Griffith University research Associate Professor Michael Howes is helping to make communities more sustainable and resilient to the impacts of climate change.
Recent events such as the Black Summer bushfires and intense and repeated flooding on the East Coast of Australia reinforce the need for this kind of research.
“All of a sudden the attention has really focused on how we can make our communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change,” he says.
“We’ve started to focus more on adaptation, at least in the public eye, but it has always been there as part of our climate response.
“My research and my teaching are about how we can make society more sustainable and resilient. I’m particularly interested in the role of government in making that transition, and how it relates to the private and community sectors.”
A/Prof Howes has been researching climate change for more than two decades, with a focus on climate change adaptation and building resilience to climate-related disasters such as floods and bushfires.
He is working with the Adaptation Science team at Griffith University’s Cities Research Institute, on two projects. The first looks at managed retreat from disasters, for example, how to move people and their homes out of areas that are at increased risk from floods and bushfires, particularly in coastal areas.
The second project looks at the idea of transformational change, what it is, and how we can bring it about to make society more resilient and sustainable.
“Some of the key findings we’ve come up with in the last decade or so, are that we need to change to a more collaborative governance model, and this might mean changing the way we finance the public sector to encourage more collaboration between different levels of government, between different government agencies, and between the public sector, the private sector and the community,” A/Prof Howes says.
“We also need to promote more institutional learning, particularly within disaster risk reduction organisations and emergency services, which can be done by embedding climate change experts within those kinds of organizations”.
“We need to improve community engagement and empowerment because governments simply don’t have the resources to do everything they need to, which means we’ve got to get business and community on board.”
A/Prof Howes says programs are needed that enable communities to improve their resilience to the impacts of climate change and to climate-related disasters.
This will involve all levels of government, with different agencies focusing on some common goals designed to work towards making society more sustainable and resilient.
“That can be done by establishing some networks of collaboration champions across the different parts of the public sector. So that, in a nutshell, is what my research is about and the kind of things we’ve been finding,” he says.
A/Prof Howes says public communication and engagement are essential. He says it is important that people can express their opinions even when they disagree with the science or have a different view about how many resources we should commit to climate change adaptation or mitigation. However, people needed to be aware that climate change is happening.
“The important thing is that discussions that deny climate change should come with something like a public health warning. For example, during COVID there was a lot of misinformation about whether you should wear masks or not, or whether the vaccines, when they came out, were any good or whether they cause more problems than they get,” he says.
“That type of misinformation could put people’s lives at risk, so it was important with COVID that there were public health warnings that said, look, don’t listen to those people who are on that fringe because you’re putting your health and your life at risk.”
“I think we need a similar sort of warning when people express those views claiming that climate change isn’t happening, or it’s not being caused by humans, or it’s not as bad as everyone says.
“This is because there are a lot of people now that are suffering from the impacts of climate change. Journalists have a responsibility to be aware that words have consequences, and they shouldn’t be publishing things that are putting people’s lives at risk.”
Who benefits?
A/Prof Howes says everyone benefits from his research because everyone is affected by climate change.
“If you’re living at the North Pole or the South Pole or the equator, if you’re living on a mountain or by the sea, if you’re in a city or out in the Bush, you’re going to be impacted by climate change.”
“In fact, you are being already impacted by climate change. The benefit of adapting and making ourselves more resilient, of becoming more sustainable and reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, is that we don’t have to bear even worse impacts, that’s going to be a benefit,” he says.
His research also contributes to helping Griffith University establish a footprint in climate change research along with his broader contributions to academic research.
He also works with government agencies, providing policy advice to local, state, and federal governments. He contributes to businesses who are interested in climate change and sustainability as well as community organisations.
Motivations
A/Prof Howes is driven by curiosity, and a desire to understand how climate change affects the world, while wanting to develop solutions that help manage and respond to climate change.
“We spread the word about the solutions we find by publishing and speaking at conferences, or doing consultancies, or public engagements with the media,” he says.
“We also train our students to go out there and be agents of change and help to address those problems as well.”
He is also motivated by a world view that he describes as ‘critically optimistic’. He explains this means that while it is easy to get depressed about climate change effects, he is optimistic because there are solutions to these problems.
“My research has shown me that there are solutions and there are some good organisations out there. There are some effective policies, there are some businesses that are doing really good things and have come up with solutions for this,” he says.
“We understand these problems much better than we ever have before. We know what the solutions are. We don’t need to develop a lot of new technologies. We’ve already got what we need. We can afford to make the changes we need to make. It’s just a case of getting over that inertia of not wanting to change too much and bringing about that transformation that we need.”
“History demonstrates that change and quite dramatic change is possible. We’re talking about making sure that present generations can meet their own needs and future generations are also going be able to meet their needs as well. So that really is a great motivating factor there.”
A/Prof Howes suggests that people do not get overwhelmed by climate change issues, but that they make changes in their personal and professional lives which can add up to a significant difference.
“It will make you feel better if you can do something. The situation isn’t hopeless. Yes, the problems are serious, but we have the solutions and we as individuals can do something about it. We can make a real change,” he says.
You can find A/Prof Howes’ academic publications here:
https://experts.griffith.edu.au/7294-michael-howes/grants
You can read more about his research here:
After 25 years of trying, why aren’t we environmentally sustainable yet?
What fire fighters say about climate change
https://theconversation.com/what-firefighters-say-about-climate-change-19381
