The impacts of the climate crisis on health, food and agricultural systems has been unprecedented in Australia, with heat waves, droughts, floods, bushfires, food shortages, smoke and dust pollution and other issues. On current trajectories the impacts are expected to be worse in the coming decades in Australia, as in other regions.
In the past, scientists, engineers and policy makers have tended to work on current problems in these areas and not invest sufficiently in understanding the full implications for the sectors in future years.
Moreover, health, food and agriculture were considered in isolation as Wendel Berry wrote, “People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are healed by the health industry, which pays no attention to food.”
Dr Arnagretta Hunter and Dr Steve Crimp will explore future implications of the climate crisis for health and agriculture and the health-food-agriculture linkages.
Speakers
Dr Arnagretta Hunter
Clinical Senior Lecturere College of Health and Medicine, Australian National University
Dr Arnagretta Hunter is a physician and academic working across healthcare and public policy. She has worked in cardiology and medicine for several decades and has particular interest in health and climate change. She has been discussing and contributing to debate on catastrophic and existential risk for the past four years through work at the Australian National University (ANU) and with the Commission for the Human Future.
Raised in Melbourne, Dr Hunter completed a BA(Hons) in international relations before embarking on medicine at the University of Sydney. She undertook medical training and has specialist qualifications as a physician cardiologist. As a doctor she has worked across urban, regional and rural locations in Australia. She is involved with Policy and Advocacy with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and is a member of the Professional Standards Review panel for the Department of Health. In 2019 she received a Bob and June Prickett Churchill Fellowship with a project to assess the skills of narrative in medicine
Dr Hunter has worked on the health impacts of climate change for some years. In 2020 she co-chaired the Bushfire Impact Working Group for the College of Health and Medicine Australian National University, a group that won the Sidney Sax Medal for Public Health in 2020. Her work in climate change is wide-ranging including participation in the ANU Institute for Climate Energy and Disaster Solutions and the ACT Climate Change Council. She cohosts the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy Policy Forum Podcast on public policy.
Dr Steven Crimp
Deputy Head of Climate, ANU Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions
Dr Steven Crimp is the Deputy Head of Climate with the ANU Institute for Climate Energy and Disaster Solutions. His role is to examine opportunities for improved climate risk management within primary industries, both in Australia and internationally. He also looks for opportunities to include multi-national and global food producers, telecommunications and other industries in his work.
Steven manages a partnership between ANU, CSIRO and DFAT whose objective is to examine opportunities to enhance the resilience of Indo-Pacific Food Systems to the impacts of climate change. The Resilience Initiative for Food and Agriculture (RIFA) currently undertakes research activities across the Pacific region.
Before joining ANU, Steve worked for the Agriculture and Food Business Unit of CSIRO, contributing to the Global Food Security in a Changing World Research Program.