The Conversation

The stereotype of the conventionally attractive female weather reporter is alive and well on Australian television. Azuzl/shutterstock.com

This is an edited extract from The Weather Obsession by Lawrie Zion, published by Melbourne University Press.

When Olympic swimming champion Giaan Rooney was asked to fill in presenting the weather segment on Melbourne’s Channel Seven weeknight news program just before Christmas 2012, she was taken aback. She pointed out that she knew nothing about weather and that her credibility was in sport. “Don’t worry, just do the weather,” was the reply from the network. Six weeks later, the 30-year-old Rooney was invited to continue in the role, replacing the 52-year-old presenter and trained meteorologist David Brown, who had been presenting on Seven for 20 years.

As it turned out, Brown remained with the network and eventually went on to present the weather for Seven’s Sydney weeknight bulletin. But the switch from Brown to Rooney illustrates a dilemma that has never been resolved. Just who should present the weather on television?

Read more: How World War I changed the weather for good.

Commenting on Rooney’s appointment soon after the announcement, the Sunday Herald Sun’s Susie O’Brien wrote:

…the old adage that people like a mature man to tell them the serious news and a pretty face to tell them the weather still seems to apply. The real question is why we need a nice-looking woman who isn’t a meteorological expert to tell us the weather at a time when climate issues have never been more important. The fact that we are still having these debates is a sign we have a long way to go. Sadly, I think we will continue to see women used as decorations on network TV for a while to come.

What O’Brien saw as an anachronistic decision needs to be understood in the context of the role of weather segments in television news bulletins, and the changing demographics of broadcast news audiences.

Weather presenters have long been a crucial component of any television news team, and are promoted as such. For many in the audience, they’ve also been the main conduit of weather information. Ten years ago 90% of Australians received at least some of their weather information from television. This has since fallen to 71%, according to a Bureau of Meteorology survey. But that’s still a lot of eyeballs. And with their segments usually perched at the end of bulletins, the extent to which weather presenters connect with viewers helps to determine whether their station can carry the valuable news audience over to the start of the next program.

When it comes to sheer numbers, TV news audiences may have generally held up well with older viewers, but younger viewers aren’t drawn to these programs to anything like the extent that their parents were. The result is that around half the audience is over the age of 50, and therefore more likely to go for the familiar than the experimental. So while the steady evolution of graphics means that weather reports look very different now from how they appeared in the early days of television, the format has remained more predictable than the weather itself.

We all know the ritual: What happened today? What will happen tomorrow? And beyond tomorrow? Across the country? If it’s a local bulletin the state and/or city forecast will precede the sign-off. As Channel Nine Brisbane news presenter Andrew Lofthouse has put it: “The weather reports are still one of the constant reassuring things that people can rely on.” This might partly explain why changes to who presents the weather attract so much attention within the media itself.

Despite an overall tendency to play it safe, what this actually means tends to fluctuate, with appearance, personality and specialist credentials all deemed to be relevant factors to varying degrees. As O’Brien put it in the context of Brown’s replacement by Rooney: “Presumably Channel Seven has tired of the serious approach and in the midst of falling ratings is going for the well-worn route of installing an attractive female to freshen things up.”

Hiring attractive women as weather presenters is a time-honoured global tradition. Writing about the history of TV weather in America, Robert Henson points out that it became clear in the 1950s that women could be accepted as weathercasters, as long as the focus was kept on clothing, hairstyle or anatomy. “So began the brief ascendancy of ‘weathergirls’, a term that speaks volumes about the differences in status between these women and their male counterparts in weathercasting.”

But while the weathergirl craze abated in the United States by the early 1960s, in Australia, where television had been introduced relatively recently, it was just beginning. In 1961, an item in the Bureau’s in-house publication, Weather News, noted that in Brisbane, “the majority of stations appear to favour the glamour-girl type of telecaster for weather presentations”, and that “Bureau staff have had the pleasure of indoctrinating and briefing two ‘Miss Australias’ and one ‘Miss Queensland’ in the short time that television has been operating in this State”. The background training included explaining the need for weather information to be presented seriously and faithfully, “and particularly for the more glamorous the need to submerge their glamour behind the prosaic highs and lows”.

In 1965, Melbourne’s Channel 9 hired model Rosemary Margan to present the weather. One evening in 1969, she appeared in a fur coat before stripping to a bikini during her live segment, sparking a steady stream of responses from viewers. In the 1970s, when searching for a replacement for the then pregnant Margan, the station hired the 15-year-old schoolgirl Kerry Armstrong, whose job application had led them to believe she was 22. While often appearing in short, tight garments, Armstrong, who went on to become a celebrated actor, did on one occasion break away from the standard weather script, when she informed viewers that “due to the drought, 1,000 head of cattle died. But don’t worry, beachgoers, it’s going to be another great day tomorrow with a top of 35 degrees”.

Decades later, the “weather girl” tag has proved hard to shake, as current Melbourne Channel Nine weather presenter Livinia Nixon told The Age in 2010. “TV and radio are very much boys’ clubs; they’re industries that are still very, very male-dominated,” she says, acknowledging that a male who presents the weather is a weather man, whereas she is a “weather girl”. “I wonder at what point you lose the ‘girl’?” she asks, having presented the segment on Nine’s 6pm weeknight news since 2004. “What age do you have to reach to not be called a girl any more?”

What if the woman presenting the weather has a relevant tertiary qualification? Back at Seven in Melbourne, Giaan Rooney remained in the role of weather presenter until taking maternity leave, when she was replaced by model and television personality Jo Silvagni, who was in turn replaced in late 2014 by Jane Bunn – who, as it happens, is also a qualified meteorologist. Her appointment also attracted media attention. When Nixon was asked about her new on-air rival, she told the Herald Sun that she didn’t think this would lend Seven’s bulletin any more clout. “I think it’s fantastic that Jane’s a meteorologist – hats off to her for doing the hard yards – but I’m confident working in conjunction with the Bureau (of Meteorology),” she says. “I feel very confident relaying all the information we get from them. Their accuracy rate has gone up over the years.”

Did Nixon, who had replaced the veteran weather presenter Rob Gell on Nine in 2010, have a point? A trained meteorologist of either gender might make the weather segment seem more credible to some, but would they enhance the substantive quality of information that is delivered? Historically the Bureau has insisted that provision of its information comes with a requirement that the media doesn’t mess with the message. TV stations can and do use the services of private weather companies to provide graphics, but the actual forecasts are still meant to be broadly consistent with the Bureau’s. So whichever nightly news channel you watch, won’t the next-day forecast be essentially the same?

With this and others questions in mind, I went to Melbourne’s Seven studios in Docklands to meet Bunn. After completing a Bachelor of Science at Monash University and a Graduate Diploma in Meteorology, Bunn worked for the Bureau in Sydney before turning to presenting the weather on television. “I loved the forecasting part of it but hated it when the message was being changed in the media by people who got their terms muddled, so I decided I wanted to present it,” she tells me, citing an incident where a forecast of “fine and mostly sunny” was abbreviated to “mostly fine”. “You can have trust in what we are saying because that message might be jumbled up elsewhere. You’re better off getting your weather from a meteorologist than a presenter because you know it’s as good as it can be.”

But Bunn doesn’t simply recite the Bureau’s forecast. Before her main segment goes to air at 6.55pm she checks the forecast models from Europe and Australia, which are updated after the Bureau releases its late afternoon forecast, to see if there are developments that might require some additional interpretation. She also analyses those same models to take the Bureau’s seven-day forecast one step further, providing viewers with an eight-day outlook.

For all her specialist knowledge, however, Bunn’s appearance has also been a talking point both in social media and in the gossip columns. “Jane Bunn had the farm boys panting when she was the weather girl on regional television,” began one Herald Sun story, before conceding that “she doesn’t fit the weather girl stereotype”. Bunn accepts that her image is to some extent constructed by others. When I bring up the subject of how she is characterised in social media, she points out that other people have considerable input into how she appears before the camera. “I’ve purposely made it so hair and make-up and wardrobe decide what I actually look like – and that allows me to concentrate on my craft which is forecasting.”

As well as presenting all the usual weather details, Bunn has the scope to discuss seasonal forecasts and weather news in her segment, which provides her with the opportunity to embed her meteorological knowledge in her reports. Despite such individual touches, however, weather presenters in Australia, including Bunn, stick far more closely to the official forecasts than their American counterparts. In the United States, it is commonplace for local TV stations to hire meteorologists to present the weather, and many of these develop their own forecasts, which may be based on National Weather Service (NWS) data, or on those of other private providers whose predictions may also differ from those of the NWS. And television has long been a much more popular source of weather forecasts than the NWS. A 2006 survey of more than 1,400 Americans found that 72% of them caught a local TV forecast at least once per day, but less than 20% obtained daily forecasts from NWS websites, with just 4% tuning in to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio each day.

It might be just as well that Australia has not gone down this track. As American data journalist Nate Silver has noted in the American context, “the further you get from the government’s original data, and the more consumer facing the forecasts, the less reliable they become. Forecasts ‘add value’ by subtracting accuracy.” This is particularly the case with precipitation predictions. Non-National Weather Service forecasters, it turns out, tend to overestimate the probability of rain. There is a logic of sorts to this “wet bias”, says Silver. “People don’t mind when a forecaster predicts rain and it turns out to be a nice day. But if it rains when it isn’t supposed to, they curse the weatherman for ruining their picnic.”

Lawrie Zion does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

The rainforests of Papua New Guinea are home to one of the richest bird populations in the world. But many are threatened by logging and palm oil farming.

Now, a team of researchers led by Edith Cowan University have surveyed the PNG island of New Britain to see how the bird population is faring.

The good news: several bird species, like the Blue-eyed Cockatoo, were found to be doing better than before.

The bad news: the researchers saw only a few New Britain Kingfishers, and some vulnerable species, like the New Britain Bronzewing, Golden Masked-owl and Bismarck Thicketbird, were not seen at all.

Their results, recently published in the journal Bird Conservation International, help to inform the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

Robert Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Climate change is set to increase the amount of ground-level ozone and fine particle pollution we breathe, which leads to lung disease, heart conditions, and stroke. Less rain and more heat means this pollution will stay in the air for longer, creating more health problems.

Our research, published in Nature Climate Change, found that if climate change continues unabated, it will cause about 60,000 extra deaths globally each year by 2030, and 260,000 deaths annually by 2100, as a result of the impact of these changes on pollution.

This is the most comprehensive study to date on the effects of climate change on global air quality and health. Researchers from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and New Zealand between them used nine different global chemistry-climate models.

Most models showed an increase in likely deaths – the clearest signal yet of the harm climate change will do to air quality and human health, adding to the millions of people who die from air pollution every year.

Read more: Can we blame climate change for thunderstorm asthma?

Stagnant air

Climate change fundamentally alters the air currents that move pollution across continents and between the lower and higher layers of the atmosphere. This means that where air becomes more stagnant in a future climate, pollution stays near the ground in higher concentrations.

Ground-level ozone is created when chemical pollution (such as emissions from cars or manufacturing plants) reacts in the presence of sunlight. As climate change makes an area warmer and drier, it will produce more ozone.

Fine particles are a mixture of small solids and liquid droplets suspended in air. Examples include black carbon, organic carbon, soot, smoke and dust. These fine particles, which are known to cause lung diseases, are emitted from industry, transport and residential sources. Less rain means that fine particles stay in the air for longer.

While fine particles and ozone both occur naturally, human activity has increased them substantially.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has used four different future climate scenarios, representing optimistic to pessimistic levels of emissions reduction.

In a previous study, we modelled air pollution-related deaths between 2000 and 2100 based on the most pessimistic of these scenarios. This assumes large population growth, modest improvements in emissions-reducing technology, and ineffectual climate change policy.

That earlier study found that while global deaths related to ozone increase in the future, those related to fine particles decrease markedly under this scenario.

Emissions will likely lead to deaths

In our new study, we isolated the effects of climate change on global air pollution, by using emissions from the year 2000 together with simulations of climate for 2030 and 2100.

The projected air pollutant changes due to climate change were then used in a health risk assessment model. That model takes into account population growth, how susceptible a population is to health issues and how that might change over time, and the mortality risk from respiratory and heart diseases and lung cancer.

In simulations with our nine chemistry-climate models, we found that climate change caused 14% of the projected increase in ozone-related mortality by 2100, and offset the projected decrease in deaths related to fine particles by 16%.

Our models show that premature deaths increase in all regions due to climate change, except in Africa, and are greatest in India and East Asia.

Using multiple models makes the results more robust than using a single model. There is some spread of results amongst the nine models used here, with a few models estimating that climate change may decrease air pollution-related deaths. This highlights that results from any study using a single model should be interpreted with caution.

Australia and New Zealand are both relatively unpolluted compared with countries in the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, both ozone and fine particle pollution currently cause relatively few deaths in both countries. However, we found that under climate change the risk will likely increase.

This paper highlights that climate change will increase human mortality through changes in air pollution. These health impacts add to others that climate change will also cause, including from heat stress, severe storms and the spread of infectious diseases. By impacting air quality, climate change will likely offset the benefits of other measures to improve air quality.

Guang Zeng receives funding from the New Zealand Government's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) through their Strategic Science Investment Fund.

Jason West receives funding from the US Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Last week, egg producer Snowdale Holdings was penalised A$1 million for falsely labelling their eggs as free-range. Snowdale, one of the biggest producers in the Australian market, owns brands including Eggs by Ellah, Swan Valley Free Range, and Wanneroo Free Range.

Given the significantly higher prices generally charged for free-range eggs, you could be forgiven for having doubts over what you’re getting in the supermarket. Even when egg cartons are legally accurate, the government definition of “free range” might not mean what you think it does.

But you don’t need to shop blind: there are a range of resources that can help you find egg producers that follow best-practise standards, avoid farming practices that concern you and understand what government guidelines really mean.

Read more: the reason people buy free-range eggs (other than animal welfare)

What’s in an egg label?

Previous research has shown that people buy free-range eggs for a range of reasons, including taste and quality, as well as concern for animal welfare.

But unlike other labels such as nutritional information panels or best-before dates, the “free-range” claim is not regulated by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). In fact, no claims about production methods are subject to this kind of regulation. Food labelling regulation by FSANZ is about what a food contains, rather than how it is produced.

Eggs by Ellah, owned by Snowdale Holdings. Alpha/Flickr, CC BY-NC

However, there is an Australian definition of “free-range”, created in March 2016 under Australian consumer law. Essentially, it means that the chickens have “meaningful and regular access to the outdoors” and that outdoor stocking densities are no more than 10,000 birds per hectare.

This has been hotly debated, with animal welfare and consumer groups arguing that this is not what most people would consider free-range, while producer groups have supported the standard.

The new regulations also requires producers to “prominently disclose” the outdoor stocking density, and we are now starting to see that on packaging.

What does free-range really mean?

In practice, stocking chooks at 10,000 per hectare and giving them regular access to the outdoors, might not result in animals that are especially free (or “cruelty-free” – another claim showing up on an increasing number of egg cartons).

Read more: free-range egg labelling scrambles the message for consumers

For a start, CSIRO has published a code of practice for animal welfare that recommends farmers should have no more than 1,500 birds per hectare. If you want to buy from producers that meet that standard, the consumer group Choice has an app called CluckAR that can scan egg cartons in the store and give immediate feedback on the brand’s farming conditions.

Choice also provides a table of free-range egg producers. Reading that table – and from my own discussions with Australian egg producers – it’s clear that price is not a totally reliable indicator of stocking density.

However, stocking density is only one factor in how hens are treated. Some independent certifications have more stringent guidelines. The Australian Certified Organic Standard, as well as specifying a maximum of 1,500 birds per hectare for set stocking systems and 2,500 for rotational systems, also prohibits practices like withholding feed and water to induce moulting.

The Australian Organic certification indicates a lower stocking density, and more stringent cruelty-free practises, than the government definition of ‘free range’. Australian Certified Organic

Hens naturally moult in autumn, when they lose significant body weight and stop laying eggs while their reproductive tract rejuvenates. For greater control over when hens produce eggs, as well as extending their hens’ laying lives, farmers can induce moulting by reducing their feed, or withholding food altogether for certain periods. Although heavily regulated at the state level in Australia (hens may not go without food entirely for more than 24 hours), it is considered cruel by animal welfare groups.

Similarly Humane Choice recommends a maximum of 1,500 birds per hectare. And unlike the government definition of free-range, which calls for “meaningful and regular” access to the outside, Humane Choice standards specify that hens can “forage on the land, move untethered and uncaged”.

Of course, it is important to note that free-range farms are not free of animal welfare issues, such as feather pecking, where hens pull out the feathers of other birds. There are further challenges is managing exposure to weather or predators to consider. Caged-egg producers argue that consumers should be able to choose from a range of production methods.

However, if animal welfare, sustainability, and labelling are things that you are concerned about, then do your own research and identify the products that align with your values. Don’t rely on a label to tell you what is ethical.

Heather Bray's salary is partly funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Project (LP130100419) which includes contributions from industry partners Coles Group Ltd, Elders Limited, Richard Gunner’s Fine Meats Pty Ltd, and the South Australian Research and Development Institute. She is currently undertaking consultancy work for Animal Health Australia. She received scholarships from the Pig Research and Development Corporation (now Australian Pork Limited) between 1991 and 1997. The University of Adelaide is a partner in the Animal Welfare Science Centre.

The Arctic is melting, the Antarctic slowly cracking up. Even 1.5℃ of warming will mean serious problems for Australia, and that target has probably already been blown. I think it’s really important, therefore that we talk about… meetings.

Yeah, I know. As the humorist Dave Barry has quipped, “meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organisations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate,” while Oscar Wilde had little doubt that they were a waste of time. But bear with me on this.

Pretty much any article on climate change ends with an exhortation that governments and corporations must behave differently, and that social movements must force them to do so. But as the former coal executive turned climate author Ian Dunlop recently asked: “What is to be done if our leaders are incapable of rising to the task?”

Social movements have traditionally been a laboratory, a pathfinder for new ways of doing things. Recycling, for instance, sprang from citizens’ efforts. But how can social movements exert pressure and set an example to be followed, if they do not grow in size and skill? And how are they to grow in size and skill if they do not retain more of the people who come to meetings, rallies and marches?

To me, that is the key question that often goes unanswered in the regular parade of “what is to be done” articles. The growth of social movements in response to crisis is taken as a given, or a trifling matter. But surely if the past ten years of climate politics have shown us anything it is that there is no linear relationship between scientists’ alarm and the number of people who are willing and able get involved in creating political pressure.

Which brings us to meetings.

Organisers of events may not realise it, but it’s quite a big deal for someone to make time to go to a meeting, especially one in the evening. We have children to look after (well, not me), as well as jobs, commitments, interests, hobbies. Besides, walking into a room full of strangers can sometimes be intimidating.

And yet so many of the meetings I have been to in Australia and the UK are intensely alienating to a newcomer. You turn up and are often ignored while people who know each other cluster in groups. You are usually invited to sit in rows (although circles are not automatically better). The speaker speaks (often overrunning) and then the question-and-answer session is dominated by confident and/or doctrinaire people who typically give speeches rather than ask questions, so as to show off how informed they already are.

The energy gradually leaks out of the room, and at the end the new faces drift out, most likely never to be seen again. They have become what I call “ego-fodder” for the organisers and dominant types. Rather than being true participants, they are extras in the background. These are meetings where you don’t meet anyone.

From cannon-fodder to ego-fodder.

This is the standard “information deficit model” style of meeting. It is a tragic waste of potential, and the question organisers have to ask themselves is – if our current methods of movement-building are fit for purpose, where is the resulting movement? We seem capable of mobilising people for two or three years, and then becoming demobilised either by success or, more recently, by failure.

What is to be done?

It doesn’t have to be this way. But to change, we need to invent some new rituals, new “institutions” (which is what academics call the rules – formal and informal – by which society reproduces itself).

For one thing, organisers could think about how they will welcome new people (without being too culty). Are name badges good or bad? Could you have your most personable old hand standing under a sign saying “Unsure what’s going on? New? Talk to me if you like.”

Perhaps the chair could invite people to turn to the person next to them, say hello, and spend two minutes finding out why they came to the meeting. Could you find funny ways of keeping the speaker to time (like the “clap clinic” – see below).

The clap clinic: if the evening’s guest speaker reaches the end of their time slot but won’t stop, just start loudly applauding anyway. Hudson and Roberts, Author provided Questioning the Q&A

“Wonderful presentation from our guest speaker. Now, any questions?” says the chair of the meeting, usually about 15 minutes later than they should have. Up shoot some hands. Those who’ve been to more than one or two meetings know what to expect next: prepared “questions” that are thinly-or-not-at-all-disguised speeches and hectoring points. These “questions” are asked by the usual suspects, who are typically male.

As the clock runs out (and people drift out), a few female hands tentatively go up. Their owners have realised that their question – the one they’d told themselves wasn’t up to scratch – is actually better than what’s gone before. But alas, it’s too late; only one or two get asked, and dealt with too quickly. The meeting finishes, and with it the opportunity for something different.

Instead we could have the chair say something like this:

Right. Let’s all turn to someone nearby you – ideally someone you don’t know. Introduce yourself and exchange impressions of the speech. If you have a question you are wondering whether to ask, find out if the other person thinks it’s a good ‘un. With their help, refine it, hone it and – please – for everyone’s sake, make it shorter. Women especially, your questions are just as good and welcome as men’s. You have two minutes…_

Measuring success is crucial. The current metric seems to be how many people came, how happy was the invited guest speaker about how long they got to talk for, rather than how many connections were facilitated, how many people were inspired to lend a shoulder to the grindstone. In my opinion we need to be able to treat this as a marathon, not a sprint.

That means keeping people engaged, not for a week or a month or a march, but in the long term. That means groups of people that grow, learn, organise and win, are aware of the skills and knowledge and relationships of individual members, and have habits in place to help each of those people to learn skills, share knowledge, and grow relationships.

In the next column I’ll explore how we might get to know each other’s strengths, weaknesses and hopes for the future, and do what academics call “asset mapping” without destroying everyone’s will to live.

For now, readers: What are your positive and negative experiences of attending meetings? What has “worked” to involve you in the activities of a group? What has kept you involved? What un-recruited you?

Giant kelp can grow up to 60cm a day, given the right conditions. Joe Belanger/shutterstock.com

This is an edited extract from Sunlight and Seaweed: An Argument for How to Feed, Power and Clean Up the World by Tim Flannery, published by Text Publishing.

Bren Smith, an ex-industrial trawler man, operates a farm in Long Island Sound, near New Haven, Connecticut. Fish are not the focus of his new enterprise, but rather kelp and high-value shellfish. The seaweed and mussels grow on floating ropes, from which hang baskets filled with scallops and oysters. The technology allows for the production of about 40 tonnes of kelp and a million bivalves per hectare per year.

The kelp draw in so much carbon dioxide that they help de-acidify the water, providing an ideal environment for shell growth. The CO₂ is taken out of the water in much the same way that a land plant takes CO₂ out of the air. But because CO₂ has an acidifying effect on seawater, as the kelp absorb the CO₂ the water becomes less acid. And the kelp itself has some value as a feedstock in agriculture and various industrial purposes.

After starting his farm in 2011, Smith lost 90% of his crop twice – when the region was hit by hurricanes Irene and Sandy – but he persisted, and now runs a profitable business.

His team at 3D Ocean Farming believe so strongly in the environmental and economic benefits of their model that, in order to help others establish similar operations, they have established a not-for-profit called Green Wave. Green Wave’s vision is to create clusters of kelp-and-shellfish farms utilising the entire water column, which are strategically located near seafood transporting or consumption hubs.

Read more: Seaweed could hold the key to cutting methane emissions from cow burps

The general concepts embodied by 3D Ocean Farming have long been practised in China, where over 500 square kilometres of seaweed farms exist in the Yellow Sea. The seaweed farms buffer the ocean’s growing acidity and provide ideal conditions for the cultivation of a variety of shellfish. Despite the huge expansion in aquaculture, and the experiences gained in the United States and China of integrating kelp into sustainable marine farms, this farming methodology is still at an early stage of development.

Yet it seems inevitable that a new generation of ocean farming will build on the experiences gained in these enterprises to develop a method of aquaculture with the potential not only to feed humanity, but to play a large role in solving one of our most dire issues – climate change.

Globally, around 12 million tonnes of seaweed is grown and harvested annually, about three-quarters of which comes from China. The current market value of the global crop is between US$5 billion and US$5.6 billion, of which US$5 billion comes from sale for human consumption. Production, however, is expanding very rapidly.

Seaweeds can grow very fast – at rates more than 30 times those of land-based plants. Because they de-acidify seawater, making it easier for anything with a shell to grow, they are also the key to shellfish production. And by drawing CO₂ out of the ocean waters (thereby allowing the oceans to absorb more CO₂ from the atmosphere) they help fight climate change.

The stupendous potential of seaweed farming as a tool to combat climate change was outlined in 2012 by the University of the South Pacific’s Dr Antoine De Ramon N’Yeurt and his team. Their analysis reveals that if 9% of the ocean were to be covered in seaweed farms, the farmed seaweed could produce 12 gigatonnes per year of biodigested methane which could be burned as a substitute for natural gas. The seaweed growth involved would capture 19 gigatonnes of CO₂. A further 34 gigatonnes per year of CO₂ could be taken from the atmosphere if the methane is burned to generate electricity and the CO₂ generated captured and stored. This, they say:

…could produce sufficient biomethane to replace all of today’s needs in fossil-fuel energy, while removing 53 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year from the atmosphere… This amount of biomass could also increase sustainable fish production to potentially provide 200 kilograms per year, per person, for 10 billion people. Additional benefits are reduction in ocean acidification and increased ocean primary productivity and biodiversity.

Nine per cent of the world’s oceans is not a small area. It is equivalent to about four and a half times the area of Australia. But even at smaller scales, kelp farming has the potential to substantially lower atmospheric CO₂, and this realisation has had an energising impact on the research and commercial development of sustainable aquaculture. But kelp farming is not solely about reducing CO₂. In fact, it is being driven, from a commercial perspective, by sustainable production of high-quality protein.

A haven for fish. Daniel Poloha/shutterstock.com

What might a kelp farming facility of the future look like? Dr Brian von Hertzen of the Climate Foundation has outlined one vision: a frame structure, most likely composed of a carbon polymer, up to a square kilometre in extent and sunk far enough below the surface (about 25 metres) to avoid being a shipping hazard. Planted with kelp, the frame would be interspersed with containers for shellfish and other kinds of fish as well. There would be no netting, but a kind of free-range aquaculture based on providing habitat to keep fish on location. Robotic removal of encrusting organisms would probably also be part of the facility. The marine permaculture would be designed to clip the bottom of the waves during heavy seas. Below it, a pipe reaching down to 200–500 metres would bring cool, nutrient-rich water to the frame, where it would be reticulated over the growing kelp.

Von Herzen’s objective is to create what he calls “permaculture arrays” – marine permaculture at a scale that will have an impact on the climate by growing kelp and bringing cooler ocean water to the surface. His vision also entails providing habitat for fish, generating food, feedstocks for animals, fertiliser and biofuels. He also hopes to help exploited fish populations rebound and to create jobs. “Given the transformative effect that marine permaculture can have on the ocean, there is much reason for hope that permaculture arrays can play a major part in globally balancing carbon,” he says.

The addition of a floating platform supporting solar panels, facilities such as accommodation (if the farms are not fully automated), refrigeration and processing equipment tethered to the floating framework would enhance the efficiency and viability of the permaculture arrays, as well as a dock for ships carrying produce to market.

Given its phenomenal growth rate, the kelp could be cut on a 90-day rotation basis. It’s possible that the only processing required would be the cutting of the kelp from the buoyancy devices and the disposal of the fronds overboard to sink. Once in the ocean depths, the carbon the kelp contains is essentially out of circulation and cannot return to the atmosphere.

The deep waters of the central Pacific are exceptionally still. A friend who explores mid-ocean ridges in a submersible once told me about filleting a fish for dinner, then discovering the filleted remains the next morning, four kilometres down and directly below his ship. So it’s likely that the seaweed fronds would sink, at least initially, though gases from decomposition may later cause some to rise if they are not consumed quickly. Alternatively, the seaweed could be converted to biochar to produce energy and the char pelletised and discarded overboard. Char, having a mineralised carbon structure, is likely to last well on the seafloor. Likewise, shells and any encrusting organisms could be sunk as a carbon store.

Once at the bottom of the sea three or more kilometres below, it’s likely that raw kelp, and possibly even to some extent biochar, would be utilised as a food source by bottom-dwelling bacteria and larger organisms such as sea cucumbers. Provided that the decomposing material did not float, this would not matter, because once sunk below about one kilometre from the surface, the carbon in these materials would effectively be removed from the atmosphere for at least 1,000 years. If present in large volumes, however, decomposing matter may reduce oxygen levels in the surrounding seawater.

Large volumes of kelp already reach the ocean floor. Storms in the North Atlantic may deliver enormous volumes of kelp – by some estimates as much as 7 gigatonnes at a time – to the 1.8km-deep ocean floor off the Bahamian Shelf.

Submarine canyons may also convey large volumes at a more regular rate to the deep ocean floor. The Carmel Canyon, off California, for example, exports large volumes of giant kelp to the ocean depths, and 660 major submarine canyons have been documented worldwide, suggesting that canyons play a significant role in marine carbon transport.

These natural instances of large-scale sequestration of kelp in the deep ocean offer splendid opportunities to investigate the fate of kelp, and the carbon it contains, in the ocean. They should prepare us well in anticipating any negative or indeed positive impacts on the ocean deep of offshore kelp farming.

Only entrepreneurs with vision and deep pockets could make such mid-ocean kelp farming a reality. But of course where there are great rewards, there are also considerable risks. One obstacle potential entrepreneurs need not fear, however, is bureaucratic red tape, for much of the mid-oceans remain a global commons. If a global carbon price is ever introduced, the exercise of disposing of the carbon captured by the kelp would transform that part of the business from a small cost to a profit generator. Even without a carbon price, the opportunity to supply huge volumes of high-quality seafood at the same time as making a substantial impact on the climate crisis are considerable incentives for investment in seaweed farming.

Tim Flannery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Feral pigs are found in every state and territory in Australia. Shutterstock

A disease called swine brucellosis is emerging in New South Wales, carried by feral pigs. Endemic to feral pigs in Queensland, and sometimes infecting the dogs used to hunt them, it can be transmitted to humans through blood contact with infected pigs. A number of people have already been infected in NSW.

Recreational pig hunting in rural Australia is a widespread control method for the roughly 24 million feral pigs who call Australia home.

The ethics of this undertaking is open to debate – many authorities consider poisoning more efficient and more ethical than hunting. But regardless of this controversy, the emergence of swine brucellosis illustrates the risk that comes with hunting.

Read more: How dog saliva spreads potentially deadly bacteria to people

How swine brucellosis spreads

Hunting and killing feral pigs is risky to all participants. Adult pigs are large, powerful animals, and their tusks can inflict serious injuries to both human and canine combatants. Despite the leather armour given to pig-hunting dogs, they commonly receive penetrating injuries. These can cause substantial wounds, peritonitis (inflammation of the lining of the abdominal cavity) and even death.

Despite the armour worn by pig-hunting dogs, they are at risk of cuts and infection from pigs. Babes & Boars/Facebook

These risks are of course well understood by the people that hunt pigs. But regrettably, many tend to their dogs’ injuries without veterinary assistance. Most feral pigs show little outward signs of the disease, so the danger to man and dog can be hidden even to an experienced “pigger”.

People and dogs can be infected if they have a break in their skin (such as a minor wound or abrasion) that becomes contaminated with the blood or tissue of a pig or dog carrying the pathogen. This can occur during capture, or when the pig carcass is “dressed” in the field. Veterinarians in Australia have also been infected with Brucella suis following surgery on infected dogs.

In people, brucellosis is a systemic disease which can result in undulant fever, lassitude, sore joints and back pain. More serious cases involve orchitis and epididymitis (swollen testicles), miscarriage as well as kidney, liver or cardiovascular disease. As TIME magazine famously reported in 1943, “the disease rarely kills anybody but it often makes a patient wish he were dead.”

Feral pigs are found in every state and territory in Australia, but their highest concentration is in Queensland. National Land and Water Resources Audit

Brucellosis (caused by bacterium Brucella suis) can usually be rapidly diagnosed through blood tests and other clinical investigations, as long as the history of pig hunting is disclosed to the medical team. Although there is usually a connection to pig hunting, humans can also be infected by accidental contact with the organism in diagnostic laboratories.

Swine brucellosis is seen only in feral pigs in Australia, and there is currently no risk to humans from pigs kept in modern intensive piggeries. The disease is considered endemic in Queensland, but it appears to be emerging in NSW. We see it more and more commonly in canine patients in the northern parts of the state, as the disease extends its biological range.

There’s been a dramatic increase in swine brucellosis cases in NSW. Data from the Department of Primary Industries

This might be a natural process, although some people suspect the deliberate (and illegal) capture and relocation of young feral pigs from Queensland to NSW plays a key role in the spread of infection.

Location of swine brucellosis cases in dogs. Data from the Department of Primary Industries How to protect yourself and your animals

There are some simple recommendations which will reduce the risk of infections in people who hunt pigs, and their families:

• when handling pig carcasses, always cover any skin cuts with waterproof dressings, and if possible, use disposable gloves

• minimise exposure to blood, fluids and organs and always wash hands and arms with soap and water afterwards

• mesh protective gloves should be worn when dressing pigs in the field

Our focus has been the disease that occurs in “pig dogs”, who are at risk of infection from hunting injuries and the practice of feeding raw feral pig meat or offal to dogs after they are dressed in the field. Non-hunting “house dogs” of pig hunters can also be infected if they are fed feral pig flesh.

Pig dogs often live alongside ‘house dogs’, who can also be at risk of infection. Facebook

This can make the diagnosis harder, as the relationship with pig hunting is not apparent. To make matters even more complex the disease can have a long incubation period, so dogs from the country can be infected while young, make their way into pounds and be rescued by people from urban areas where pig hunting is alien, and not often considered by city veterinarians. In one case, a female dog in Sydney had two years of extensive investigation into her lameness and back pain before diagnosis.

Dogs with swine brucellosis can develop various signs including swollen testicles, back pain, joint involvement, abortion as well as the less specific signs of fever and lassitude. The NSW Department of Primary Industries currently provides free testing through the Elizabeth Macarthur Agriculture Institute in New South Wales.

It’s not all bad news. While euthanasia may be recommended to protect public health, preliminary evidence suggests the disease can be treated in dogs using combination therapy with two antibiotics (rifampicin and doxycycline) which are relatively inexpensive. Ideally, this is combined with castration or removal of the ovaries and uterus, to remove any residual infected gonadal tissue. It’s too early to tell whether dogs are cured for good but the results are looking promising.

Read more: Protect your puppies: vaccinate them against a new strain of parvo

Prevention is always better than cure, so one obvious solution would be to use poisoning of feral pigs as a method of population control rather than hunting. If hunting cannot be prevented, it is strongly recommended that feral pig meat is thoroughly cooked before feeding it to dogs or people – this also kills the parasite that cause sparganosis and the bacteria which cause Q fever. Do not let pig-hunting dogs lick humans, and always wash your hands after contact with feral pigs or dogs.

More information about brucellosis and feral pig hunting and brucellosis in dogs can be found on government websites.

Siobhan Mor has received funding from the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Hunter New England Population Health in support of her research on canine brucellosis.

Richard Malik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

In the wake of a devastating fire at the Melbourne Coolaroo recycling facility earlier this month, Victorian environment minister Lily D'Ambrosio has announced a statewide audit of recycling facilities.

The audit is designed to identify other facilities with dangerous stockpiles of paper and plastic, but will also have the benefit of simply telling us how many plants are in Victoria.

It’s currently almost impossible to say how many recycling facilities are in Australia, where they are, and what they’re capable of sorting. And market forces can incentivise stockpiling material, creating the potential for yet more severe fires.

Where does our recycling go?

Australia generates roughly 50 million tonnes of waste a year, around 50-60% of which is recycled.

Some is defined as “construction and demolition” waste and recycled at specialist facilities, while a portion of food and garden waste is composted.

Most of the rest is collected from businesses and households, sorted at a recycling facility and then sent on to another facility to be turned into new products or packaging.

Overall, the volume of waste we generate generating is increasing at an estimated 7-10% per annum – more waste and recyclables that require sorting.

According to a 2013 report from the Department of Environment and Energy there are an estimated 114 facilities in Australia that sort recyclables from the commercial/industrial and household sectors.

However, this tells us very little. We don’t know the true number, as each council licenses the facilities in their area but there’s no central database. Some will manage household recyclables, while some will specialise in materials like paper and cardboard, or glass.

These facilities vary in how much volume they can process, as well as the variety of materials. Some rely totally on human labour to sort the materials, and others are a mix of mechanical and labour.

In light of our growing need for recycling facilities (and events like the Coolaroo fire), it’s clear that we need a national registry, updated with an annual survey.

Private companies recycle for Australia

Across Australia, most recycling is done by private companies. Councils are responsible for collecting household recyclables, but with very few exceptions they pay businesses to do it. Regardless, we are charged for the service through our rates.

Many different materials can be recycled – even plastic shopping bags and polystyrene. But it requires dedicated equipment at the recycling facilities to do so, and well as a market for the sorted product. Installing plastic-bag-recycling equipment is expensive and the markets are volatile, meaning that the expense for collection and sorting may not be repaid.

When prices for material like metal, glass or paper drop, companies may hold on to material waiting for an increase, or simply send them to landfill to reduce costs.

Another issue not often considered is the location of these facilities. As forward planning has been limited, new facilities will need to be placed in rural or regional areas, increasing transport costs and further shrinking the profit margins of the industry.

It also means more emissions as waste is transported from collection, to the sorting facility and then back to industry and shipping locations. At the same time, recyclables from many regional councils are transported to specialist sorting facilities located closer to metropolitan Melbourne, as there are no such facilities close to them.

What we can do to fix it

Fundamentally, Australians want more recycling, less landfill and less overall waste. Fortunately there are a number of process that can help deliver these outcomes.

States and territories can upgrade recycling facilities. New South Wales has been extremely proactive in spending money from its landfill levy to improve waste management, but the Victorian government has a A$500 million sustainability fund that should be used for the same purpose.

Particular attention should be paid to increasing our capacity to sort more materials, diverting them from landfill.

Tax breaks and other financial incentives should be offered to plant operators who upgrade their equipment, and manufacturers who use recyclable material in their products.

At the same time, we should consider penalising businesses who use non-recyclable packaging when alternatives exist, and retailers who sell goods in multi-material packaging (like polystyrene and plastic) without providing an alternative.

It should be possible to buy fruit or vegetables not wrapped in multiple kinds of packaging. ricardo/Flickr, CC BY

Recycling is very different to landfills, which are also generally privately owned. There’s significant government investment in landfill, as well as strict environmental and social restrictions. Importantly, landfills are not subject to the same market forces that cause large price fluctuations.

While the Victorian audit is a positive step, it does not address the basic lack of sorting facilities in the right locations, without policies to encourage development.

Recycling reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions, and energy, water and raw material consumption. Yet, apart from continual policy statements, little is being done.

Of course, it’s a complex issue. Forcing recyclers to sell their product at low rates can cause businesses to collapse; at the same time, less valuable material can end up in clearly dangerous stockpiles or yet more landfill.

Kneejerk reactions are not the answer. First and foremost, we need to find out how many facilities exist across Australia, where they are and what their capacity is. Only then can we usefully plan.

Trevor Thornton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Colonial notions of public and private space are embedded in sewage systems. Elaichi Ohyeah/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Two current global trends are set to make life rather uncomfortable for cities: climate change and the unprecedented rate of urbanisation.

This combination of extreme weather – often involving sudden deluges of water – and high population density will test even the best sewage infrastructure we have today. In the face of such pressures, how adaptable are our sewage systems?

Colonial heritage in our sewage systems

Sewage systems worldwide commonly consist of flush toilets and pipes that rely on a steady supply of water to transport and deposit bodily waste, either to a wastewater treatment plant or, failing that, simply downstream in the nearest river or straight into the ocean.

Many urbanites around the globe are using sewage systems based on a colonial-era template. Initially implemented to cure London’s “Great Stink” of 1858, when a hot summer combined with the excrement-filled River Thames to create an unbearable stench, sewer systems were public health interventions designed to remove pathogens and “miasmatic” offences associated with bodily waste.

They were first transplanted off Britain’s shores in the reconstruction of Paris from 1850–70, and since then have become embedded culture-specific notions of hygiene and sanitation around the globe.

Such colonial infrastructure is now proving increasingly problematic in the face of human-driven global trends (broadly referred to as the Anthropocene).

Using water to flush waste

A paradox of climate change is that there seems to be both more and less water. In South Asia, for example, at least 1.6 billion people struggle to find drinking water despite an abundance of water generally.

A woman siphoning water from a leaky pipe into a bucket on the side of the road during summer. Author provided

For residents of Darjeeling, India, where I am currently conducting my PhD fieldwork, this paradox is very real. Monsoons in Darjeeling last from June through August, sometimes longer, and rain falls frequently throughout the rest of the year. On the face of it, Darjeeling should have plenty of water, but in fact it faces increasingly acute shortages during the summer months from April to June.

The town’s water and waste infrastructure was built by the British in the 1930s, for what was then a population of 10,000. Its population now hovers around the 150,000 mark, and surges to more than 200,000 during peak tourist season from March to May. Despite this, there has been little to no official maintenance or upgrade since Indian independence in 1947.

In town, signs that urbanisation has outpaced infrastructure capacity are everywhere. An impressive number of pipes move water to and from the population. Along with electricity wires, these pipes traverse the city along increasingly bizarre and precarious routes. Ad hoc retrofit attempts to meet rising demand appear to be band-aid solutions and, because the pipes leak, often exacerbate contamination.

A typical open sewer in Darjeeling. Note the pipes on either side are water pipes taking drinking water to homes. Author provided

Darjeeling is instructive because it is a landscape struggling with inadequate infrastructure amid a rapidly urbanising population. In such a landscape, fresh water can be contaminated by sewage outflows, largely because the system is completely dependent on water to function.

Such over-reliance underpins another paradox: modern sewerage systems require water to work and yet, if not context-sensitive nor managed appropriately, can dirty vital waterways.

Closer to home

Australia is not immune to such problems. Our changing climate means we too face more severe droughts along with heavier rainfall events. Under these conditions, our sewage systems are under increasing stress.

Earlier this year Melbourne experienced summer flash floods which strained the city’s sewage systems, contaminating three public beaches. In February a heavy downpour in Western Australia caused concern over sewage contamination in the Swan River.

Such experiences are not isolated, and are likely to increase in incidence across the world. They provide important lessons and act as a catalyst for rethinking our relationship to water and waste, particularly amid concerns over water scarcity and extreme weather conditions in southern Australia.

Alternative futures

Many social scientists are now researching alternative forms of infrastructure that are contextually relevant, embedded in community values, and adaptable to current environmental challenges.

These alternative forms include moves to re-examine our relationship with waste in farming, use dry composting toilets, and install public bio-toilets along India’s main railway corridors.

As for my home town of Adelaide, the capital of the driest state on the driest inhabited continent on Earth, should we really continue to use water to flush bodily waste?

Matt Barlow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

This aerial view shows the catchment of the Makaroro river, in the Ruahine Forest Park. The river was to be dammed for the Ruataniwha irrigation scheme. Peter Scott, CC BY-ND

Earlier this month, New Zealand’s Supreme Court rejected a proposed land swap that would have flooded conservation land for the construction of the country’s largest irrigation dam.

The court was considering whether the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council’s investment arm could build a dam on 22 hectares of the protected Ruahine Forest Park in exchange for 170 hectares of private farm land. The proposed dam is part of the $900 million Ruataniwha water storage and irrigation scheme.

The New Zealand government’s response to the ruling was to consider a law change to make land swaps easier. Such a move flies in the face of good governance.

Natural capital vs development

The Supreme Court ruling has significant implications for the Ruataniwha dam. In addition, it asserts the importance of permanent protection of high-value conservation land.

The ecological value of the Ruahine Forest Park land was never in question. The conservation land includes indigenous forest, a unique braided river and wetlands that would have been destroyed.

The area is home to a dozen plants and animals that are classified as threatened or at risk. The developer’s ecological assessment acknowledged the destruction of ecologically significant land and water bodies. However, it argued that mitigation and offsetting would ensure that any effects of habitat loss were at an acceptable level.

The Mohaka River also flows through the Hawke’s Bay. Christine Cheyne, CC BY-ND Challenge to NZ’s 100% Pure brand

New Zealand’s environmental legislation states that adverse effects are to be avoided, remedied or mitigated. However, no priority is given to avoiding adverse effects. Government guidance on offsetting does not require outcomes with no net loss.

In Pathways to prosperity, policy analyst Marie Brown argues that offsetting is not always appropriate when the affected biodiversity is vulnerable and irreplaceable.

Recent public concern about declining water quality has provided significant momentum to address pollution and over-allocation to irrigation. Similarly, awareness of New Zealand’s loss of indigenous biodiversity is building.

These issues were highlighted in this year’s OECD Environmental Performance Review and a report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment on the parlous state of New Zealand’s native birds.

Both issues damage New Zealand’s 100% Pure branding and pose significant risks to tourism and the export food sector. Indigenous ecosystems are a huge draw card to surging numbers of international tourists.

Battle lines in fight for the environment

Powerful economic arguments have been put forward by business actors, both internationally and in New Zealand. For example, Pure Advantage supports protection of ecosystems and landscapes. Yet, governance mechanisms are limited.

Since 2009, environmental protection and conservation have increasingly become major battle lines as the National government doggedly pursues its business growth agenda. This favours short-term economic growth over environmental protection.

A key principle behind the Supreme Court decision is that protected conservation land cannot be traded off. It follows a High Court case in which environmental organisations argued unsuccessfully that the transfer of land was unlawful.

However, in August 2016, the Court of Appeal ruled against the Director-General of Conservation’s decision to allow the land transfer. It had been supported on the grounds that there would be a net gain to the conservation estate. The court’s ruling said that the intrinsic values of the protected land had been disregarded.

The Supreme Court has reinforced the importance of the permanent protection status recognised by the Court of Appeal.

Anticipatory governance

In response to the court’s decisions, the government argued that land swaps of protected areas should be allowed. It may seek to amend legislation to facilitate such exchanges.

The Supreme Court made reference to section 2 of the Conservation Act 1987. It defines conservation as “the preservation and protection of natural and historic resources for the purpose of maintaining their intrinsic values, providing for their appreciation and recreational enjoyment by the public, and safeguarding the options of future generations”.

Section 6 of the act states that the Department of Conservation should “promote the benefits to present and future generations of the conservation of natural and historic resources”. As such, the legislation and the department contribute to what is known as “anticipatory governance”.

Anticipatory governance is fundamental to good governance, as Jonathan Boston argues in his recent publication Safeguarding the future: governing in an uncertain world.

It requires protecting long-term public interests. Conservation of our unique ecosystems and landscapes protects their intrinsic values and the services they provide. These include tourism benefits and basic needs such as water, soil and the materials that sustain human life.

The department has correctly recognised that conservation promotes prosperity. However, long-term prosperity is quite different from the short-term exploitation associated with the government’s business growth agenda.

This promotes exploitation in the form of mining on conservation land and increased infrastructure for tourism and other industries, such as the proposed Ruataniwha dam.

Amending the Conservation Act to allow land swaps involves a significant discounting of the future in favour of present day citizens. This is disingenuous and an affront to constitutional democracy. It would weaken one of New Zealand’s few anticipatory governance mechanisms at a time when they are needed more than ever.

Christine Cheyne was a member of the Taranaki-Whanganui Conservation Board for 10 years (2004-2014).

A recent expose by the ABC’s Four Corners has alleged significant illegal extraction of water from the Barwon-Darling river system, one of the major tributaries of the Murray River. The revelations have triggered widespread condemnation of irrigators, the New South Wales government and its officials, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Basin Plan itself.

If the allegations are true that billions of litres of water worth millions of dollars were illegally extracted, this would represent one of the largest thefts in Australian history. It would have social and economic consequences for communities along the entire length of the Murray-Darling river system, and for the river itself, after years of trying to restore its health.

Water is big business, big politics and a big player in our environment. Taxpayers have spent A$13 billion on water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin in the past decade, hundreds of millions of which have gone directly to state governments. Governments have an obligation to ensure that this money is well spent.

The revelations cast doubt on the states’ willingness to do this, and even on their commitment to the entire Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This commitment needs to be reaffirmed urgently.

Basic principles

To work out where to go from here, it helps to understand the principles on which the Basin Plan was conceived. At its foundation, Australian water reform is based on four pillars.

1. Environmental water and fair consumption

The initial driver of water reform in the late 1990s was a widespread recognition that too much water had been allocated from the Murray-Darling system, and that it had suffered ecological damage as a result.

State and Commonwealth governments made a bipartisan commitment to reset the balance between water consumption and environmental water, to help restore the basin’s health and also to ensure that water-dependent industries and communities can be strong and sustainable.

Key to this was the idea that water users along the river would have fair access to water. Upstream users could not take water to the detriment of people downstream. The Four Corners investigation casts doubt on the NSW’s commitment to this principle.

2. Water markets and buybacks

The creation of a water market under the Basin Plan had two purposes: to allow water to be purchased on behalf of the environment, and to allow water permits to be traded between irrigators depending on relative need.

This involved calculating how much water could be taken from the river while ensuring a healthy ecosystem (the Sustainable Diversion Limit). Based on these calculations, state governments developed a water recovery program, which aimed to recover 2,750 gigalitres of water per year from consumptive use, through a A$3 billion water entitlement buyback and a A$9 billion irrigation modernisation program.

This program hinged on the development of water accounting tools that could measure both water availability and consumption. Only through trust in this process can downstream users be confident that they are receiving their fair share.

3. States retain control of water

Control of water was a major stumbling block in negotiating the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, because of a clash between states’ water-management responsibilities and the Commonwealth’s obligations to the environment.

As a result, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority sits outside of both state and Commonwealth governments, and states have to draw up water management plans that are subject to approval by the authority.

The states are responsible for enforcing these plans and ensuring that allocations are not exceeded. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority cannot easily enforce action on the ground – a situation that generates potential for state-level political interference, as alleged by the Four Corners investigation.

4. Trust and transparency

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was built on a foundation of trust and transparency. The buyback scheme has transformed water into a tradeable commodity worth A$2 billion a year, a sizeable chunk of which is held by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office.

Water trading has also helped to make water use more flexible. In a dry year, farmers with annual crops (such as cotton) can choose not to plant and instead to sell their water to farmers such as horticulturists who must irrigate to keep their trees alive. This flexibility is valuable in Australia’s highly variable climate.

Yet it is also true that water trading has created some big winners. Those with pre-existing water rights have been able to capitalise on that asset and invest heavily in buying further water rights, an outcome highlighted in the Four Corners story.

More than A$20 million in research investment has been devoted to ensuring that the ecological benefits of water are optimised – most notably through the Environmental Water Knowledge and Research and Long Term Intervention Monitoring programs. What is not clear is whether water extractions and their policing have been subjected to a similar degree of review and rigour.

What next for the Murray-Darling Basin?

The public needs to be able to trust that all parties are working honestly and accountably. This is particularly true for the downstream partners, who are the most likely victims of management failures upstream. Without trust in the upstream states, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan will unravel.

State governments urgently need to reaffirm their commitment to the four pillars that underpin the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and to reassure the public that in retaining control of water they are operating in good faith.

Finally, rigour and transparency are needed in assessing the Basin Plan’s methods and environmental benefits, and the operation of the water market. The Productivity Commission’s review of national water policy, and its specific review of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan next year, will offer a clear opportunity to reassure everyone that the A$13 billion of public money that has gone into water reform in the past decade has been money well spent.

Only then will the fragile trust that underlies the water reform process be maintained and built.

Ross Thompson receives funding from the Australian Research Council, and has previously been contracted to the NSW and Victorian state governments to provide advice on the MDB Plan. He has completed paid external reviews for the Murray Darling Basin Authority, and is a researcher on current projects funded by the Commonwealth Environment Water Holder.

To conserve Earth's remarkable species, such as the violet sabrewing, we must also defend the importance of science. Jeremy Kerr, Author provided

Science is the best method we have for determining what is likely to be true. The knowledge gained from this process benefits society in a multitude of ways, including promoting evidence-based decision-making and management. Nowhere is this more important than conservation, as the intensifying impacts of the Anthropocene increasingly threaten the survival of species.

But truth can be inconvenient: conservation goals sometimes seem at odds with social or economic interests. As a result, scientific evidence may be ignored or suppressed for political reasons. This has led to growing global trends of attacking scientific integrity.

Recent assaults on science and scientists under Donald Trump’s US administration are particularly extreme, but extend far more broadly. Rather than causing scientists to shrink from public discussions, these abuses have spurred them and their professional societies to defend scientific integrity.

Among these efforts was the recent March for Science. The largest pro-science demonstration in history, this event took place in more than 600 locations around the world.

We propose, in a new paper in Conservation Biology, that scientists share their experiences of defending scientific integrity across borders to achieve more lasting success. We summarise eight reforms to protect scientific integrity, drawn from lessons learned in Australia, Canada and the US.

March for science in Melbourne. John Englart (Takver) What is scientific integrity?

Scientific integrity is the ability to perform, use and disseminate scientific findings without censorship or political interference. It requires that government scientists can communicate their research to the public and media. Such outbound scientific communication is threatened by policies limiting scientists’ ability to publish, publicise or even mention their research findings.

Public access to websites or other sources of government scientific data have also been curtailed. Limiting access to taxpayer-funded information in this way undermines citizens’ ability to participate in decisions that affect them, or even to know why decisions are being made.

News of the rediscovery of the shrub Hibbertia fumana (left) in Australia was delayed until a development at the site of rediscovery had been permitted. Political considerations delayed protection of the wolverine (right) in the United States. Wolverine - U.S. National and Park Service. _Hibbertia fumana_ - A. Orme

A recent case of scientific information being suppressed concerns the rediscovery, early in 2017, of the plant Hibbertia fumana in New South Wales. Last seen in 1823, 370 plants were found.

Rather than publicly celebrate the news, the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage was reportedly asked to suppress the news until after a rail freight plan that overlapped with the plants’ location had been approved.

Protecting scientists’ right to speak out

Scientists employed by government agencies often cannot discuss research that might relate to their employer’s policies. While it may not be appropriate for scientists to weigh in on policy recommendations – and, of course, constant media commentaries would be chaos – the balance has tipped too far towards restriction. Many scientists cannot publicly refer to their research, or that of others, let alone explain the significance of the findings.

To counter this, we need policies that support scientific integrity, an environment of transparency and the public’s right to access scientific information. Scientists’ right to speak freely should be included in collective bargaining agreements.

Scientific integrity requires transparency and accountability. Information from non-government scientists, through submitted comments or reviews of draft policies, can inform the policy process.

Although science is only one source of influence on policy, democratic processes are undermined when policymakers limit scrutiny of decision-making processes and the role that evidence plays in them.

Let science inform policy

Independent reviews of new policy are a vital part of making evidence-based decisions. There is room to broaden these reviews, inviting external organisations to give expert advice on proposed or existing policies. This also means transparently acknowledging any perceived or actual vested interests.

Australian governments often invite scientists and others to contribute their thoughts on proposed policy. The Finkel Review, for example, received 390 written submissions. Of course, agencies might not have time to respond individually to each submission. But if a policy is eventually made that seems to contradict the best available science, that agency should be required to account for that decision.

Finally, agencies should be proactively engaging with scientific groups at all stages of the process.

Active advocacy

Strengthening scientific integrity policies when many administrations are publicly hostile to science is challenging. Scientists are stuck reactively defending protective policies. Instead, they should be actively advocating for their expansion.

The goal is to institutionalise a culture of scientific integrity in the development and implementation of conservation policies.

A transnational movement to defend science will improve the odds that good practices will be retained and strengthened under more science-friendly administrations.

The monarch butterfly, now endangered in Canada, and at risk more broadly. Jeremy Kerr

Many regard science as apolitical. Even the suggestion of publicly advocating for integrity or evidence-based policy and management makes some scientists deeply uncomfortable. It is telling that providing factual information for policy decisions and public information can be labelled as partisan. Nevertheless, recent research suggests that public participation by scientists, if properly framed, does not harm their credibility.

Scientists can operate objectively in conducting research, interpreting discoveries and publicly explaining the significance of the results. Recommendations for how to walk such a tricky, but vital, line are readily available.

Scientists and scientific societies must not shrink from their role, which is more important than ever. They have a responsibility to engage broadly with the public to affirm that science is indispensable for evidence-based policies and regulations. These critical roles for scientists help ensure that policy processes unfold in plain sight, and consequently help sustain functioning, democratic societies.

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Dr Carlos Carroll, a conservation biologist at the Klamath Center for Conservation Research.

Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Euan Ritchie is a Director (Media Working Group) of the Ecological Society of Australia, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society.

James Watson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jeremy Kerr receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through a Discovery Grant and Discovery Accelerator Supplement.

Martine Maron receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Environmental Science Programme, the Science for Nature and People Partnership, and the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. She is a Director of BirdLife Australia and a Governor of WWF Australia.

Giant African land snails can grow up to 15cm long. Author provided

The giant African land snail is a poster child of a global epidemic: the threat of invasive species. The snails are native to coastal East Africa, but are now found across Asia, the Pacific and the Americas – in fact, almost all tropical mainlands and islands except mainland Australia.

Yet, despite their fearsome reputation, our research on Christmas Island’s invasive snail population suggests the risk they pose to native ecosystems has been greatly exaggerated.

Giant African land snails certainly have the classic characteristics of a successful invader: they can thrive in lots of different places; survive on a broad diet; reach reproductive age quickly; and produce more than 1,000 eggs in a lifetime. Add it all together and you have a species recognised as among the worst invaders in the world.

The snails can eat hundreds of plant species, including vegetable crops (and even calcium-rich plaster and stucco), and have been described as a major threat to agriculture.

They have been intercepted at Australian ports, and the Department of Primary Industries concurs that the snails are a “serious threat”.

Despite all this, there have been no dedicated studies of their environmental impact. Some researchers suggest the risk to agriculture has been exaggerated from accounts of damage in gardens. There are no accounts of giant African land snails destroying natural ecosystems.

Quietly eating leaf litter

In research recently published in the journal Austral Ecology, we tested these assumptions by investigating giant African land snails living in native rainforest on Christmas Island.

Giant African land snails have spread through Christmas Island with the help of another invasive species: the yellow crazy ant.

Until these ants showed up, abundant native red land crabs ate the giant snails before they could gain a foothold in the rainforest. Unfortunately, yellow crazy ants have completely exterminated the crabs in some parts of the island, allowing the snails to flourish.

We predicted that the snails, which eat a broad range of food, would have a significant impact on leaf litter and seedling survival.

Unexpectedly, the snails we observed on Christmas Island confined themselves to eating small amounts of leaf litter. Author provided

However, our evidence didn’t support this at all. Using several different approaches – including a field experiment, lab experiment and observational study – we found giant African land snails were pretty much just eating a few dead leaves and little else.

We almost couldn’t distinguish between leaf litter removal by the snails compared to natural decomposition. They were eating leaf litter, but not a lot of it.

We saw almost no impact on seedling survival, and the snails were almost never seen eating live foliage. In one lab trial, we attempted to feed snails an exclusive diet of fresh leaves, but so many of these snails died that we had to cut the experiment short. Perhaps common Christmas Island plants just aren’t palatable.

It’s possible that the giant African land snails are causing other problems on Christmas Island. In Florida, for example, they carry parasites that are a risk to human health. But for the key ecological processes we investigated, the snails do not create the kind of disturbance we would assume from their large numbers.

We effectively excluded snails from an area by lining a fence with copper tape. Author provided

The assumption that giant African land snails are dangerous to native plants and agriculture comes from an overriding sentiment that invasive species are damaging and must be controlled.

Do we have good data on the ecological impact of all invasive species? Of course not. Should we still try to control all abundant invasive species even if we don’t have evidence they are causing harm? That’s a more difficult question.

The precautionary principle drives much of the thinking behind the management of invasive species, including the giant African land snail. The cost of doing nothing is potentially very high, so it’s safest to assume invasive species are having an effect (especially when they exist in high numbers).

But we should also be working hard to test these assumptions. Proper monitoring and experiments give us a true picture of the risks of action (or inaction).

In reality, the giant African land snail is more the poster child of our own knee-jerk reaction to abundant invaders.

Luke S. O'Loughlin received funding from the Hermon Slade Foundation and the Holsworth Wildlife Endowment Fund

Peter Green receives funding from the Department of Environment and Energy and the Hermon Slade Foundation for this research.

Land plants are absorbing 17% more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere now than 30 years ago, our research published today shows. Equally extraordinarily, our study also shows that the vegetation is hardly using any extra water to do it, suggesting that global change is causing the world’s plants to grow in a more water-efficient way.

Water is the most precious resource needed for plants to grow, and our research suggests that vegetation is becoming much better at using it in a world in which CO₂ levels continue to rise.

The ratio of carbon uptake to water loss by ecosystems is what we call “water use efficiency”, and it is one of the most important variables when studying these ecosystems.

Our confirmation of a global trend of increasing water use efficiency is a rare piece of good news when it comes to the consequences of global environmental change. It will strengthen plants’ vital role as global carbon sinks, improve food production, and might boost water availability for the well-being of society and the natural world.

Yet more efficient water use by the world’s plants will not solve our current or future water scarcity problems.

Changes in global terrestrial uptake of carbon dioxide, water use efficiency and ecosystem evapotranspiration during 1982-2011. Boosting carbon uptake

Plants growing in today’s higher-CO₂ conditions can take up more carbon – the so-called CO₂ fertilisation effect. This is the main reason why the terrestrial biosphere has taken up 17% more carbon over the past 30 years.

The enhanced carbon uptake is consistent with the global greening trend observed by satellites, and the growing global land carbon sink which removes about one-third of all CO₂ emissions generated by human activities.

Increasing carbon uptake typically comes at a cost. To let CO₂ in, plants have to open up pores called stomata in their leaves, which in turn allows water to sneak out. Plants thus need to strike a balance between taking up carbon to build new leaves, stems and roots, while minimising water loss in the process. This has led to sophisticated adaptations that has allowed many plant species to conquer a range of arid environments.

One such adaptation is to close the stomata slightly to allow CO₂ to enter with less water getting out. Under increasing atmospheric CO₂, the overall result is that CO₂ uptake increases while water consumption does not. This is exactly what we have found on a global scale in our new study. In fact, we found that rising CO₂ levels are causing the world’s plants to become more water-wise, almost everywhere, whether in dry places or wet ones.

Growth hotspots

We used a combination of plot-scale water flux and atmospheric measurements, and satellite observations of leaf properties, to develop and test a new water use efficiency model. The model enables us to scale up from leaf water use efficiency anywhere in the world to the entire globe.

We found that across the globe, boreal and tropical forests are particularly good at increasing ecosystem water use efficiency and uptake of CO₂. That is due in large part to the CO₂ fertilisation effect and the increase in the total amount of leaf surface area.

Importantly, both types of forests are critical in limiting the rise in atmospheric CO₂ levels. Intact tropical forest removes more atmospheric CO₂ than any other type of forest, and the boreal forests of the planet’s far north hold vast amounts of carbon particularly in their organic soils.

Meanwhile, for the semi-arid ecosystems of the world, increased water savings are a big deal. We found that Australian ecosystems, for example, are increasing their carbon uptake, especially in the northern savannas. This trend may not have been possible without an increase in ecosystem water use efficiency.

Previous studies have also shown how increased water efficiency is greening semi-arid regions and may have contributed to an increase in carbon capture in semi-arid ecosystems in Australia, Africa and South America.

Trends in water use efficiency over 1982-2011. CREDIT, Author provided It’s not all good news

These trends will have largely positive outcomes for the plants and the animals (and humans) consuming them. Wood production, bioenergy and crop growth are (and will be) less water-intensive under climate change than they would be without increased vegetation water use efficiency.

But despite these trends, water scarcity will nevertheless continue to constrain carbon sinks, food production and socioeconomic development.

Some studies have suggested that the water savings could also lead to increased runoff and therefore excess water availability. For dry Australia, however, more than half (64%) of the rainfall returning to the atmosphere does not go through vegetation, but through direct soil evaporation. This reduces the potential benefit from increased vegetation water use efficiency and the possibility for more water flowing to rivers and reservoirs. In fact, a recent study shows that while semi-arid regions in Australia are greening, they are also consuming more water, causing river flows to fall by 24-28%.

Our research confirms that plants all over the world are likely to benefit from these increased water savings. However, the question of whether this will translate to more water availability for conservation or for human consumption is much less clear, and will probably vary widely from region to region.

Pep Canadell receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program.

Francis Chiew works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Commonwealth Government.

Lei Cheng works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Commonwealth Government.

Lu Zhang works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Commonwealth Government.

Ying-Ping Wang receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program.

Orca family group at the Bremer Canyon off WA's south coast. R. Wellard, Author provided

The federal government’s new draft marine park plans are based on an unsubstantiated premise: that protection of Australia’s ocean wildlife is consistent with activities such as fishing and oil and gas exploration.

Under the proposed plans, there would be no change to the boundaries of existing marine parks, which cover 36% of Commonwealth waters, or almost 2.4 million square kilometres. But many areas inside these boundaries will be rezoned to allow for a range of activities besides conservation.

The plans propose dividing marine parks into three types of zones:

• Green: “National Park Zones” with full conservation protection
• Yellow: “Habitat Protection Zones” where fishing is allowed as long as the seafloor is not harmed
• Blue: “Special Purpose Zones” that allow for specific commercial activities.

Crucially, under the new draft plans, the amount of green zones will be almost halved, from 36% to 20% of the marine park network, whereas yellow zones will almost double from 24% to 43%, compared with when the marine parks were established in 2012.

The government has said that this approach will “allow sustainable activities like commercial fishing while protecting key conservation features”.

But like the courtiers told to admire the Emperor’s non-existent new clothes, we’re being asked to believe something to be true despite strong evidence to the contrary.

The Emperor’s unrobing

The new plans follow on from last year’s release of an independent review, commissioned by the Abbott government after suspending the previous network of marine reserves implemented under Julia Gillard in 2012.

Yet the latest draft plans, which propose to gut the network of green zones, ignore many of the recommendations made in the review, which was itself an erosion of the suspended 2012 plans.

The extent of green zones is crucial, because the science says they are the engine room of conservation. Fully protected marine national parks – with no fishing, no mining, and no oil and gas drilling – deliver far more benefits to biodiversity than other zone types.

The best estimates suggest that 30-40% of the seascape should ideally be fully protected, rather than the 20% proposed under the new plans.

Partially protected areas, such as the yellow zones that allow fishing while protecting the seabed, do not generate conservation benefits equivalent to those of full protection.

While some studies suggest that partial protection is better than nothing, others suggest that these zones offer little to no improvement relative to areas fully open to exploitation.

Frydenberg has pointed out that, under the new plans, the total area zoned as either green or yellow will rise from 60% to 63% compared with the 2012 network. But yellow is not the new green. What’s more, yellow zones have similar management costs to green zones, which means that the government is proposing to spend the same amount of money for far inferior protection. And as any decent sex-ed teacher will tell you, partial protection is a risky business.

What do the draft plans mean?

Let’s take a couple of examples, starting with the Coral Sea Marine Park. This is perhaps the most disappointing rollback in the new draft plan. The green zone, which would have been one of the largest fully protected areas on the planet, has been reduced by half to allow for fishing activity in a significantly expanded yellow zone.

Coral Sea Marine Park zoning, as recommended by Independent Review (left) and in the new draft plan (right), showing the proposed expansion of partial protection (yellow) vs full protection (green). From http://www.environment.gov.au/marinereservesreview/reports and https://parksaustralia.gov.au/marine/management/draft-plans/

This yellow zone would allow the use of pelagic longlines to fish for tuna. This is despite government statistics showing that around 30% of the catch in the Eastern Tuna and Billfish fishery consists of species that are either overexploited or uncertain in their sustainability, and the government’s own risk assessment that found these types of fishing lines are incompatible with conservation.

What this means, in effect, is that the plans to establish a world-class marine park in the Coral Sea will be significantly undermined for the sake of saving commercial tuna fishers A$4.1 million per year, or 0.3% of the total revenue from Australia’s wild-catch fisheries.

Contrast this with the A$6.4 billion generated by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in 2015-16, the majority of which comes from non-extractive industries.

This same erosion of protection is also proposed in Western Australia, where the government’s draft plan would reduce green zones by 43% across the largest marine parks in the region.

Zoning for the Gascoyne Marine Park as recommended by the Independent Review (left) and the new draft plan (right). http://www.environment.gov.au/marinereservesreview/reports and https://parksaustralia.gov.au/marine/management/draft-plans/

Again, this is despite clear evidence that the fishing activities occurring in these areas are not compatible with conservation. Such proposals also ignore future pressures such as deep-sea mining.

The overall effect is summarised neatly by Frydenberg’s statement that the government’s plans will:

…increase the total area of the reserves open to fishing from 64% to 80% … (and) make 97% of waters within 100 kilometres of the coast open for recreational fishing.

Building ocean resilience

Science shows that full protection creates resilience by supporting intact ecosystems. Fully protected green zones recover faster from flooding and coral bleaching, have reduced rates of disease, and fend off climate invaders more effectively than areas that are open to fishing.

Green zones also contribute indirectly to the blue economy. They help support fisheries and function as “nurseries” for fish larvae. For commercial fisheries, these sanctuaries are more important than ever in view of the declines in global catches since we hit “peak fish” in 1996.

Of course it is important to balance conservation with sustainable economic use of our oceans. Yet the government’s new draft plan leaves a huge majority of Australia’s waters open to business as usual. It’s a brave Emperor who thinks this will protect our oceans.

So let’s put some real clothes on the Emperor and create a network of marine protection that supports our blue economy and is backed by science.

Jessica Meeuwig has received funding from the National Environmental Science Programme and the Ian Potter Foundation in relation to understanding offshore marine protected areas.

David Booth has received funding from the Australia Research Council. He is affiliated with Australian Coral Reef Society and Australian Marine Science Association

Interspecies relationships can help traumatised animals form healthy attachments. Sugarshine animal sactuary, CC BY-SA

Rosie, like a real-life Babe, ran away from an organic piggery when she was only a few days old. She was found wandering in a car park, highly agitated, by a family who took her home and made her their live-in pet. However, after three months they could no longer keep her.

She was relocated to the Sugarshine animal sanctuary, outside Lismore in New South Wales. Kelly Nelder, Sugarshine’s founder and a mental health nurse, described her as “highly strung” and “needy”. It’s not surprising that Rosie, after the loss of two primary care attachments, was unable to bond with the other pigs; she was traumatised.

I met Rosie when I visited Sugarshine, investigating the similarities between human and animal trauma. I spent 20 years as a clinical and forensic psychologist, but as an undergraduate I studied zoology.

My zoology lecturers told us not to anthropomorphise – that is, not to project human qualities, intentions and emotions onto the animals we studied. But now there is a growing recognition of animals’ inner life and their experience of psychopathology, including trauma.

At Sugarshine, traumatised animals are given freedom to find solitude or company as they wish. Interspecies relationships are encouraged, like a baby goat being cared for by a male adult pig, or a rooster who sleeps alongside a goat.

Rosie has been at Sugarshine for a few months now and is more settled, roaming its gullies, farmyards and shelters, although according to Kelly she’s still anxious. She prefers the company of the bobby calves, wedging herself between them as they lie on the ground, getting skin-to-skin contact, falling asleep, and beginning the reattachment process.

Rosie the anxious pig likes to sleep with bobby calves at Sugarshine animal sanctuary. Sugarshine animal sanctuary, CC BY Understanding trauma in animals

I first made the connection between human and animal trauma on a visit to Possumwood Wildlife, a centre outside Canberra that rehabilitates injured kangaroos and abandoned joeys, wallabies and wombats. There I met its founders, economics professor Steve Garlick and his partner Dr Rosemary Austen, a GP.

When joeys were first brought into their care, Steve told me, they were “inconsolable” and “dying in our arms”, even while physically unharmed, with food and shelter available to them.

But this response made sense once they recognised the joey’s symptoms as reminiscent of post-traumatic stress disorder in humans: intrusive symptoms, avoidant behaviour, disturbed emotional states, heightened anxiety and hypervigilance.

Researchers at the University of Western Australia have developed non-invasive means for measuring stress and mood in animals and are now working with sheep farmers to improve the well-being of their animals. PTSD has been identified in elephants, dogs, chimpanzees and baboons, for example.

Safe, calm and caring

To rehabilitate from trauma, humans and animals need to feel safe and away from cues that trigger the individual’s threat response, deactivating the sympathetic nervous system (the fight-flight response). They also need a means of self-soothing, or to gain soothing from another, activating the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest, digest and calm response).

Progress, from then on, requires the development of a secure relationship with at least one other accepting and caring person or animal. Often, this “other” is someone new. In mammals, including us, this activates our affiliative system: our strong desire for close interpersonal relationships for safety, soothing and stability. We enter a calmer, receptive state of being so that the reattachment process can begin.

Possumwood uses three stages for trauma rehabilitation. Young animals are first kept in a dark, quiet environment indoors to reduce noises or sounds that might trigger their fight-flight response. Here they have the opportunity to develop new kin friendships of their own choosing.

Sedatives (Diazepam and Fluphenazine) are judiciously used in the early stages. Then, the principal carer spends as much time as possible feeding and caressing them to build a new bond.

Kangaroos are social animals, unable to survive in the wild unless part of a mob. So joeys are moved next to a large garage, and then finally to an outdoor yard, gradually being exposed to more kangaroos and creating social bonds. Once a mob grows to 30 or so healthy animals, they are released into the wild together.

The fundamentals are the same

The similarity between animal and human trauma is not surprising. Mammalian brains (birds also appear to experience trauma) share the principal architecture involved in experiencing trauma. The primates, and certainly humans, have a greater capacity for cognitive reflection, which in my clinical experience can be both a help and a hindrance.

My observations of trauma rehabilitation at Sugarshine and Possumwood emphasises the universal fundamentals:

• A sense of agency (freedom and control over their choices)
• To feel safe
• To develop a trusting, caring bond with at least one other creature
• Reintegration into the community at the trauma sufferer’s own discretion.

For those experiencing social isolation and shame around their trauma – such as returned soldiers or the victims of domestic violence – these principles could not be more pertinent. And for our non-human cousins, like Rosie, we would do well to remember that they do feel, and they do hurt.

David John Roland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

The recent decision by Australia’s big two supermarkets to phase out free single-use plastic bags within a year is just the latest development in a debate that has been rumbling for decades.

State governments in Queensland and New South Wales have canvassed the idea, which has been implemented right across the retail sector in South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.

So far, so good. But are there any downsides? Many of you, for instance, face the prospect of paying for bin liners for the first time ever. And while that might sound tongue-in-cheek, it shows the importance of considering the full life-cycle of the plastics we use.

Pros and cons

On a direct level, banning single-use plastic bags will avoid the resource use and negative environmental impacts associated with their manufacture. It will reduce or even eliminate a major contaminant of kerbside recycling. When the ACT banned these bags in 2011 there was a reported 36% decrease in the number of bags reaching landfill.

However, the ACT government also noted an increase in sales of plastic bags designed specifically for waste. These are typically similar in size to single-use shopping bags but heavier and therefore contain more plastic.

Ireland’s tax on plastic shopping bags, implemented in 2002, also resulted in a significant increase in sales of heavier plastic waste bags. These bags are often dyed various colours, which represents another resource and potential environmental contaminant.

Keep Australia Beautiful, in its 2015-16 National Litter Index, reported a 6.2% reduction in the littering of plastic bags relative to the previous year, while also noting that these represent only 1% of litter.

Meanwhile, alternatives such as paper or canvas bags have environmental impacts of their own. According to a UK Environmental Agency report, a paper bag would need to be re-used at least four times, and cotton bags at least 173 times, to have a lower environmental impact than single-use plastic bags in terms of resource use, energy and greenhouse outcomes.

This illustrates the importance of considering the full life cycle of shopping bags to arrive at an evidence-based decision rather than one based on emotion or incomplete data. I am not suggesting this is the case with plastic shopping bags; I’m just pointing out the value of proper analysis.

Simply banning a certain type of bag, while this may be a good idea in itself, could result in other knock-on impacts that are harder to manage. Replacing shopping bags with heavier, more resource-intensive ones may solve some environmental impacts but exacerbate others.

Plastics, not plastic bags

In a 2016 discussion paper, Western Australia’s Association of Local Governments suggested the focus of action should be plastics in general, not just shopping bags.

As the Keep Australia Beautiful data show, plastic bags are just a small part of a much bigger problem. Many other plastic items are entering the litter stream too.

With this in mind, it pays to ask exactly why we are banning plastic shopping bags. Is it the litter issue, the potential impact on wildlife, the resource consumption, all of the above, or something else? Is it because they are plastic, because they are disposable, or because it saves supermarkets money?

The answers to these questions can guide the development of an effective strategy to reduce the environmental (and perhaps economic) burden of taking our shopping home. With that in place, we can then develop an education strategy to help shoppers adapt and make the scheme a success. But this costs money.

The triple bottom line

There should be plenty of money available. The Victorian state government’s Sustainability Fund, for instance, has A$419 million to spend over the next five years on researching alternatives to shopping and household waste management. Developing a shopping bag strategy would consume only a small part of this and would be money well spent.

The concept of the “triple bottom line” – ensuring that decisions are based equally on environmental, social and economic considerations – needs to be applied to decisions about whether to ban single-use plastic bags, and what alternatives will result. The problem with simply announcing a ban is that this leaves it up to shoppers themselves to work out what to do to replace them.

Evidence-based policy is crucial. We first need to find out how many people already use re-usable bags, whether they always take them to the shops, and what items they put in them. Do people generally know how many times each type of bag should be re-used in order to be an environmentally better choice than the current plastic bags? What’s the best material for re-usable bags, taking into account not only their environmental credentials but also their ability to get your shopping home without breaking?

When it comes to environmental impacts, it’s important not to simply exchange one problem for another. If all we’re doing is swapping between different types of plastic, it’s hard to see how we’re solving anything.

Trevor Thornton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

On your way home tonight, you might stop at the supermarket to grab some ingredients for the evening meal. If you’re like many shoppers, you’ll pass through the self-service checkout, scan your items, and hurriedly place them in the conveniently waiting thin, grey plastic bag before finalising the purchase.

At home, the purchases are packed away or lined up for immediate preparation. The plastic bag is scrunched into a little ball and stuffed away with others in your collection, to be used as bin liners or otherwise thrown away. All of these behaviours are, by and large, done without a great deal of thought.

One of the most challenging tasks for marketers is to bring about changes in consumer behaviours that have become habitual, routine and “low involvement” – why spend time stopping and considering various brands of laundry detergent, for instance, when you can just quickly grab the one you’ve always used?

The very nature of habitual behaviour means that responses to the same situational cues happen automatically and with little conscious thought. Habits are powerfully ingrained. One study estimates that around 45% of our daily actions are habitual, and most of our purchases and consumption is of the low-involvement variety.

Repetitive consumer behaviour is a tough cycle to disrupt. And it is the very nature of these habitual responses that make many standard interventions relatively ineffective.

But this is the task facing supermarkets in taking away customers’ access to free plastic bags.

Banning the bags

The recently announced plans by supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths to ban single-use plastic bags seem admirable enough, but the environmental benefits will only be fully realised if the ban drives a permanent change in shoppers’ behaviour.

Many countries have tried a variety of strategies to get rid of single-use plastic bags, including bans, educational campaigns, and levies. Most have had mixed results. There is no overwhelming evidence to suggest that any of these approaches has fully broken shoppers’ disposable bag habit.

Even where use has been dramatically reduced, the environmental impact has been mitigated by unintended consequences such as a 65% increase in the purchase of bin liners, and the disposal of re-usable bags. And despite a general shift in attitude towards environmentally sustainable consumption, this “intention-behaviour gap” still prevails.

Breaking the habit

Here is where some behavioural psychology can be brought to bear on the problem. We know that habitual behaviours are learned and reinforced through repeated responses to particular situations. Theoretically, if these behaviours are learned, they can be unlearned by providing different situations.

One potentially useful technique is called “nudging”. A nudge gives people a gentle prod to change their behaviour, through encouragement rather than coercion. This sometimes controversial subject is most familiar in terms of behavioural economics – a classic example being the small refunds offered by drink bottle recycling schemes – but nudges can be purely behavioural as well as economic.

Behavioural nudges aim to make people stop and think about what would otherwise be an unconscious behaviour. Often this takes the form of a short, simple message. Electricity providers have been known use this method of nudging. Power usage by their customers will drop when shown the usage rate of a similar sized household with a similar number of occupants is more efficient than their own.

But it can also involve a minor adjustment to the environment in which the behaviour occurs. Such a strategy could be applied in supermarkets where “footprints” could lead to reusable bags which are available for purchase. Repeating this over time, will result in consumers associating the footprints with a reminder to ‘bring’ their bags. Varying the location of the footprints, or even their colour or shape, might encourage shopper curiosity and thus increase the likelihood of consciousness about the plastic bag ban.

Economic nudges can also be used to help shoppers quit plastic bags – as in the case of Toronto, which introduced a 5-cent levy on plastic bags. There are many ways to gently encourage shoppers to make better decisions.

Australia’s big shopping brands

Given that much of the problem involves challenging current behaviours, it stands to reason that the big brands’ responses to this question will hinge on what their customers are already used to.

Retailers such as Bunnings and Aldi have never provided their customers with free, disposable plastic bags. Their customers learned quickly from the outset to use alternatives, such as the stash of old cardboard boxes typically found behind the checkouts at Bunnings.

Woolworths and Coles, on the other hand, face a tougher challenge. They are taking something away from shoppers, and some customers may be resentful and resistant to change as a result.

To avoid a repeat of Target’s aborted effort to remove free bags in 2013, Coles and Woolworths might find that the best way to avoid a similar customer revolt is to use in-store cues as behavioural nudges, alongside the economic incentive of offering durable plastic bags for a price. Many consumers will be willing to pay for plastic bag alternatives during the transition phase. Combining this with gentle reminders via the in-store ‘footprints’ will aim to gradually change those low involvement, highly habitual shopping patterns.

Whether economic or non-economic, messages to shoppers need to be as pervasive and repetitive as the ingrained behaviours they are trying to change.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Since the Finkel review was announced it has been open season for notion building in the energy space. While Malcolm has been spruiking Snowy 2.zero pumped hydro, Craig has been promising death by renewables, quite literally. Josh seems to be for just about everything, besides Labor state governments of course, and reckons we are on track to meet Paris commitments. Barnaby, true to form, is backing coal, and presumably thinks Paris will take care of itself, while Electricity Bill is keeping mum.

The one I like the best, but really hasn’t been nailed quite the way I thought it should, is Tony’s call for nuclear subs. Imagine, our first truly dispatchable power system, capable of delivering a few hundred megawatts just about anywhere you need it. “Float and plug” - just what we need to shore up our fragile energy system. A tour of dispatch last year including Tasmania from January through June, South Australia June through November, and then on to Queensland for the summer would have been a nice little money spinner for the Navy, worth around quarter of a billion dollars on the energy markets. And that doesn’t include offsets, such as the purported $44 million Tasmanian government spent on diesel gensets. Could it be our best notion yet for meeting Paris?

It goes without saying that our political masters don’t need much provocation to indulge in a bit of notion building. After all, it is what they do best.

But, in case you are wondering why this sudden release of energy, it might be useful to reflect on some recent analyses that paint a truly disturbing picture for our energy sector.

The first comes from the European Commission’s latest electricity market update, providing the comparison of wholesale electricity prices shown below.

International wholesale prices as adapted from Figure 33 in the European Commission’s Quarterly report on European electricity markets Q1 2017. Average prices for the 4th quarter of 2014, 3rd quarter 2015, and the first quarter of 2017, are referenced as a percentage of Australian prices. Figure 33, Quarterly report on European electricity markets Q1 2017, https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/quarterly_report_on_european_electricity_markets_q1_2017.pdf

As recently as three years ago our electricity wholesale prices were low by any measure. In fact according to the EC’s analysis,
our market prices then briefly dipped below those in the US. Then, ours were just 20% of the Japanese price.

How times have changed.

According to the EC’s latest analysis our prices tracked pretty closely with the US until the second half of 2015. It seems things to start going awry just about when Josh was received the poison chalice as Minister for Energy and Resources.

Six quarters later and the EC now estimates that for Quarter 1 this year our prices were a staggering 400% higher than in the US.

This last quarter we even managed to top Japan, which is some achievement considering that across the quarter we exported some20 million tonnes of our thermal coal and over half a million tonnes of LNG to help them sure up a power system still reverberating from the shock waves of Fukushima. That’s about half as much thermal coal as used to power our system.

The second comes from BP’s latest Statistical Review of World Energy released in June, which provides national figures for all things related to energy production and consumption, including sector wide emissions.

According to BP’s latest figures, our energy sector produced about 409 million tonnes of CO2 in 2016. That amounts to 16.7 tonnes for every Australian. On a per capita basis, that puts our energy sector a touch above the next most emissions intensive economy in the developed world - the US at 16.5 tonnes. Even Canada, which has a resource based economy more comparable to our own, gets away with only 14.6 tonnes per person.

Trends in per-capita emissions for select countries (in tonnes per person), plotted as a function of GDP (in $US purchasing power parity terms). Emission data from BP’s Statisical review of World Energy. GDP and population data from IMF. Dots show 2009, in the wake of the GFC.

Worryingly, relative to 2005 levels our energy sector emissions are up about 10%, which stands in stark contrast to most other advanced economies, and especially the US, down 12% over the same interval.

National energy sector emissions for select advanced economies, relative to 2005 levels, using data from BP’s latest Statistical Review of World Energy released in June. Australia’s Paris commitment is to reduce national emissions to 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030. Note that for Australia energy sector emissions (including transport and power) account for about 2/3 the total emissions.

So the notion that we are on track to meet Paris is, at best, notional.

To achieve such extraordinary wholesale price outcomes, one might imagine something remarkable had happened to our energy system since 2014. Our Coal-cons such as Craig Kelly would believe it is because our power system is groaning under the weight of renewable production.

But perhaps it the absence of renewables. Or maybe it is both, peskily masked in a cloak of invisibility. Check out the figure below, which shows our electricity production by key fuel group (coal, gas and renewables) over the period since our power prices have risen from the lowest to highest on the international pecking order.

Weekly average production of electricity by three main fuel group types (in gigawatts), dispatched on the National Electricity Market over the last five years. Data sourced from AEMO, using Dylan McConnell’s openNEM. RE (renewables) includes hydro, wind and large scale solar and biomass, but does not include rooftop PV which is not dipsatched onto the market.

Can you determine a trend that could account for anything? I’m damned if I can.

And that in itself is sure to be worry enough to keep it open season on notion building for a long time to come.

For those interested, some more detailed discussion of the crisis besetting the National Electricity Market (NEM) in eastern Australia can be found in my Anatomy of an Energy Crisis series, Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3.

A beached hoodwinker sunfish, the new species described by researchers from Murdoch University. Murdoch University

Sunfish are famous for looking odd. They are the largest bony fish in the world, can grow to over 3 metres in length and weigh up to 2 tonnes, and look a little bit like a suitcase with wings.

But when I began my PhD doing population studies on sunfish off Bali in Indonesia, I didn’t expect to discover an entirely new species. What began as something of a side project turned into a four-year treasure hunt, flying thousands of kilometres to track down evidence with the help of dozens of people.

As part of my PhD research, I analysed more than 150 samples of sunfish DNA. Genetic sequencing turned up four distinct species: Masturus lanceolatus, Mola mola, Mola ramsayi and a fourth that didn’t fit with any known species.

A new species had been hiding in plain sight for centuries, which is why we ended up calling it Mola tecta: the hoodwinker sunfish. But back then, in 2013, we didn’t even know what they looked like; all we had were skin samples containing the mysterious DNA.

The hoodwinker sunfish grows to at least 2.4 metres long, with a distinctive ‘backfold’ of smooth skin separating the back fin into two. Illustration by Michelle Freeborn, Wellington Museum Te Papa Tongarewa. Going on the hunt

The next step was trying to figure out what these fish might look like. Superficially, all sunfish look the same (that is, slightly strange). Their bodies are flat and rigid, except for their fins; they don’t have a tail; and as they grow bigger they usually develop odd bumps on their head, chin and nose.

So I started looking at pictures of sunfish, especially on social media, searching for something different. I also spent a long time establishing a network of people across Australia and New Zealand who could alert me whenever a sunfish was found.

I finally got a break in 2014. Observers from New Zealand and Australian fisheries were sending me pictures of sunfish they found out at sea, usually just a fin in the water. But on one occasion they hauled a tiny fish on board to free it from a fishing line, and got a brilliant photo of the whole thing along with a genetic sample.

This fish had a little structure on its back fin that I’d never seen on a sunfish before. Just as I was wondering if this was a characteristic of the species, I hit the jackpot when four fish were stranded in one go on the same beach in New Zealand.

I flew down to Christchurch, landed at night and drove out on to the beach. I saw my first hoodwinker sunfish in the headlights of the car – it was incredibly exciting. This changed everything, because now we knew what we were looking for.

A hoodwinker sunfish off the coast of Chile. César Villarroel, ExploraSub What is the hoodwinker?

Unravelling this mystery has been a huge puzzle. Sunfish are huge, largely solitary and fairly elusive, so you can’t just go out and sample a heap of them to study. You have to fly thousands of kilometres when there’s a stranding and hope it’s the right puzzle piece you’re looking for.

However, by looking at stranded specimens, photos and museum collections, and by verifying specimens genetically, we have been able to describe this species very accurately.

We found enough fish to describe this species on a size spectrum of 50cm to nearly 2.5m. Unlike the other species, they don’t develop lumps and bumps as they grow; instead their body dimensions stay pretty much the same between juveniles and adults. Their back fin is separated into an upper and lower part, with a small flexible piece of skin, which we have termed the “back-fold”, connecting the halves.

We don’t know exactly what their range is, but it seems to be the colder parts of the Southern Hemisphere. We’ve found them all around New Zealand (mostly around the South Island), off Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales (Australia), South Africa and southern Chile.

Sunfish aren’t particularly rare, but it’s tricky to study them as they simply live in parts of the ocean most humans don’t go. They dive hundreds of metres to feed, and then rise to the surface to bask in the sun on their sides (hence their name).

This habit of diving and rising throughout the day means they can be caught by a range of fishing gear, including tuna longlines or in drift gillnets and midwater trawls. Fishers have been turning them up for centuries. When we looked back through the literature to see if this species had been described before, we found sunfish in books that included mermen and unicorns, and one of the first written mentions comes from Pliny the Elder.

This Chilean video identifies the fish as the common sunfish (Mola mola), but they have the separated back fin of the hoodwinker sunfish (Mola tecta). A sunny community

Of course, this discovery didn’t happen in isolation. A group of researchers from Japan first identified the possibility of a new species from a single skin sample about 10 years ago. We were able to work with two sunfish experts from the University of Tokyo and the University of Hiroshima to describe the hoodwinker, and to compare it in detail with the other two Mola species.

We also collaborated with geneticists from the Gemmell Lab at the University of Otago and expert taxonomists from the Wellington Museum Te Papa Tongarewa, who prepared and now house the “holotype”, which is the name-bearing specimen and official representative of Mola tecta.

Fisheries observers from the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries have sent me around 120 samples from sunfish they sampled while on patrols, which was the basis for the initial study.

Finally, we’ve had invaluable support from the public. On one occasion, a gentleman and his young daughter even drove out on a quad bike to a remote beach just to gather samples. (I do believe sunfish bring out the best in people.)

After four years of work – and the help of many people – it’s great to be able to finally share the hoodwinker sunfish with the world!

Marianne Nyegaard has received funding from the following bodies for her PhD research: The Systematics Research Fund (Linnean Society of London and the Systematics Association), Graduate Women (WA) inc, The PADI Foundation, and the Sea World Research and Rescue Foundation.