Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Bunper edition! More interesting news on the environment and psychology from around the world. 

Regards,

Susie Burke

Public Interest, Environment and Disaster Response
twitter:  @BurkePsy.

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This report details the outcomes from a consultation led by CAHA with professional health and hospital groups, senior health leaders, academics, scientists, parliamentarians and policymakers as well as doctors, nurses, midwives, public health practitioners and psychologists throughout 2016. Consultation revealed deep concerns about the effects of climate change within the health community and the desire for urgent federal leadership and action. As the world watches climate disruption unfolding, health protective climate policies are now crucial.

Read the report here.

Psychologists for a Safe Climate are holding an event for psychologists and psychotherapists using the Climate for Change model. This event will present information and discuss the problem of climate change, the solutions, and how each of us can contribute.

The event will be hosted by Libby Skeels and facilitated by Carol Ride.

Saturday June 17, 2.30 - till 5pm.
Meeting Room 3 Kathleen Syme Centre
251 Faraday St, Carlton

Afternoon tea will be provided.

Bookings here. Event is free but donations welcome.

A three day residential workshop on climate change campaigning and advocacy skills, aimed at health professionals

WHEN: Fri Jun 16th (12pm) - Sun Jun 18th
WHERE: Edmund Rice Centre 'Amberley', 7 Amberley Way, Lower Plenty VIC 3093
COST: Negotiable
MORE INFO: http://www.ourclimate-ourhealth.org.au/climate_health_champion
 

A two day workshop on how to make social and political change to protect public health, including issues such as climate change, poverty, war, racial justice, gender and LGBTIQ rights

Sat Jul 8th & Sun Jul 9th (9am-5pm both days)
Level 1, Alan Gilbert Building, University of Melbourne, 161 Barry St, Carlton VIC 3053
$20 full / $10 concession per day to cover food costs (the workshop itself is free)

MORE INFO and RSVP: http://www.healthyfutures.net.au/healthinaction

These 8 simple but important insights from psychological science,
summarised with the acronym A.C.T.I.V.A.T.E., help people come to
terms and cope with the profound implications of climate change.
We hope they will ACTIVATE the public into more effectively engaging with the challenge of climate change and participate in speedy societal change to restore a safe climate.

This booklet is part of the APS 2016 Presidential Initiative looking at how the science of psychology can help us to understand and participate in solutions to the ‘big issues’ facing the world today.

The handbook is available now from the APS website here.

In addition to the handbook we have created a visual tool which highlights the eight strategies in an inforgraphic of the acronym ACTIVATE. Download your copy here.

Acknowledge feelings

Create social norms

Talk about it

Inspire positive visions 

Value it

Act

Time is now

Engage with nature

The World Economic Forum surveyed 750 experts on what the most likely and impactful risks facing humanity are in 2017. In a report released Thursday, they ranked extreme weather as the most likely risk and the second-most impactful, trailing only the use of weapons of mass destruction. Climate change is responsible for driving an increase in the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events, notably heat waves.

Read Brian Kahn's article here.

Read the full report here.

With Sustainability Victoria’s (SV’s) refocus on supporting the community to act on climate change, the need for reliable intelligence on current community attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and expectations of government in the area of climate change was needed to inform policy and program development.

Key findings are based on a total of 3,333 Victorians who took part in the survey. 

 

Sander van der Linden, Anthony Leiserowitz, Seth Rosenthal,
Edward Maibach.  23 Jan 2017.

This research explores how people evaluate and process consensus cues in a polarized information environment. They found strong support for the efficacy of communicating the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change, but that this can be eroded when presented alongside deliberate misinformation. However, the use of 'innocluation messages' can help preserve the initial consensus effect (up to two thirds) even across the political spectrum.  

The social–psychological theory of attitudinal inoculation works as follows: A threat is introduced by forewarning people that they may be exposed to information that challenges their existing beliefs or behaviors. Then, one or more (weakened) examples of that information are presented and directly refuted in a process called “refutational pre-emption” or “prebunking.”

Read the article in Global Challenges here.

The case for climate change is a loud, unmissable gorilla...try it out for yourself in an article by John Cook.

Ninety per cent of people living in rural and regional Australia believe they are already experiencing the impacts of climate change and 46% believe coal-fired power stations should be phased out, according to a new study reviewed here.

We normally understand climate change as a collective action problem. The climate is a global public good which everyone benefits from. Therefore if one government/ organisation/ individual takes action everyone else benefits. But this can create an incentive for others to free ride on the efforts of others without having to incur any of the costs.  Fortunately, mounting evidence about the economic, health, social and environment co-benefits of reducing carbon emissions challenges this understanding and may be one of the factors driving increased action by communities, municipalities, businesses and governments around the world.

Read the article

John Mason recently set out to explain the carbon cycle in a series of 49 tweets in a language we hoped Donald Trump would be able to grasp. 

Read the article

Article published in The Conversation by Joelle Girgis and Penny Whetton 

What does climate change look like in Australia? Are we already seeing our landscapes shift before our eyes without even realising it? Perhaps thought-provoking art can help us come to terms with our changing world, by finding new ways to engage, inform and hopefully inspire action. For hasn’t art always been the bridge between the head and the heart?

With that aim, the ART+CLIMATE=CHANGE 2017 festival, organised by CLIMARTE, featured 30 specially curated exhibitions running from April 19 to May 14 in galleries across Melbourne and regional Victoria. 

Read more here.

Read about Climarte here.

Cimate Outreach released two resources:

1. Firstly, a peer-reviewed academic study with the University of Cardiff that reveals ways of talking about climate change that are effective with traditionally disengaged audiences.
2. To complement this we’ve created a practical guide to discussing climate change with centre-right audiences in the context of our new political landscape.

How can communities best incorporate resilience into their approaches and practices, especially in light of the potential consequences of climate change? 

This resource—prepared especially for community-based groups—provides information from the fields of psychology and other social sciences to help communities better understand and prepare for the adverse effects of climate change.

Both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed on Wednesday that 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded. The U.K. Met Office and Japan Meteorological Agency — the two other gold standards of global temperature monitoring — have also declared 2016 was record hot.

Take a look at the temperature spiral to really get the message.

The goal of teaching scientists improv is not to turn them into actors, but to free them to talk about their work more spontaneously and directly, to pay dynamic attention to their listeners and to connect personally with their audience.

Read more about it and watch a video of improv training

Google Earth has long offered a timelapse feature that allows users to see changes to a particular geographical region over a period of years. It’s fun to play with, but also an important tool because it allows us to see environmental degradation in real time.

The things you can see are amazing, use the tool here

For anyone who wants easy to access, short elevator-speech responses to the most common questions and myths about climate change, a new resource is available - a book entitled Twenty-eight Climate Change Elevator Pitches by Rob Honeycutt. 

Read a review

The ultimate purpose of the Climate Emergency Declaration campaign is to build public support for an emergency declaration and very rapid and large-scale climate emergency action by the federal government, and that campaign is still continuing, with 18,950 petition signatures gathered so far. Please continue to encourage your friends and colleagues to sign!

Take a look at the new Vision page on our website. It is a broad stroke picture of what we think a Climate Emergency Declaration and Mobilisation will look like.

http://climateemergencydeclaration.org/the-vision/ 

Three local health services scooped five awards in three categories at the global 2020 Health Care Climate Challenge awards:

• Koowerup Regional HealthService in Victoria;
• Mater in Queensland; and
• Counties Manukau Health in New Zealand.

Market Forces have created a table to help you find out which banks do and don’t have a record of funding fossil fuels. Using the table, you can compare the fossil fuel investment positions of over 120 banks, credit unions and building societies.

Find out where your bank stands here