Tagged with Climate Change

Materials that make heat worse for our kids demand a rethink by designers

It is with some relief that Australians are leaving behind the excruciatingly hot days of summer. But did you ever stop to think about the role of design in making matters better – or worse? Spending all day in air-conditioned rooms before walking out to a car that has baked in the sun all day is an exercise in extremes that many of us have faced. It’s easy to forget these conditions are shaped and mediated by design.

Campaigns warn us about the dangers of leaving children in hot parked cars. However, there are many more designed microclimates in the city where “real feel” temperatures far exceed reported air temperatures. One example, where children spend many hours of the day, is the childcare centre, where we found some artificial surfaces can become dangerously hot.

Our preliminary study over the record-breaking summer of 2017-8 assessed the thermal characteristics of outdoor play spaces in three childcare centres in Western Sydney. We discovered that summer temperatures can vary dramatically, depending on the materials and environments being measured.

We measured air and surface temperatures to generate detailed information about the effects of heat on shaded and non-shaded surfaces at each facility. These included artificial materials such as “soft fall” surfaces and Astroturf, “semi-natural” materials such as bricks and woodchips, and natural materials, including sand and grass.

In full sun, the artificial surface materials became dangerously hot. Soft fall surface temperatures reached 71-84°C on days when air temperatures were in the low 30s. Astroturf heated up to nearly 100°C. Plastic toys in direct sun reached temperatures up to 73.7°C – that is one hot rubber duck!

You can see the effect of different surfaces in the thermographic image below. It shows tens of degrees of difference between soft fall and thick grass in full sun.

Hot materials undermine safety benefits

Soft fall, as the name suggests, is widely used to create “safer” environments for children should they fall. Rising heat undermines this safety benefit. Because it transforms the material into a source of potentially significant harm it also reduces the time that can be spent playing outdoors.

Contrary to their current widespread use, this study found that artificial materials like soft fall and Astroturf should be used sparingly and only in shaded settings. Shade does make a significant difference to the temperatures recorded, but shaded soft fall and Astroturf were still hotter than shaded natural surfaces. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a centre with an old camphor laurel tree supplying ample shade in the play space recorded the lowest daytime air temperatures.

A thermally healthy outdoor play space is crucial for supporting children’s social, physical and cognitive development. However, the extreme temperatures recorded in this study turn such spaces into hostile environments that leave little option but to move indoors to cope.

Indoor activities tend to be more sedentary, which is linked to reduced physical fitness and rising obesity. We already spend around 90% of our time indoors in environments (including cars) that depend on air conditioning for habitability.

Of course, you can only air-condition a space effectively if it is enclosed. The rise of the “indoor biome” has been associated with poor air quality and a raft of other complex hazards.

Yet childcare centres with cool, comfortable outdoor play spaces, designed to enable both mobility and a connection with nature, are far from the norm in our rapidly densifying cities. The newest centre in our study, for example, had the smallest outdoor activity space, with the least shade, very limited natural ground cover and the greatest proportion of soft fall. This raises questions about the impact of design trends on the quality of outdoor activity spaces.

It is worth noting too that, given the level of demand, there is often little choice about where a child might be offered a place.

Climate change makes design even more important

How accountable should designers be for the everyday living environments that they create? For example, could the designers of the past have known about the environmental, social and cultural impacts of one of the most transformative designs of the 20th century, the car?

Perhaps not, but things have changed. The need to adapt to a changing climate makes good design important for our survival. And that, in turn, demands designers take greater responsibility for the harms arising from their work.

Originally published by The Conversation, continue reading here.

Building a Successful Business Case for Climate Change Mitigation

The 2018 National Sustainability in Business Conference will be held on Thursday 8 and Friday 9 March 2018 at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, Brisbane.

Dr Rob Hales, Director – Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at Griffith University in Brisbane will join us at the conference to discuss ‘Building a Successful Business Case for Climate Change Mitigation’.

The business case for climate change mitigation is not well understood. There is considerable literature, both scholarly and non-scholarly, that examines the business case for sustainability. Also, recent attention has been given to the business case for climate change adaptation. However, there is little or no literature that guides organisations on how to develop a business case for adopting and implementing a policy of committing an organisation to zero net emissions by 2050.

The significance of this research lies in its focus on process. If the processes of developing a successful business case for the commitment to zero net emissions can be ascertained, such knowledge will be useful for other organisations that are wanting to commit to an under 2 emissions agenda. Findings from qualitative research from a cross-section of businesses in Australia reveal common threads of a zero-emissions business case. Additionally, there is further significance in the examination of procedures that can lock in an organisational commitment to zero net emissions.

Robert Hales is the director of the Griffith Centre for Sustainable Enterprise in the Griffith Business School. This role includes developing collaborative research projects on the topic of sustainability and climate change involving a wide range of academic staff in the Griffith Business School. His research interests include climate change policy, climate change mitigation in business; community based sustainable tourism and indigenous consent processes. This research has enable Rob to advise local and state governments on relevant public issues related to his research outcomes. His background in running a small business in tourism and environmental education informs his research and teaching.

For more information on the 2018 National Sustainability in Business Conference and to secure your spot today, please visit the conference website.

Mental health and psychosocial impacts of climate change for rural Australians

Climate change is arguably the biggest global health threat of the 21st century (U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2016). The safe limit for temperature increase is 1.5oC, but if we continue with business-as-usual, global temperature will rise between 3.7o and 4.8oC, with catastrophic consequences (IPCC, 2014). Already we see climate disruption around the globe which will certainly increase: unprecedented heatwaves, severe drought, bushfires, flooding of cities and land, major storms.

Climate change increases the severity or frequency of health problems already affected by weather factors, as well as creating unprecedented health problems in new places. Groups especially at risk include communities that rely on the natural environment for sustenance and livelihood, and populations living in areas most susceptible to extreme weather (Dodgen et al., 2016), like rural and regional communities in Australia.

Every impact of climate change, be it extreme weather devastating human settlements, changed rainfall and temperature reducing food security and land habitation, or ill health from shifting disease vectors, has flow-on effects on people’s psychological, social, and emotional wellbeing. Climate change is as much a psychological and social problem as an environmental catastrophe.

Climate change impacts on people’s mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in many ways. Many people are already experiencing emotions like anxiety, fear, despair and anger, and these feelings will intensify and spread as global average temperatures continue to rise and disrupt climate.  There is a significant risk of mental health problems like depression and PTSD following extreme weather events that are more frequent and intense with climate change.

Then there are the psychological impacts caused by climate change’s more gradual impacts, like sea level rise, changed  agricultural conditions, associated increases in food insecurity, changes in land use/habitation, associated increases in displaced people, ecosystem disruptions, greater wear and tear on infrastructure, associated increases in disruptions to transport, energy supply, and increases in cost of living. These all have flow-on effects on relationships, stress levels, substance use, family breakdown, reduced social participation etc (Clayton et al., 2014).

Understanding the psychological impacts of climate change is a crucial step in coming to terms with and then psychologically adapting to a climate-changed world and reality.

Dr Susie Burke PhD
Senior Psychologist, Public Interest, Environment and Disaster Response
Australian Psychological Society

Climate change linked to declines in labour productivity

By Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation and Charis Palmer, The Conversation

Increases in humidity caused as a result of climate change are reducing labour productivity and it’s only likely to get worse over time, argue researchers from America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In an article published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, the researchers say humidity is already reducing people’s working capacity by 10% during peak months of heat stress around the world, and this is likely to grow to 20% by 2050.

The researchers say even if the global community commits to active mitigation of CO2, there will be increasing environmental limitations on labour capacity in the coming decades.

In the worst case scenario considered by the model, safe labour would be prohibited in large areas during peak months by 2200, including the entire US east of the Rockies.

“So far little has been done to estimate the impact of climate change on labour productivity,” said David Peetz, professor of employment relations at Griffith University.

“The impact on productivity shown here, for people not experiencing the increasingly expensive benefits of air conditioning, is going to be quite stark, especially for people in warmer or mid-latitude climates,” Professor Peetz said.

“It all points to the fact that it’s much cheaper to deal with it now than to wait until some date in the future.”

The researchers combined analysis of humidity and climate change projections with industrial and military guidelines for people’s ability to work under heat stress.

Their projections do not include information about climate sensitivity, climate warming patterns, CO2 emissions, future population distributions and technological and societal change.

Nor did they consider labour productivity increases associated with a reduction in adverse conditions of extreme cold, snow and frozen soil.

Professor John Freebairn, an expert in environmental economics at the University of Melbourne’s Department of Economics, said the paper provided “provides a detailed assessment of just one of the ways in which higher temperatures and humidity across the globe would bring additional costs to society.”

“It is part of an extended exercise to assess the costs of climate change, and builds more details into the rough early estimates reported by Stern (2006), Garnaut (2008) and many others,” he said.

The Conversation

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

The Sustainability Conference – join us in Melbourne in 2013

Two Conferences – One Destination

The national Sustainability Conference “Sustainable Transformation 2 ” will be held in conjunction with the 6th Making Cities Liveable Conference, in a new era of collaboration, information sharing and professional networking.

The conference is being held from the 17th – 19th June 2013 at Novotel Melbourne St Kilda. The joint meeting brings together National, State and Regional delegates to exchange ideas, discuss Business, Government  and Community initiatives and examine opportunities in the sector, we hope you will join us.

Delegates will have access to an extensive range of topics with over 90 presentations across three days including Keynotes, Concurrent Sessions, Case Studies and Posters.

Day 1: Sustainability –  Taking Care of Business: Sustainable Transformation Conference. Four concurrent streams with a total of 44 presenters addressing the following themes, Successful Implementation of Sustainable Business Structures – Tools and opportunities.   Uncertain Playing Field: the carbon tax, where to from here.   Not for Profit Sector and Sustainability.   Recycling and Waste Management.  Transport and Logistics.  Local Government/ Business Leaders and Sustainable Development: going beyond green.   Energy & Technology.

Day 2: Six keynote presentations of mutual interest to both conferences and two open forums.

Day 3: Healthy Cities – 6th Making Cities Liveable Conference. Four concurrent streams with a total of 44 presenters addressing the following themes,  Community Health: healthy urban design –  connecting people and places – placemaking – population growth.  Food Security: urban agriculture.  Regional Cities: interconnectivity – technology – transport.  Urban Landscapes: public spaces – natural resource management.  Working with Climate Change: energy consumption – generation and other challenges.  Government and  Business Leadership: education for behaviour change.

www.sustainabilitybusiness.com.au   www.liveablecities.org.au   www.healthycities.com.au