People gather at Melbourne hospital to hear about heat and health

More than 200 people were at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital’s Ella Lantham Auditorium yesterday to see the Climate Council launch the latest of its many reports.

The report: “The Silent Killer: Climate Change and the Health Impacts of Extreme Heat” argues that more needs to be done to prepare Australia’s health and community sectors to cope with the pressures from more frequent and severe heatwaves,

Australian National University researcher and president of the Climate and Health Alliance, Dr Elizabeth Hanna, was the facilitator for the launch.

Speakers at the launch were:

A Professor of Biology and a Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Integrity and Development) at Macquarie University and a Climate Councillor, Professor Lesley Hughes;

A Research Professor at the University Western Australia, a Vice Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne, a patron and founding director of the Telethon Kids Institute, and former Australian of the Year, Professor Fiona Stanley; and, finally,

The Melbourne-based emergency physician and vice-president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Stephen Parnis.

The report’s authors for that although many states have taken significant steps to upgrade their heat and health warning systems since the deadly heatwaves of 2009, strategies vary considerably from state to state and focus primarily on reactive rather than long-term planning.

It found that climate change is a serious health threat for many Australians; as extreme heat events worsen, the risk of adverse human health impacts is increasing; heatwaves can put intense pressure on health services; while the health sector has made 

Lesley Hughes.

significant steps in improving resilience to heatwave events, more needs to be done; and that the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions rapidly and deeply was the best way to protect Australians from worsening extreme heat events.

The near two-hour launch was loaded with loaded with fascinating questions and answers, but few that exceed one from an audience member who said had something of a “big question”.



“What action would it take to enlighten or change the thinking of the average Australian person?, he asked.

Prof Hughes responded by saying that if anyone had an answer to that question, to which she said there was no simple answer, she urged them to contact the Climate Council.

She quoted a fellow Climate Councillor who always said there is no silver bullet, only silver buckshot.



Fiona Stanley.

Prof Hughes said that when she started with the Climate Commission she felt it was the commission’s job to convince people of and convert them to the idea the climate change is real, but after doing that stuff for a few years she came to a very different conclusion.

She said she doesn’t worry about the skeptics anymore as they are pretty irrelevant and there was nothing she could tell them that would change their minds.

“What I think we need to do is empower, motivate and inspire people who are concerned and move them to action,” she said.

Professor Stanley sits on the board of the ABC and through that helps bring to Australian people the latest in science, a responsibility she would not entrust to the broader media. She encouraged those at the launch to continue to support the national broadcaster.