Heatwaves are known as a silent killer – they cause more deaths than any other extreme weather event in Australia combined, including bushfires, floods and cyclones.

While us humans can escape to air conditioned spaces or strip off to cool down, we need to consider our furry friends in the extreme heat – both domestic pets and surrounding wildlife.

Just like us, many animals can be affected by heat stress or heat stroke. Similar to humans, the old and the young are often the most vulnerable. However, while we can sweat it out, dogs and cats can only release heat through areas not covered by fur, mostly their paws

HOW DO YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR PETS DURING A HEATWAVE?

Cats are normally pretty self-sufficient and stay cool by seeking shade and limiting physical activity. They will normally find a nice cool place to sleep it off so just make sure they have water and shade and some wet towels if they want them.

However, dogs need a little more TLC when it gets hot. The small surface area of their paws are not a very effective means of getting rid of excess heat from their bodies. Dogs use the evaporation of moisture from their tongues, nasal passages and lungs to cool down by panting.

If you are heading to work, make sure your canine pal has plenty of water and shade in a well-ventilated area. If you want to get creative with ways to cool your dog down, you could whip up some refrigerated snacks, top their bowls up with cold water from the fridge or simply dampen their bed. Got a garden? Perhaps invest in a small paddling pool or turn the sprinklers or hose on so they can get a bit of a shower (while being conscious of any water restrictions in your area).

If your dog is riding with you never leave them locked in the car! It takes under 10 minutes for a car to reach lethal temperatures even when parked in shaded areas, with the windows open.

Although they are eager to get out and burn off some energy, reconsider going for midday walks as the hot pavement can burn their feet (if it’s uncomfortable for you to walk barefoot then it will be for them too!). Top tip: head out for a stroll early in the morning or just before bed and stick to grassy areas. Ultimately if you are melting and want to be in front of the fan or air conditioner, then they probably do too!

HOW DO I KNOW IF MY PET IS AFFECTED BY HEAT?

Key signs you should look for are changes in behaviour, disinterest in food and water, isolating themselves and heavy panting. If your pet is lethargic, relentlessly panting, drooling, vomiting or collapsing, get them to a vet ASAP. Check out the RSPCA for more information.

HOW DO YOU HELP WILDLIFE DURING A HEATWAVE?

While you are out and about, think of our native wildlife too: the same rules apply – water, shade and rest. Leave bowls of water out in shady areas for any native wildlife that may be nearby. A shallow dish with a few rocks placed in it creates a great little oasis for insects like bees to flock to when needing a drink and a cool down.

Try to avoid disturbing our native wildlife more than you have to. Everyone is feeling hot and bothered, so the last thing you’d want to do is stress them out and use up any more of their already low energy stocks.  

However, rescue babies if they are particularly vulnerable and reach out to a local wildlife helpline:

NSW: WIRES 1300 094 737

VIC: Wildlife Victoria (03) 8400 7300

QLD: RSPCA QLD 1300 ANIMAL

SA: Fauna Rescue of SA inc 08 8289 0896

WA: Wildcare WA (08) 9474 9055.

NT: Wildcare NT 08 8996 121.

TAS: Bonorong Wildlife Hospital and Rescue 0447 264 625

ACT: ACT Wildlife 0432 300 033

For more information on heatwaves and the impact on wildlife click here.

The post How do you take care of your pets during a heatwave? appeared first on Climate Council.

Climate change, driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas, is already leading to hotter, longer and more intense heatwaves in Australia.

Heatwaves are known as a silent killer – they cause more deaths than any other extreme weather event in Australia combined, including bushfires, floods and cyclones.

As the days get hotter, it’s important to keep cool and know how to look after yourself, your family and your furry friends during a heatwave this holiday period.

Here are our top tips for how you can beat the heat this summer:

At home

• Spend time in cool, well air-conditioned placed or places with indoor fans. If you do not have air conditioning or indoor fans at home, seek out places that do, such as public libraries, shopping centres etc.
• Complete any essential outdoor tasks early in the day
• Cancel all non-essential outdoor tasks – particularly those involving physical activity
• The elderly, sick and young are particularly vulnerable and should stay in cool environments, and wear cool, comfortable clothes
• Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water throughout the day
• Avoid alcohol and drinks with caffeine, such as teas or coffee
• Check with your local council to hear their heatwave plan
• Use damp cloths to cool yourself and loved ones
• Ensure food is refrigerated properly and immediately dispose of spoilt food

Transport/infrastructure

• Stay informed and up to date about planned disruptions
• Have a back-up plan in case electricity or transport (road/rail) infrastructure fails

Wildlife

• Leave out shallow containers of water for birds, possums, and other animals, placing small stones in the bottom of the container and ensuring that the water is left in a shady, protected environment (out of view from birds of prey and high enough to be safe from cats)
• If you find injured or heat-stressed wildlife, bring them into cooler environments and lightly mist with water
• If you are concerned about an animal, call a wildlife rescue centre near you.

Pets

• Ensure your pets have plenty of water and shade for the day
• If dogs or cats appear heat stressed, panting or restless, bath in cool water
• Add ice cubes to pets’ drinking water
• Call your vet if you are concerned about a pet
• Find out more tips and tricks to keep your furry friends cool here

Always

• Take care of yourself
• Stay hydrated
• Stay cool
• Avoid the sun
• Keep in touch with family, friends, and neighbours
• Stay informed
• Seek medical advice if you feel unwell

IN AN EMERGENCY, CALL TRIPLE ZERO (106 FOR PEOPLE WITH A HEARING OR SPEECH IMPAIRMENT)

The post Surviving a heatwave: how to stay cool this summer appeared first on Climate Council.

Since records began, Australia has warmed by around 1.44˚C and is getting hotter, but the heat isn’t felt equally: few places are suffering so severely as in Sydney’s western suburbs. January 4th 2020, Penrith was the hottest place on Earth at 48.9˚C (half-way to boiling point) and in 2019 Parramatta sweltered through 47 days with temperatures over 35˚C.

These hostile conditions are unnatural. They are the reality of climate change compounded by slapdash urban planning, short-sightedness, and a rapidly growing population that has sent heat-intensifying infrastructure (roads, homes, carparks) sprawling into the Cumberland Plains.

The summer 2019/20 temperatures in Jordan Springs, near Penrith, an area suffering from the urban heat island effect. Image: Dr Sebastian Pfautsch.

“Western Sydney is one of the fastest growing—perhaps the fastest growing urban population anywhere in Australia. The mistakes [in urban design] being made in Western Sydney are being made in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth. We’re not really thinking ‘How do we deal with the changing climate, particularly heat?’,” says Dr. Sebastian Pfautsch, Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Western Sydney University.

He describes the side-effects and challenges of overheated suburbs: from strains on public health, to economic instability, and low community cohesion.

“It wasn’t even summer yet,” he says of spring 2019, “and we had a heatwave approaching where the energy providers were looking at the network thinking ‘Will it actually collapse?’ Think about 2030 or 2050 when we have 800,000 more people living in Western Sydney.”

It’s not just about energy consumption and population figures. Extreme heat is undoing the fabric of everyday life and the things we take for granted, like a childhood at the playground or being able to go for a walk.

Extreme heat and children

With their parents at work, many young children in Sydney’s western suburbs spend the day at kindergartens or remain with their grandparents.

“Playgrounds at public parks may be children’s only regular access to nature. It’s the place where kids’ gross motor activities take place,” says Sebastian, “—more than running from one room to another; it’s exercise, risk management, self-awareness, learning compassion for other humans and nature.”

He describes the cognitive and physical qualities that need to be imparted to children and the critical window in which these things must develop, from 18 months to 7 years old. “It’s absolutely key that these things happen in playgrounds.”

“But we’re building playgrounds without shade and the wrong surface materials, and that means—with increasing summer heat—we can use these playgrounds less and less. Sadly, this applies to the majority of play spaces in kindies and parks.”

A playground in Auburn seen with the human eye versus temperature-sensitive camera. Image: Dr Sebastian Pfautsch.

By constructing playgrounds by the letter without regard to local conditions, the usability—and safety—of equipment goes up in smoke. Recording the temperature of playgrounds during summer, Sebastian regularly logs surface temperatures upwards of 80˚C. Play equipment conducts heat like cutlery in an oven and can be hot enough to sear skin. The rubber play surfaces can reach above 100˚C; there’s no need to imagine the ground being lava. “We need [playgrounds] to help these new citizens become Earth stewards…but we’re seeing a shift indoors.” In a changing climate, hot days will get hotter and these realities will worsen.

“Diabetes and obesity are already at a high rate in Western Sydney. Most of the kids are riding in cars due to shops or schools being so far away. Parents drive in their air-conditioned cars out of their air-conditioned homes into the air-conditioned shopping malls. You can’t walk outside, particularly in summer, because there’s no shade. The whole urban design of transport, which might encourage active transport like riding a bike, is done very badly.”

Urban heat and deteriorating education

But perhaps more alarming than extreme heat in playgrounds is the extreme heat present before and after the summer break—while kids are still at school.

“Looking at Bureau of Meteorology data we know that ambient heat during school days in summer is rising. This means if you have no air conditioning, you see more days of high classroom temperatures too. You learn less in these classrooms. We have very compelling data on how heat is impacting learning outcomes. A massive study from the US shows that for every 1˚C increase in annual average classroom temperature, there follows a 2% loss in learning outcomes. We shouldn’t accept that.”

Sebastian compares kids in the overheated western suburbs with no air conditioning with those in other more prosperous waterside-cooled areas, and imagines the effect of heat played out for five years.

“You can calculate how much less a child will learn by the time they’ve reached their HSC.” Children with identical IQs and educated in different locations will diverge and wind up in a very different place by Year 12. “We have federal laws that prescribe fair and equal learning conditions for children across Australia, and yet we’re not delivering on that, not anywhere near it.”

Image: Shutterstock.

Western Sydney and reducing the urban heat island effect

Under a changing climate we can all expect an increase in the frequency, intensity, and duration of heatwaves, but why is it they’re so immediate and severe out west? To begin with, the features that naturally reduce heat have been removed and replaced with man made structures that magnify it.

Trees are a natural defence against the heat—with leaves to rebound sun and shade surfaces, and water vapour to cool the air—but are swapped out for low maintenance landscapes. Green spaces, such as parklands, absorb and dissipate heat but have been replaced by buildings of bricks, cladding, metal and glass. Waterways such as lakes and rivers, that act like temperature buffers to convert heat to cooling vapour, are replaced by winding asphalt roads and expanses of concrete in car parks that can reach 80˚C surface temperatures.

Sydney’s Central Park building whose hard and gleaming surfaces are partially offset by green space, which works to reduce heat. Image: Creative Commons/Flickr/AndyM5855

It’s the buildings and roads and other sealed surfaces—which, Sebastian has calculated, cover 80% of some suburbs—that are so subtly damaging. Their hard surfaces generate more heat than we can withstand, and it’s heat that’s guaranteed to be magnified by more thoughtless urban sprawl. Hard surfaces act like sponges, absorbing heat from the sun during the day and releasing this stored energy during the night. The heat leaks out throughout the night, preventing suburbs from cooling down to safe levels and thus placing the health of residents at risk.

Hospital admissions speak a clear language: rates of morbidity and mortality increase well above the norm during a string of two to three extremely hot nights. It’s not just the daylight hours of a heatwave but also the nighttime residue that is the killer. Since 1890, heatwaves have killed more Australians than bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods, and severe storms combined. These are the costs and consequences of climate change, which have been gathered and summarised in our report ‘Hitting Home: The Compounding Costs of Climate Inaction.

Reducing the urban heat island effect

The key is to incorporate ‘open space’, or rather, undeveloped natural areas, into our cities.

“What we could do right now to stop creating more hot suburbs,” says Sebastian, “is to build heat-smart density and build upwards. Apartment buildings of five to fifteen storeys arranged in clusters that shade each other, no more free-standing homes. This clustered housing supports two or three thousand people, and then around that you leave the space open: parklands, lakes, recreational facilities, picnicking areas where community can actually happen.”

Solutions can occur—need to occur—at a micro local scale, too.

In 2020 Sebastian and partners from government and industry developed and introduced a UV Smart Cool Playground to Cumberland Council with shade covers and heat-reducing polymer play surfaces, making equipment ‘playable’ once more—halving temperatures experienced by children. It’s these types of ‘demonstration’ sites that are so valuable, where people can experience the alternative. Life in Sydney’s west does not need to be inhospitable.

Climate change and adaptation: living with the heat

“I’m measuring air temperatures in Western Sydney that are over 50˚C. Will it be 55˚C at some point? The heat that we have to deal with, which is projected to increase for decades to come, is already here. The region is becoming uninhabitable during summer, and this is where the new arrivals are expected to settle, build and bring up their children.”

While the effects of climate change are already making large tracts of Western Sydney uninhabitable, there is much we can do. As individuals, Sebastian suggests to “plant a tree, make your next car a hybrid or go electric, paint your roof with a cool paint, insulate your house,” but change needs to be made at every scale of society.

The cooling effect exerted by trees as exemplified in a South Granville park, the shaded area beneath the tree being some twenty degrees cooler. Image: Dr Sebastian Pfautsch.

Extreme heat also needs to be addressed at its root cause: climate change. The Federal Government needs to step up and take charge of the country’s future. Temperatures are rising, and will continue to rise, and the quicker we can move beyond fossil fuels to reach net zero emissions, the quicker that rising heat can be capped. Until then, those living in vulnerable areas will continue to cop ever-escalating impacts, the disproportionate exposure and excesses of extreme heat, until real and effective action is enacted by the government.

The post Untouchable playgrounds: Urban heat and the future of Western Sydney appeared first on Climate Council.

By Professor Will Steffen, Climate Councillor

In recent days, thousands of people across New South Wales and the ACT have sweltered through another dangerous heatwave. Climate change is driving hotter and more frequent days like this and Australians are highly vulnerable.

The impacts of extreme weather on our health and wellbeing are escalating. The recent fires led to the deaths of nearly 500 Australians. The fires directly killed 33 people, and another 429 died from smoke inhalation. And heatwaves kill more Australians than all other extreme events combined. Climate-fuelled floods, droughts and violent storms all take their toll on our individual and community wellbeing.

Extreme weather events are also costly. A new report from the Climate Council finds the cost of extreme weather in Australia has more than doubled since the 1970s, and totalled $35 billion over the past decade. By 2038, extreme weather events driven by climate change, as well as the impacts of sea-level rise, could cost the Australian economy $100 billion every year.

The 2019-2020 period was remarkable for the number and intensity of extreme weather events, fuelled by climate change, that battered not only Australia but also many other parts of the world: unprecedented fires, extreme heat, powerful cyclones and devastating floods.

Here in Australia, the catastrophic Black Summer bushfires are still fresh in our minds. The impacts of this tragedy bear repeating. About 21% of our eastern broad-leafed forests burned, compared to an annual average of 2%. About three billion animals were either killed or displaced by the fires. The psychological damage that Australians suffered from this climate change-driven disaster was immense.

But that wasn’t all that climate change had in store for Australians in 2019-2020.

Exceptional heat in 2019 – the continent’s annual maximum temperature was over 2°C above average – challenged the coping capacity of humans. Penrith hit 48.9°C on 4 January 2020, making it the hottest place on Earth on that day. Over the 2019-2020 summer western Sydney recorded 37 days over 35°C.

Increasing heat in the oceans is also driving extreme events. Oceans around Australia have warmed by about 1°C since 1910, triggering three mass bleaching events of the Great Barrier Reef in just the last five years. The Reef is reeling, with 50% of its hard corals now dead. Kelp forests and sea grasses are also suffering permanent damage from warming seawater.

Other types of extreme weather events drove damaging impacts. Beaches and property along Sydney’s northern beaches and the NSW central coast were severely eroded by huge swells and high tides, riding on higher sea levels driven by climate change. In January 2020, giant hailstones rained down on Canberra, damaging cars and houses.

Globally, extreme weather events battered many parts of the planet, from Siberia to the tropics.

Perhaps the most astounding event of all was an intense, persistent and widespread heatwave in 2020 that spread across Siberia, breaking temperature records, triggering large fires, and thawing permafrost. The Russian town of Verkhoyansk recorded a temperature of 38°C in June, likely the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic.

There is no doubt that climate change played a large role in these weather extremes, particularly in their severity. As the Earth continues to warm, extreme weather events are occurring in a climate system that has become hotter and more energetic, and in an atmosphere that carries more water vapour. This increases the likelihood as well as the severity of extreme weather.

Scientists can now attribute particular extreme weather events to climate change by calculating the likelihood that a particular event could have occurred without climate change. For example, Australia’s hot spring in 2020 was ‘virtually impossible’ without the influence of climate change, and a similar attribution study showed that the 2020 Siberian heatwave was made at least 600 times more likely as a result of climate change.

Despite these disturbing realities, there is cause for some optimism. The United States under President Biden has prioritised climate action, our main trading partners have recently set net-zero emissions targets and the UN Secretary-General has called on governments to ensure their COVID recovery plans mark a ‘true turning point’ for people and the planet.

Read more about the impacts of climate change fuelled extreme weather in our new report, Hitting Home: the compounding costs of climate inaction.

The post The Deadly Costs of Climate Inaction appeared first on Climate Council.

Climate change is already affecting the island’s critically endangered forests, coral reefs, and the local economy that is reliant upon them.

The island’s Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest — a closed-canopy forest that’s up to 8 metres tall in some places — is a Critically Endangered Ecological Community under NSW law. It is also home to 86% of the endemic plant species on the island.¹ This forest is a globally unique ecosystem as it is found only on the two peaks of Lord Howe Island, at altitudes of over 750m.¹ This unique ecosystem is directly threatened by climate change as the average temperature rises and rainfall and cloud cover become more variable.¹

Temperatures have risen over the past century, and are expected to continue to increase in the future. The Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest is particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures because it is situated on the summit of two mountain peaks and so cannot move to a higher altitude to adjust.

There has also been a 31% decline in annual rainfall over the past 50 years on Lord Howe Island. Lord Howe experienced its lowest annual rainfall in 2018 (984.6 mm), according to data collected by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). Lord Howe also had its driest December on record in 2018, with just 8.2 mm of rainfall, and its driest January on record in 2019, with only 1 mm of rainfall during the month, less than 1% of what the island would usually see at that time of year. In the future, rainfall variability is projected to increase.

Since 1945, there has been a long-term decline in the proportion of days with cloud cover around the mountain peaks on Lord Howe Island.¹ The semi-permanent cloud layer is important in sustaining the Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest, as it provides the moisture and humidity needed to keep the unique plant communities alive.¹ This is particularly vital during periods of low rainfall. Cloud loss also increases the direct solar radiation exposure which heats and dries out the canopy, threatening the existence of this unique forest.  As sea surface temperatures continue to rise with climate change, scientists anticipate this will increase the altitude at which clouds form over tropical mountains, adding further pressure to the ecosystem.

A warming climate also drives more severe storm events, which threaten the survival of adult trees in the Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest due to storm damage¹. Stronger storms also threaten the island’s shoreline and shallow reefs that are vulnerable to wave erosion and sea level rise.  As the world’s most southern coral reef, the cold water corals are part of what make it so unique. However, scientists believe ocean warming and acidification will threaten cold water coral species more than their warm water counterparts.

Less than 500 people live full-time on the island, so the 15,000 annual tourists (limited to 400 at any one time for ecological reasons) are vital to the island’s economy. More than 50% of Lord Howe residents are employed in tourism-related industries. With climate change driving more severe extreme weather events, Lord Howe Island is at risk of losing the natural environments that make it globally unique, and the tourism industry that is dependent on it. 

To read more about climate change impacts on Australia’s $43 billion tourism industry, check our our full tourism report ‘Icons at Risk: Climate Change Threatening Australian Tourism’.  

1. Auld, T. D., & Leishman, M. R. (2015). Ecosystem risk assessment for Gnarled Mossy Cloud Forest, Lord Howe Island, Australia. Austral Ecology, 40(4), 364-372. https://doi.org/10.1111/aec.12202

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