 3D-printed prosthetic leg used in the Paralympics by German track cyclist Denise Schindler. Made of polycarbonate, it was lighter than her previous carbon-fibre prosthetic, but just as strong and better-fitting.

With research showing sprint cyclists can generate more than 1,000 Newtons of force during acceleration (the same force you would feel if a 100-kilogram person were to stand on top of you!), such prosthetics need to be incredibly strong and durable. Schindler’s helped her win a bronze medal at the Tokyo games.

More advanced materials being 3D printed for Paralympic equipment include carbon fibre, with Townsend using it to produce the perfect crank arms for his handbike. 3D printing allows reinforced carbon fibre to be placed exactly where it is needed to improve the stiffness of a part, while remaining lightweight. This results in a better-performing part than one made from aluminium.

3D-printed titanium is also being used for custom prosthetic arms, such as those that allow New Zealand paralympian Anna Grimaldi to securely grip 50kg weights, in a way a standard prosthetic couldn’t achieve.

Different Technologies Working Together

For 3D printing to deliver maximum results, it needs to be used in conjunction with other technologies. For example, 3D scanning is often an important part of the design process, using a collection of photographs, or dedicated 3D scanners, to digitise part of an athlete’s body.

Such technology has been used to 3D-scan a seat mould for Australian wheelchair tennis champion Dylan Alcott, allowing engineers to manufacture a seat that gives him maximum comfort, stability and performance.

3D scanning was also used to create the perfect-fitting grip for Australian archer Taymon Kenton-Smith, who was born with a partial left hand. The grip was then 3D-printed in both hard and soft materials at the Australian Institute of Sport, providing a more reliable bow grip with shock-absorbing abilities. If the grip breaks, an identical one can be easily reprinted, rather than relying on someone to hand-craft a new one that might have slight variations and take a long time to produce.

Read more: 3 reasons why Paralympic powerlifters shift seemingly impossible weights

All these technologies are increasingly accessible, meaning more non-elite athletes can experiment with unique parts. Amateurs and professionals alike can already buy running shoes with 3D-printed soles, and 3D-printed custom bike frames. For those with access to their own 3D printer, surf fins, cycling accessories and more can be downloaded for free and printed for just a few dollars.

However, don’t expect your home 3D printer to be making titanium parts anytime soon. While the technology is levelling the playing field to a certain extent, elite athletes still have access to specialised materials and engineering expertise, giving them the technological edge.

_This article was coauthored by Julian Chua, a sports technology consultant at ReEngineering Labs and author of the Sports Technology Blog.

James Novak, Senior Research Fellow and Adjunct Lecturer, The University of Queensland and Andrew Novak, Senior Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

What art are you engaging with in lockdown? Australians are mostly watching TV — but music, singing and dancing do more for your mood

How have you been passing the time during lockdown? Have you been taking an online drawing class, or did you join an online choir? Perhaps you focused on gardening, or finally picked up that guitar in the corner to have a go?

We have long known creative activities help us cope during hard times. Engaging with the arts enhances physical and mental well-being, can boost our sense of accomplishment and meaning, and strengthen our resilience to cope with life’s challenges.

The arts help give life beauty.

So we wanted to explore how Australians turned to art during lockdowns in 2020. We wanted to know which art forms most appealed to Australians, and which ones were helping Australians cope with the lows of lockdown.

In our newly published research, we found many Australians improved their mood using the arts. But the activities we turned to the most frequently weren’t necessarily the ones which could most improve our sense of well-being.

What Makes Us Feel Better?

In an online survey, we asked Australians which artistic creative activities they had been undertaking during the lockdown, and which activities they normally participated in but weren’t under lockdown.

We also asked our participants to rank their activities from most to least effective at making them “feel better”. Measures for anxiety, depression, loneliness and emotion regulation were taken to help us identify any relationships between mental health and well-being and arts engagement.

The most popular activities were watching films and television, listening to music and cooking and baking. Listening to music was ranked as the most effective activity at making our participants feel better — but watching films and television ranked more than halfway down the list, at 18 out of 27.

Read more: Great time to try: baking sourdough bread

Of the most effective activities, singing took second place and dancing came in third.

The Power Of Music

Three of the four most frequently undertaken activities (watching films and television, listening to music and reading) are usually considered passive or receptive activities: engaging with the artistic creation of others, rather than creating our own new art.

It comes as little surprise the most prevalent activities were receptive ones, since they could be easily done from home. But passive activities were often not the ones which were effective in helping us through trying times.

Active arts activities are beneficial partly because they involve seeking out novel ideas, experiences and possibilities, which in turn have positive cognitive, physical, emotional and social effects.

Read more: Great time to try: learning to draw

But listening to music seemed to be different from other passive arts activities.

Music has long been regarded as an effective coping tool. We use music to regulate our emotions and to create a refuge for healing and imaginative play.

Listening to music can also accompany daily activities such as cooking or doing household chores much better than activities such as watching television or reading. Some of music’s well-being benefits may originate in this combination of aesthetic and practical elements.

We also found anxious and depressed Australians seem to be turning to music as a coping mechanism or emotional crutch significantly more than others. People often report specifically listening to sad music to help improve their mood.

While this might seem counter intuitive, listening to sad music while in a negative state can produce a positive outcome as a form of processing or catharsis.

(However, people living with depression should approach listening to sad or negative music with caution. Emerging research indicates those with clinical depression may find the outcome of sad music to be more negativity instead of positive release.)

Get Up And Moving

Participants who reported exercising more during the pandemic compared to their pre-pandemic routine fared significantly better in terms of mental health and well-being compared to those undertaking less or the same amount of exercise than prior to the pandemic.

This finding supports a growing body of research showing increased physical activity during lockdown is a robust method for maintaining mental wellness.

It also indicates why participants found dancing to be so beneficial. Not only is dance a form of artistic expression, it can be more effective than other forms of exercise at reducing body fat and is linked to numerous physical and psychological benefits.

Sadly, dancing was the activity most likely to have ceased under lockdown, followed by theatre rehearsals and performances, and singing.

Your Own Artistic Helper

There are clear public health and safety reasons for why so many people had to stop dancing, singing and making theatre during the COVID-19 pandemic. But these activities are very effective in helping us navigate difficult times.

Read more: Great time to try: knitting your first woolly scarf

With this in mind, artistic creative activities — and in particular active activities such as singing and dancing — warrant additional support and consideration as an important and efficient aspect of Australia’s mental health response to COVID.

For those interested in incorporating singing and dancing into your lockdown routines, there is no shortage of inspiration for how to do so online. The arts always seem to find a way.

Frederic Kiernan, Research Fellow, Creativity and Wellbeing Hallmark Research Initiative, The University of Melbourne; Anthony Chmiel, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, and Jane Davidson, Deputy Director ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Yes, audiobooks count as ‘real reading’. Here are 3 top titles to get you started

Audiobook listening has been called a “silent revolution” in the publishing industry over the last decade. The US audiobook market is estimated to be worth US$1.1 billion annually and is growing at a rate of more than 10% each year. Industry insiders say this is a fresh market, with 37% of Australian audiobook listeners only taking up the habit in the last year.

Audiobook downloads (up 15% on the previous year) were part of a pandemic boost for publisher revenues. Some are read by the authors themselves or by famous actors including Elizabeth Moss and Tom Hanks.

But are listeners really reading? If we challenge what we think we know about reading, audiobooks can be seen as not just a cheat’s shortcut for catching up on classics and bestsellers, but a new way to engage more people with stories.

Read more: How reading aloud can be an act of seduction

From Vinyl To Digital

Audiobooks are not new. The term refers to any authored print book vocalised through a variety of technologies — from records through to cassette players, and CDs. Digitally downloaded or streamed audiobooks have added a new dimension to this heritage technology, traditionally viewed as a compensatory tool for visual impairment or reading difficulties such as dyslexia and the rarer condition of alexia.

The surge in audiobook sales is likely a halo effect of the huge popularity of podcasts. But audiobooks are single-voiced, immersive listening experiences. Audiobooks do not include book-length texts “read” by an automated voice.

Audible (owned by Amazon) dominates the audiobook market and is now getting into the “original audiobook” game, meaning they produce the audio version rather than a book publisher. Other services offer “born audio” productions. Storytel Originals bypass print as the starting point in the traditional book publishing cycle.

Librivox — a site dedicated to making “all books in the public domain available, narrated by real people and distributed for free” emerged from a group of friends reading aloud from Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. It draws its 15,000 titles from Project Gutenburg’s 60,000 free ebooks.

Unlike the commercial services, with narration and soundscapes on par with radio drama productions, the quality of Librivox audiobooks is highly variable. There are excellent recordings and “readings that sound as if they come from your worst nightmare of community theatre — either monotone or way over the top”, according to one LA Times reviewer.

How We Read

Reading is a complex process. Rather than a single cognitive act of decoding, we know from imaging technologies that reading engages several discrete actions within the brain’s visual region. When the reader encounters an irregular letter-sound relationship, neurologist Stanislas Dehaene tells us the auditory brain region fires up as well.

When reading, we engage a bundle of brain skills that have evolved over centuries if not millennia. A recent study used fMRI scans to show people generate word meaning in the same way whether they see it or hear it.

Though reading is still usually thought of as a stationary, silent and solo practice, there is a long tradition of reading communally and aloud. This is not only reading by adults to children, but also among adults.

Streamed audiobooks available through smartphones enable reading-as-listening while mobile. The kinetic dimension of reading-as-listening while moving through space, commuting, walking or while driving is yet to be fully understood.

Read more: Books offer a healing retreat for youngsters caught up in a pandemic

New Reading, Old Storytelling

Audiobooks challenge established practices and assumptions about reading, but also remind us of the oral cultures of storytelling from which print cultures developed.

In Australia, streamed audiobook listening might offer a 21st century way of celebrating the affective, imaginative and kinetic dimensions of the Indigenous songlines that criss-cross the continent, either by remediating print books or bypassing the written form altogether.

Listening to audiobooks may help to close the gender gap common with reading literature. The Reading the reader report from Macquarie University found that more than 60% of “frequent readers” are women. Of “non-readers”, three quarters are men. Yet, men and women are equally likely to consume digital format books such as ebooks and audiobooks. Audiobooks may inspire more male readers to participate in bookclubs, which traditionally involve more women than men.

Read more: Freud, Nietzsche, Paglia, Fanon: our expert guide to the books of The White Lotus

Audiobooks could also be used more in higher education. Princeton University Press recently announced the release of their PUB audio series, signalling new educational formats for scholars and students.

Rather than being one act for one purpose, literacy researcher Sam Duncan argues reading is a bigger umbrella than we may have previously realised, under which sits a diversity of practices, involving different “skills, challenges and pleasures”.

Listening-as-reading to vocalisations of books enables a level of imaginative and affective engagement that should not be diminished by our traditional assumptions.

Here Are Three Great Books To Listen To:

1. Carpentaria By Alexis Wright

The audiobook of Alexis Wright’s epic Carpentaria, is narrated by Noongar actor and dramaturg Isaac Drandich. Using a range of voices, he offers the reader-as-listener an enhanced experience.

2. Taboo By Kim Scott

Reading his own book, Kim Scott’s gentle voice animates his sparse prose style beautifully.

The novel dramatises a brutal past event and its present day reckoning.

3. The Odyssey By Homer. Translated By Emily Wilson.

Claire Danes’s vocalising of Emily Wilson’s translation brings this ancient text into the contemporary world through plain speaking and her emphasis on satellite characters. 

Brigid Magner, Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies, RMIT University and Linda Daley, Senior lecturer, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Friday essay: 10 photography exhibitions that defined Australia

Australians have always loved photography exhibitions. They are consistently among the most well attended at our museums and galleries, and have formed an important part of our cultural landscape since the middle of the 19th century.

Our research reveals a fascinating history of encounters, spaces, and techniques of display — hidden in more conventional accounts that focus on famous photographers and iconic images.

Here are ten exhibitions that represent some key chapters in this history.

Read more: Ten photos that changed how we see human rights

1. J. W. Newland’s ‘Daguerrean Gallery’, Sydney, 1848

Visitors to Australia’s first photography exhibition in 1848 climbed the steps above a wine and spirits store in the centre of Sydney to the studio of J. W. Newland. He had just arrived with 200 daguerreotypes made during an almost three-year journey from New Orleans, thorough Central and South America, across the Pacific to New Zealand, and finally to Sydney.

In delicate images formed on polished silver plates ranging from the size of an iPad to an iPhone, visitors saw “views” of other great Pacific ports such as Peru’s Callao, “specimens” of various Indigenous people, and “likenesses” of celebrities they had only read about in newspapers. These included Queen Pomare IV of Tahiti who had famously become caught up in French and British colonial rivalry.

Visitors could also have their own portrait taken for the gallery, joining the other daguerreotypes Newland advertised as covering “two thirds of the globe”.

2. The Australian Intercolonial Exhibition, Melbourne, 1866

In 1866, where Victoria’s State Library now stands, two purpose-built, timber exhibition halls were filled with commodities from ten Australasian colonies for the first Intercolonial Exhibition. The hundreds of photographs crammed between the profusion of the displays were such an important component they attracted their own review from the now defunct Australian Monthly Magazine.

This “wanderer amongst the photographic views” thought they exhibited “the high standard of taste to which we, as inhabitants of new colonies, have arrived”. Like the pyramidal “trophies” of canned foods and confectionery placed throughout the exhibition spaces, the photographs visualised and quantified colonial prosperity.

Scale and spectacle were everything. Many views of the new colonial buildings were contact printed from glass plate negatives 25 x 30 cm in size, and one multi-panelled panorama of Sydney stretched over a metre in length. Viewers could peer into the binocular lenses of a stereoscope, which enabled them to see a number of paired images taken from slightly different angles as a sequence of 3D views of Hobart.

3. Harold Cazneaux’s ‘One Man Show’, Photographic Society Of New South Wales, Sydney, 1909

At the turn of the 19th century, Australian photography was transformed by the self-consciously artistic style of Pictorialism. In 1909, one of its emergent figures, Harold Cazneaux, held the first solo show by an individual Australian photographer.

Its 26 portraits, landscapes, seascapes, harbour scenes and “picturesque city corners” showed what “any energetic cameraist can secure in his lunch hour, if he is gifted with the ‘seeing eye’.”

Cazneaux proudly documented the tasteful installation of his show in the Sydney rooms of the Photographic Society of New South Wales. Each print was individually mounted behind a wide cardboard mat in an elegant frame and numbered, referring to a catalogue on a table beneath a vase of flowers. Cazneaux had set the template for thousands of photographers’ shows to come.

4. Wolfgang Sievers And Helmut Newton’s New Visions In Photography, Federal Hotel, Melbourne, 1953

Staged over five days at the Federal Hotel on Melbourne’s Collins Street in 1953, Wolfgang Sievers and Helmut Newton declared the bold aim of New Visions in Photography in an introductory wall panel. It was “to demonstrate … the potential of industrial and fashion photography as a means of better promotion and bigger sales”.

The two German émigrés embodied a dramatically new approach to the photograph. Sievers’ industrial and architectural studies and Newton’s fashion images both exploited radical vantage points and close-ups to produce bold, graphic compositions in sharp, high contrast black and white — reflecting Australia’s emergence as a modern nation.

The magazine-like display matched the formal qualities of the photographs. Instead of framed images in a row, enlarged unframed photographs were presented on white pegboard and suspended in the air by fine thread, sometimes at radical angles.

This dramatic sculpting of space in the old hotel underscored Sievers and Newton’s belief in photography’s potential to make the world anew.

5. Urban Woman, Melbourne Town Hall, 1963

Urban Woman was the most ambitious and accessible exhibition by a collective of Melbourne-based amateur photographers including Albert Brown, George Bell, Roy McDonald and John Crook who called themselves Group M. Earnest teachers and chemists, they were inspired by the tradition of social documentary.

Urban Woman comprised over 200 mostly candid, long, focal length images by 13 photographers (all male), selected by designer Max Forbes. Inspired by the photographers’ observation of the “loneliness” of young suburban mothers, they aimed “to confront reality with an unprejudiced eye”.

The fact that an exhibition about women was made exclusively by men went unnoticed in the significant press coverage it attracted.

Conceived as a direct response to the international blockbuster The Family of Man, which toured to Australia in 1959, Urban Woman appealed to similar humanist sentiment. Its design featured purpose-built wooden structures to display huge, unframed prints, with subjects arranged from youth to old age.

6. Frontiers, National Gallery Of Victoria, 1971

The National Gallery of Victoria became the first Australian gallery to establish a department of photography in 1967, despite opposition from some trustees (one of whom referred to photography as a “cheat’s way of doing a painting”). At the time, it was one of only a handful of such departments in the world.

Frontiers featured the experimental and abstract photography of John Cato, Peter Medlen, Stanislaus Ostoja-Kotkowski, Mark Strizic and John Wilkins. All-male photography exhibitions remained common until the pioneering exhibitions of feminist photographers such as Sue Ford and Carol Jerrems in the mid-1970s.

The work in Frontiers was self-consciously contemporary, even psychedelic. Cato’s environmental protest work comprised 52 prints installed on crimson screens with strobe lighting. Ostoja-Kotkowski’s light transparencies, formed by laser beams and infra-red, were backlit from spotlights mounted on the ceiling. Strizic presented a 10-metre colour mural (later destroyed due to chronic fading).

7. William Yang, Sydneyphiles, Australian Centre For Photography, 1977

In 1977, William Yang used the walls of the new Australian Centre for Photography for a diaristic exhibition, Sydneyphiles. This was Yang’s first exhibition, in which his small scale colour and black and white photographs of Sydney’s gay community and its art, fashion and socialite scenes were hung closely alongside and above each other to cover the walls like a giant personal scrapbook.

Sydneyphiles is significant for reasons beyond its controversial sexual content. It was an early example of the Centre moving beyond a more conventional framed black and white modernist tradition.

It is likely the first exhibition by an Asian-Australian photographer, and it included its community as part of the event (the press release notes Yang “invited many of the subjects of his photography” to his exhibition). Yang later said the exhibition “launched me as a photographer”.

8. National Aboriginal And Islander Photographers Exhibition, Aboriginal Artists Gallery, Sydney, 1986

The first exhibition in which Aboriginal people had control over their own photographs took place in 1986 during what is now known as NAIDOC week. On the raw brick walls of Sydney’s Aboriginal Artists Gallery, ten Indigenous photographers hung their exhibition.

They included Mervyn Bishop, Australia’s first Aboriginal press photographer, and others such as Brenda L. Croft, Michael Riley and Tracey Moffatt, who went on to become important figures in Australian art.

The show featured photographs that later became touchstones, such as Moffatt’s portrait of actor David Gulpilil relaxing at Bondi beach in board shorts and face paint.

It was an immediate success, as Moffatt ruefully commented: “To be honest, we got the kind of publicity which makes me want to vomit; e.g. ‘they’re Aborigines, they’re articulate, and gee whizz, they take good pictures’ sort of stuff. I guess I shouldn’t complain because we got a lot of people coming through looking at the show and buying work, which is what we do like!”

9. Photography Is Dead! Long Live Photography!, Museum Of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 1996

In 1996, as the medium was being transformed by the impact of digital photography, the Museum of Contemporary Art mounted Photography Is Dead! Long Live Photography! For curator Linda Michael its 32 exhibitors were “artists using photography”, not photographers per se. They saw photographs not as transparent windows onto the world, but as a material within themselves.

Some large unframed prints were suspended to curl delicately out from the wall, others were bonded onto aluminium for an industrial look; some were expressionistically cut up, others were physically sculpted.

Some — such as Jane Eisemann’s surrealist imagery and Patricia Piccinini’s glossy advertising style portraits of a celebrity starlet holding a genetically modified pet — were digitally produced, with computer manipulation an intrinsic part of their meaning.

10. Hoda Afshar’s Remain, The Substation, Melbourne, 2019

Photographs have long appeared in public space in the form of corporate messaging. They can be projections or billboards. To offer different messages, Tehran-born, Melbourne-based artist Hoda Afshar is one of many who have taken advantage of inexpensive, large-scale printing to give voice to the experiences of marginalised people.

In 2019 Afshar presented her striking, collaboratively-produced portraits of asylum seekers incarcerated by the Australian Government on Manus Island on 2.4-metre-high billboards along the train line that skirts The Substation in the western Melbourne suburb of Newport.

The Christ-like image of the Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani was already becoming iconic, having won a major photography prize and circulated in newspapers and Afshar’s Instagram account (arguably the most important site for photography today).

But the public display amplified the political potency of her ghostly black-and-white portraits to new audiences. As she has said, “When you make a socially and politically engaged work, the intention is to communicate with the people”.

These moments are drawn from our book Installation View: Photography Exhibitions in Australia (1848-2020) published by Perimeter Editions in 2021.

Daniel Palmer, Professor, School of Art, RMIT University and Martyn Jolly, Honorary Associate Professor, School of Art and Design, Research School of Humanities and the Arts, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Boomers vs millennials? Free yourself from the phoney generation wars

Generational thinking is a big idea that’s been horribly corrupted and devalued by endless myths and stereotypes. These clichés have fuelled fake battles between “snowflake” millennials and “selfish” baby boomers, with younger generations facing a “war on woke” and older generations accused of “stealing” the future from the young.

As I argue in my book, Generations, this is a real shame. A more careful understanding of what’s really different between generations is one of the best tools we have to understand change – and predict the future.

Some of the great names in sociology and philosophy saw understanding generational change as central to understanding society overall. Auguste Comte, for example, identified the generation as a key factor in “the basic speed of human development”.

He argued that “we should not hide the fact that our social progress rests essentially upon death; which is to say that the successive steps of humanity necessarily require a continuous renovation … from one generation to the next”. We humans get set in our ways once we’re past our formative years, and we need the constant injection of new participants to keep society moving forward.

Understanding whether, and how, generations are different is vital to understanding society. The balance between generations is constantly shifting, as older cohorts die out and are replaced by new entrants. If younger generations truly do have different attitudes or behaviours to older generations, this will reshape society, and we can, to some extent, predict how it will develop if we can identify those differences.

But in place of this big thinking, today we get clickbait headlines and bad research on millennials “killing the napkin industry” or on how baby boomers have “ruined everything”. We’ve fallen a long way.

Myth Busting

To see the true value of generational thinking, we need to identify and discard the many myths. For example, as I outline in the book, gen Z and millennials are not lazy at work or disloyal to their employers. They’re also no more materialistic than previous generations of young: a focus on being rich is something we tend to grow out of.

Old people are not uncaring or unwilling to act on climate change: in fact, they are more likely than young people to boycott products for social purpose reasons.

And our current generation of young are not a particularly unusual group of “culture warriors”. Young people are always at the leading edge of change in cultural norms, around race, immigration, sexuality and gender equality. The issues have changed, but the gap between young and old is not greater now than in the past.

Meanwhile, there are real, and vitally important, generational differences hidden in this mess. To see them, we need to separate the three effects that explain all change in societies. Some patterns are simple “lifecycle effects”, where attitudes and behaviours are to do with our age, not which generation we are born into. Some are “period effects” – where everyone is affected, such as in a war, economic crisis or a pandemic.

And finally, there are “cohort effects”, which is where a new generation is different from others at the same age, and they stay different. It’s impossible to entirely separate these distinct forces, but we can often get some way towards it – and when we do, we can predict the future in a much more meaningful way.

There are many real generational differences, in vitally important areas of life. For example, the probability of you owning your own home is hugely affected by when you were born. Millennials are around half as likely to be a homeowner than generations born only a couple of decades earlier.

There is also a real cohort effect in experience of mental health disorders, particularly among recent generations of young women. Our relationship with alcohol and likelihood of smoking is also tied to our cohort, with huge generational declines in very regular drinking and smoking. Each of these point to different futures, from increased strain on mental health services to declining alcohol sales.

But lifecycle and period effects are vitally important too. For example, there is truth in the idea that we grow more conservative as we age. One analysis suggests that this ageing effect is worth around 0.35% to the Conservatives each year, which may not sound like a lot, but is very valuable over the course of a political lifetime.

And, of course, the pandemic provides a very powerful example of how period effects can dramatically change things for us all.

Reaching Beyond The Avocado

When there is such richness in the realities, why are there so many myths? It’s partly down to bad marketing and workplace research – that is, people jumping on the generation bandwagon to get media coverage for their products or to sell consultancy to businesses on how to engage young employees.

This has become its own mini-industry. In 2015, US companies spent up to US$70 million (£51 million) on this sort of “advice” according to the Wall Street Journal, with some experts making as much as US$20,000 an hour. Over 400 LinkedIn users now describe themselves solely as a “millennial expert” or “millennial consultant”.

Campaigners and politicians also play to these imagined differences. Our increasing focus on “culture wars” often involves picking out particular incidents in universities, such as the banning of clapping at events or the removal of a portrait of the Queen to exaggerate how culturally different young people today are.

Maybe less obviously, politicians such as former US President Barack Obama repeatedly lionise coming generations as more focused on equality, when the evidence shows they’re often not that different. These assertions are not only wrong, but create false expectations and divides.

Some have had enough, calling on the Pew Research Center in the US, which has been a champion of generational groups, to stop conducting this type of analysis. I think that misses the point: it’s how it’s applied rather than the idea of generations that’s wrong.

We should defend the big idea and call out the myths, not abandon the field to the “millennial consultants”.

Bobby Duffy, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Policy Institute, King's College London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We asked 9,000 Australians about their mental health needs post-COVID — this is what they want

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken an enormous toll on people’s mental health around the world.

Even in Australia, where the numbers of those infected, hospitalised, and dying from COVID-19 have been much lower than in most other countries, our research has shown the mood of the population has been badly affected by lockdowns and restrictions on freedoms.

This in turn can make it harder for people to work and participate in society. That’s why policy makers need to turn their attention to what they can do to support people as they adapt to life in a COVID-normal world.

Findings from our new survey research offer important clues to what people think will help them adjust.

Our Research

In 2020 we conducted two anonymous online surveys of Australians over 18 about their experiences of living with COVID 19 and their mental health. The first was launched in April, just after nationwide COVID-19 restrictions began. The second was done in August when restrictions had eased except in Victoria.

In the second survey we included a list of 16 potential policies and asked respondents to tell us which ones would help them recover from the COVID-19 restrictions.

They included policies around mental health, financial support, employment assistance, access to telehealth, support for community organisations, and government management of future pandemics.

What We Found

More than 13,000 people completed the first survey.

This showed more than one in four had significant symptoms of depression and more than one in five had significant symptoms of anxiety during the first month of COVID restrictions. This was at least double the rates of non-COVID times.

Read more: Australians are 3 times more worried about climate change than COVID. A mental health crisis is looming

The second survey was completed by more than 9,000 people. We were surprised to find people who lived in parts of the country where restrictions had eased were not feeling much better than they did at the time of the first survey. Less surprising was people in locked-down Victoria were feeling much worse than people elsewhere.

Of all the potential policy solutions, respondents most strongly backed planning for next time. Almost half (46%) said, “to have a publicly available plan about management of future pandemics” would be “very helpful” for their personal recovery.

This policy option was the most supported across genders, ages, places of residence, and socioeconomic circumstances.

Four other potential policies were rated as “very helpful” by more than 30% of respondents: two related to mental health support, one to individual financial support, and one to support for community organisations.

“Access to face-to-face counselling with a mental health professional” and “a GP asking me about my mental health” as well as “financial support for living expenses” were most strongly supported by respondents who identified as women or non-binary and those in the youngest group. This was probably because they were more likely than men and older people to have lost their job and experience financial hardship as a result of COVID-19 restrictions.

“Additional support for community organisations” (such as Men’s Sheds, community choirs, sports clubs, environmental groups) was rated as “very helpful” by around one third of people of all genders and ages.

Why Policymakers Need To Listen

The findings from our study offer policymakers insights into what people in Australia think would help as we all adjust to the reality that COVID-19 is likely to be part of their lives for the foreseeable future.

The United Nations has already recommended all countries plan a response to the mental health consequences of the pandemic. We argue this planning should be guided by evidence, and as the OECD recommends, the community needs to be involved in working out the details.

The most popular proposed policy among those surveyed was for a publicly available pandemic management plan. This is particularly notable because a key recommendation from the Health Department after the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 was that a comprehensive plan for managing pandemics should be developed for the whole of Australia.

“Effective communications, robust science-based decision making and a flexible public health response system able to respond rapidly to a crisis” were identified as essential components of such a plan.

Had this recommendation been implemented then, it is likely Australia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic would have been quicker, better coordinated among the commonwealth, state, and territory governments - and so less confusing and more effective.

Read more: Lockdowns make people lonely. Here are 3 steps we can take now to help each other

It supports the argument by international disaster risk reduction experts that governments need to change the mindset from “if” to “when” future pandemics will occur.

And as a weary public works its way through more lockdowns and worrying daily updates, they need to know lessons have been learned. Reassurance Australia is ready for “next time” will be an essential plank of their mental health recovery.

Karin Hammarberg, Senior Research Fellow, Global and Women's Health, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University; Heather Rowe, Senior Research Fellow, Jean Hailes Research Unit, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University; Jane Fisher, Finkel Professor of Global Health, Monash University; Maggie Kirkman, Senior Research Fellow, Global and Women's Health, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, and Thach Tran, Research Fellow, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Opening up when 80% of eligible adults are vaccinated won’t be ‘safe’ for all Australians

We’ve all grown tired of lockdowns, border closures and other restrictions. So the promise of a freer life, when 70% and then 80% of Australians aged 16 and older are vaccinated, feels like a beacon on the horizon.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, some premiers, and leading public servants have promised us at 80% we can live “safely” with COVID-19, or come out of our “caves” in the PM’s parlance.

The narrative is one of Team Australia and we are “all in this together”. But are we really?

Risks of COVID-19 infection, serious disease and death are not equitably distributed. They disproportionally cluster among the most disadvantaged. Vaccine access and uptake is also lower in many disadvantaged groups.

Opening the country at 80% without ensuring these groups have met or exceeded those targets will result in substantial avoidable illness and death.

Who Is Most Vulnerable To Serious Disease?

The risk of serious COVID-19 and death is related to “clinical vulnerability”, such as whether the person has underlying health conditions like diabetes or respiratory disease.

First Nations Australians, disabled Australians, prisoners and people living in rural and remote Australia have much higher levels of chronic conditions, which have their roots in social and economic disadvantage.

Read more: The COVID-19 crisis in western NSW Aboriginal communities is a nightmare realised

On top of their clinical vulnerability, these groups face multiple barriers to accessing quality health care, including intensive care. These barriers might include lack of physical access, discrimination, an inability to access culturally competent care, and/or geographical distance.

What Have We Learnt From Other Countries?

Across the world, COVID-19 infection rates have occurred at higher rates in aged-care facilities, disability group homes and institutions and jails.

Besides aged-care residents, Australia hasn’t yet seen the high death rates in clinically vulnerable groups that other countries have witnessed.

In the United States, Indigenous Americans have had the highest rate of COVID-19 deaths – dying at three times the rate of white Americans (when adjusting for the fact that Indigenous Americans are younger than non-Indigenous Americans).

High rates of death have also been seen among:

• Black and Hispanic Americans
• those in rural areas
• prisoners, who were three times as likely than the rest of the population to die of COVID-19 (after taking into account the differences in age and sex between the prison and general populations).

In the United Kingdom, people with intellectual disability were eight times more likely than the rest of the population to die of COVID and disabled people made up 60% of the deaths.

Intellectual disability was second only to age as a risk factor for death from COVID-19 in the US.

What’s Happening In Australia?

COVID-19 infections are more common in disadvantaged areas, both in Australia and internationally.

Residents in disadvantaged communities are more mobile, live and work in close proximity to other people, and are more likely to be essential workers who can’t work from home. These areas also tend to have high concentrations of ethnic minority and migrant communities.

Victoria’s second wave included outbreaks among residents and workers in aged-care facilities, along with outbreaks in health care, meatworks, and disability group homes.

In NSW’s current wave, outbreaks are spreading rapidly in First Nations communities in western NSW and in prisons.

Who Is Getting Vaccinated?

Australia’s vaccine rollout strategy prioritised people at most risk of serious disease and death from COVID-19.

Phase 1A included aged-care and disability group home residents and the workers who support them.

In Phase 1B, First Nations Australians over 55 years and people with disability with chronic conditions were eligible.

People prioritised in these phases were meant to be vaccinated by April.

Read more: Australia has not learned the lessons of its bungled COVID vaccine rollout

More recently, all participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Indigenous Australians 12 years and older became eligible.

Prisoners are not explicitly included as a priority population.

But the strategy came without an implementation plan and vaccination levels are appallingly low in many groups.

Vaccination rates are substantially lower among Indigenous Australians than the population rates in every state and territory, except Victoria where Indigenous vaccination rates are much higher.

In western NSW, where COVID-19 is rapidly spreading through First Nations communities, 11.6% if Indigenous Australians are fully vaccinated compared with 28.9% of non-Indigenous Australians.

Information about vaccination rates among disabled people and workers are not routinely shared and tend to be leaked to the media. On August 22, for example, the Sunday Age revealed just 27% of NDIS participants were fully vaccinated, lagging behind the national rate.

Vaccination of prisoners and prison staff has also been slow. Many states only started their prison vaccination rollout in the last couple of months and data on vaccination coverage in correctional services have not been released (or perhaps even collected).

No Targets Yet For Vaccinating Vulnerable Groups

The Doherty-led COVID-19 vaccination modelling is cited as justifying the federal government’s 80% target. The modelling report acknowledges:

particular attention should be paid to groups in whom socioeconomic, cultural and other determinants are anticipated to result in higher transmission and/or disease outcomes.

The Doherty Institute’s director, Professor Sharon Lewin, emphasised that we need to achieve 80% targets for all Australians including our most disadvantaged citizens.

Read more: Opening with 70% of adults vaccinated, the Doherty report predicts 1.5K deaths in 6 months. We need a revised plan

However, the model itself did not specifically evaluate the potential impact on high-risk groups. Nor does the Commonwealth National Transition Plan focus on equity.

Disadvantaged Australians face triple jeopardy – low vaccination rates, greater likelihood of being infected with COVID-19, and higher risks of serious disease and death from COVID-19.

These risk factors are significant individually. But some individuals face intersectional disadvantage. Indigenous people, for example, experience disability at a higher level than the general population. And people with mental health issues are over-represented in prisons.

Until now, we have relied on public health measures to contain the spread of COVID-19. If we relax these and move quickly to rely mainly on vaccination without ensuring equitable delivery, those most at risk will face a disproportionately greater burden of serious illness and death.

What Can Be Done?

Thankfully, vaccine supply is improving. Australians are being vaccinated at unprecedented levels, particularly in NSW.

However, unless we explicitly move to an equity-based strategy for vaccination, “at risk” populations will be left even further behind.

Equitable allocation of vaccines requires:

1. defining priority groups and geographical areas
2. allocating an increased share of vaccines or vaccination appointments
3. tailoring outreach and communication
4. offering vaccinations close to or in workplaces and places where people live including private homes, aged-care facilities, and prisons
5. monitoring vaccination uptake
6. inclusion of vaccine targets for priority groups in the national plan.

Continuing our current strategy will mean that when we decide the time is right to “live with COVID”, many people who should have been the highest priority for vaccination could die.

We demand a rethink of our vaccine strategy to have an explicit focus on equitable vaccine allocation. Otherwise, it’s simply not “safe” for many Australians to come out of Morrison’s proverbial cave.

Anne Kavanagh, Professor of Disability and Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne; Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW, and Nancy Baxter, Professor and Head of Melbourne School of Population & Global Health, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.