Relationships between self-reported bicycling injuries and perceived risk of cyclists in Queensland, Australia

The focus of governments on increasing active travel has motivated renewed interest in cycling safety. Bicyclists are up to 20 times more likely to be involved in serious injury crashes than drivers so understanding the relationship among factors in bicyclist crash risk is critically important for identifying effective policy tools, for informing bicycle infrastructure investments, and for identifying high risk bicycling contexts. This study aims to better understand the complex relationships between bicyclist self reported injuries resulting from crashes (e.g. hitting a car) and non-crashes (e.g. spraining an ankle) and perceived risk of cycling as a function of cyclist exposure, rider conspicuity, riding environment, rider risk aversion, and rider ability. Self reported data from 2,500 Queensland cyclists are used to estimate a series of seemingly unrelated regressions to examine the relationships among factors. The major findings suggest that perceived risk does not appear to influence injury rates, nor do injury rates influence perceived risks of cycling. Riders who perceive cycling as risky tend not to be commuters, do not engage in group riding, tend to always wear mandatory helmets and front lights, and lower their perception of risk by increasing days per week of riding and by increasing riding proportion on bicycle paths. Riders who always wear helmets have lower crash injury risk. Increasing the number of days per week riding tends to decrease both crash injury and non crash injury risk (e.g. a sprain). Further work is needed to replicate some of the findings in this study.

The Citizen’s Round Table process : canvassing public opinion on energy technologies to mitigate climate change

This study draws on communication accommodation theory, social identity theory and cognitive dissonance theory to drive a ‘Citizen’s Round Table’ process that engages community audiences on energy technologies and strategies that potentially mitigate climate change. The study examines the effectiveness of the process in determining the strategies that engage people in discussion. The process is designed to canvas participants’ perspectives and potential reactions to the array of renewable and non-renewable energy sources, in particular, underground storage of CO2. Ninety-five people (12 groups) participated in the process. Questionnaires were administered three times to identify changes in attitudes over time, and analysis of video, audio-transcripts and observer notes enabled an evaluation of level of engagement and communication among participants. The key findings of this study indicate that the public can be meaningfully engaged in discussion on the politically sensitive issue of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) and other low emission technologies. The round table process was critical to participants’ engagement and led to attitude change towards some methods of energy production. This study identifies a process that can be used successfully to explore community attitudes on politically-sensitive topics and encourages an examination of attitudes and potential attitude change.

Relationship between emotional climate and the fluency of classroom interactions

This study examined emotional climate in relation to the teaching and learning of grade 7 science. A multi-method and multi-theoretic approach used sociocultural frameworks as a foundation for interpretive research, conversation analysis, prosody analysis, and studies of nonverbal conduct. Emotional climate varied continuously throughout a lesson. Dialogues occurred and afforded learning when interactions between the teacher and students were fluent and included humour and collective effervescence. Emotional climate was negatively valenced when the teacher and/or students endeavoured to establish and maintain power by restricting others’ participation to spectator roles. The teacher’s endeavours to maintain and establish control over students were potentially detrimental to teaching and learning, teachers and learners. This type of teaching gradually evolved into a form we referred to as cranky teaching, whereby the teacher and her students showed signs of frustration and the enacted teaching and learning roles lacked fluency. The methods we pioneered in the present study might be helpful for other teachers who wish to participate in research on their classes to ascertain what works and should be strengthened, and identify practices and rituals that are deleterious and in need of change.

Climate of fear in organisational settings : construct definition, measurement and a test of theory

This paper reports a study that explored a new construct: ‘climate of fear’. We hypothesised that climate of fear would vary across work sites within organisations, but not across organisations. This is in contrast a to measures of organisational culture, which were expected to vary both within and across organisations. To test our hypotheses, we developed a new 13-item measure of perceived fear in organisations and tested it in 20 sites across two organisations (N ≡ 209). Culture variables measured were innovative leadership culture, and communication culture. Results were that climate of fear did vary across sites in both organisations, while differences across organisations were not significant, as we anticipated. Organisational culture, however, varied between the organisations, and within one of the organisations. The climate of fear scale exhibited acceptable psychometric properties

Managing the health effects of temperature in response to climate change : challenges ahead

BACKGROUND: Although many studies have shown that high temperatures are associated with an increased risk of mortality and morbidity, there has been little research on managing the process of planned adaptation to alleviate the health effects of heat events and climate change. In particular, economic evaluation of public health adaptation strategies has been largely absent from both the scientific literature and public policy discussion. OBJECTIVES: his paper aims to discuss how public health organizations should implement adaptation strategies, and how to improve the evidence base for policies to protect health from heat events and climate change. DISCUSSION: Public health adaptation strategies to cope with heat events and climate change fall into two categories: reducing the heat exposure and managing the health risks. Strategies require a range of actions, including timely public health and medical advice, improvements to housing and urban planning, early warning systems, and the assurance that health care and social systems are ready to act. Some of these actions are costly, and the implementation should be based on the cost-effectiveness analysis given scarce financial resources. Therefore, research is required not only on the temperature-related health costs, but also on the costs and benefits of adaptation options. The scientific community must ensure that the health co-benefits of climate change policies are recognized, understood and quantified. CONCLUSIONS: The integration of climate change adaptation into current public health practice is needed to ensure they increase future resilience. The economic evaluation of temperature-related health costs and public health adaptation strategies are particularly important for policy decisions.

Were intercalated komatiites and dacites at the Black Swan nickel sulphide mine, Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia, emplaced as extrusive lavas or intrusive bodies? The significance of breccia textures and contact relationships

Intercalated Archean komatiites and dacites sit above a thick footwall dacite unit in the host rock succession at the Black Swan Nickel Mine, north of Kalgoorlie in the Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia. Both lithofacies occur in units that vary in scale from laterally extensive at the scale of the mine lease to localized, thin, irregular bodies, from > 100 m thick to only centimetres thick. Some dacites are only slightly altered and deformed, and are interpreted to post-date major deformation and alteration (late porphyries). However, the majority of the dacites display evidence of deformation, especially at contacts, and metamorphism, varying from silicification and chlorite alteration at contacts to pervasive low grade regional metamorphic alteration represented by common assemblages of chlorite, sericite and albite. Texturally, the dacites vary from entirely massive and coherent to partially brecciated to totally brecciated. Strangely, some dacites are coherent at the margins and brecciated internally. Breccia textures vary from cryptically defined, to blocky, closely packed, in situ jig-saw fit textures with secondary minerals in fractures between clasts, to more apparent matrix rich textures with round clast forms, giving apparent conglomerate textures. Some clast zones have multi-coloured clasts, giving the impression of varied provenance. Strangely however, all these textural variants have gradational relationships with each other, and no bedding or depositional structures are present. This indicates that all textures have an in situ origin. The komatiites are generally altered and pervasively carbonate veined. Preservation of original textures is patchy and local, but includes coarse adcumulate, mesocumulate, orthocumulate, crescumulate-harrisite and occasionally spinifex textures. Where original contacts between komatiites and dacites are preserved intact (i.e. not sheared or overprinted by alteration), the komatiites have chilled margins, whereas the dacites do not. The margins of the dacites are commonly silicified, and inclusions of dacite occur in komatiite, even at the top contacts of komatiite units, but komatiite clasts do not occur in the dacites. The komatiites therefore were emplaced as sills into the dacites, and the intercalated relationships are interpreted as intrusive. The brecciation and alteration in the dacites are interpreted as being largely due to hydraulic fracturing and alteration induced by contact metamorphic effects and hydrothermal alteration deriving from the intrusion of komatiites into the felsic pile. The absence of autobreccia and hyaloclastite textures in the dacites suggest that they were emplaced as an earlier intrusive (sill?) complex at a high level in the crust.

Opportunities for forest finance under the International climate change regime

The international climate change regime has the potential to increase revenue available for forest restoration projects in Commonwealth nations. There are three mechanisms which could be used to fund forest projects aimed at forest conservation, forest restoration and sustainable forest management. The first forest funding opportunity arises under the clean development mechanism, a flexibility mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol. The clean development mechanism allows Annex I parties (industrialised nations) to invest in emission reduction activities in non-Annex 1 (developing countries) and the establishment of forest sinks is an eligible clean development mechanism activity. Secondly, parties to the Kyoto Protocol are able to include sustainable forest management activities in their national carbon accounting. The international rules concerning this are called the Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry Guidelines. Thirdly, it is anticipated that at the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations that a Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) instrument will be created. This will provide a direct funding mechanism for those developing countries with tropical forests. Payments made under a REDD arrangement will be based upon the developing country with tropical forest cover agreeing to protect and conserve a designated forest estate. These three funding options available under the international climate change regime demonstrate that there is potential for forest finance within the regime. These opportunities are however hindered by a number of technical and policy barriers which prevent the ability of the regime to significantly increase funding for forest projects. There are two types of carbon markets, compliance carbon markets (Kyoto based) and voluntary carbon markets. Voluntary carbon markets are more flexible then compliance markets and as such offer potential to increase revenue available for sustainable forest projects.

The International regulation of persons displaced by climate change

It is certain that there will be changes in environmental conditions across the globe as a result of climate change. Such changes will require the building of biological, human and infrastructure resilience. In some instances the building of such resilience will be insufficient to deal with extreme changes in environmental conditions and legal frameworks will be required to provide recognition and support for people dislocated because of environmental change. Such dislocation may occur internally within the country of original origin or externally into another State’s territory. International and national legal frameworks do not currently recognise or assist people displaced as a result of environmental factors including displacement occurring as a result of climate change. Legal frameworks developed to deal with this issue will need to consider the legal rights of those people displaced and the legal responsibilities of those countries required to respond to such displacement. The objective of this article is to identify the most suitable international institution to host a program addressing climate displacement. There are a number of areas of international law that are relevant to climate displacement, including refugee law, human rights law and international environmental law. These regimes, however, were not designed to protect people relocating as a result of environmental change. As such, while they indirectly may be of relevance to climate displacement, they currently do nothing to directly address this complex issue. In order to determine the most appropriate institution to address and regulate climate displacement, it is imperative to consider issues of governance. This paper seeks to examine this issue and determine whether it is preferable to place climate displacement programs into existing international legal frameworks or whether it is necessary to regulate this area in an entirely new institution specifically designed to deal with the complex and cross-cutting issues surrounding the topic. Commentators in this area have proposed three different regulatory models for addressing climate displacement. These models include: (a) Expand the definition of refugee under the Refugee Convention to encompass persons displaced by climate change; (b) Implement a new stand alone Climate Displacement Convention; and (c) Implement a Climate Displacement Protocol to the UNFCCC. This article will examine each of these proposed models against a number of criteria to determine the model that is most likely to address the needs and requirements of people displaced by climate change. It will also identify the model that is likely to be most politically acceptable and realistic for those countries likely to attract responsibilities by its implementation. In order to assess whether the rights and needs of the people to be displaced are to be met, theories of procedural, distributive and remedial justice will be used to consider the equity of the proposed schemes. In order to consider the most politically palatable and realistic scheme, reference will be made to previous state practice and compliance with existing obligations in the area. It is suggested that the criteria identified by this article should underpin any future climate displacement instrument.

Climate Change and Human Displacement

This paper will focus on the legal issues associated with people displaced as a result of water scarcity. Human displacement can lead to internal displacement (displacement of people within their country) and external displacement (displacement of people into another country). If the displacement takes place as a result of climate change these people may be referred to as climate refugees. The majority of work on climate refugees has focused on those people that will lose their homes as a result of sea –level rise. The number of people that could be displaced as a result of prolonged drought and lack of adequate water supplies is likely to be far more significant in number. There are estimates that around 2.8 billion people will suffer water shortages by 2025 and many of these people are at increased risk of internal or external displacement. Certain groups are more likely to be displaced as a result of prolonged drought or water scarcity. These groups include indigenous and minorities groups living in areas that are more susceptible to climate change and groups living in areas with a history of water shortage and supply issues. People displaced as a result of water scarcity are at increased risks of malnutrition and of dehydration. Furthermore the lack of adequate water supplies in such areas increases the risk and spread of disease among the population. In certain instances internal and external displacement may lead to escalation of conflict and competition for water resources in newly settled territories. This paper will use case studies from Australia (indigenous groups and rural landholders) and East Africa (Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya) to demonstrate the significance of human displacement arising as a result of water scarcity. Climate adaptation policy frameworks will need to address a number of legal issues, arising as a result of climate displacement from water scarcity. There are a number of unresolved legal issues for both categories of environmental displaced people. The major legal issue for externally environmentally displaced people is lack of international recognition and support for these people. The Climate Change Convention, the Refugee Convention, the Desertification Convention and Human Rights instruments all fail to provide recognition for people externally displaced as a result of environmental conditions. Similarly there is a lack of legal recognition and legal support mechanisms to assist those people internally displaced by environmental conditions. The lack of developed environmental rights in most countries contributes to this problem. Polices and governance frameworks must be put in place which aims to prevent such displacement through programs identifying populations at risk and instigating damage mitigation and relocation programs. In addition there are a number of legal issues which may arise such as; rights of compensation, property and tenure disputes, increases on the water demand and environmental degradation in places of relocation and jurisdictional issues arising in federal countries. This paper will provide an overview of the legal issues at the international and national levels arising as a result of climate displacement from water scarcity.  

The Role of the Judiciary in Earth Jurisprudence : An Analysis of Judicial Approaches to Standing in Climate Change and Environmental Justice Litigation

The role of the judiciary in common law systems is to create law, interpret law and uphold the law. As such decisions by courts on matters related to ecologically sustainable development, natural resource use and management and climate change make an important contribution to earth jurisprudence. There are examples where judicial decisions further the goals of earth jurisprudence and examples where decisions go against the principles of earth jurisprudence. This presentation will explore judicial approaches to standing in Australia and America. The paper will explore two trends in each jurisdiction. Approaches by American courts to standing will be examined in reference to climate change and environmental justice litigation. While Australian approaches to standing will be examined in the context of public interest litigation and environmental criminal negligence cases. The presentation will draw some conclusions about the role of standing in each of these cases and implications of this for earth jurisprudence.

Wetlands, climate zones and Barmah Forest virus disease in Queensland, Australia

Barmah Forest virus (BFV) disease is the second most common mosquito-borne disease in Australia, but the linkages of the wetlands and climate zones with BFV transmission remain unclear. We aimed to examine the relationship between the wetlands, climate zones and BFV risk in Queensland, Australia. Data on the wetlands, climate zones, population and BFV cases for the period 1992 to 2008 were obtained from relevant government agencies. BFV risk was grouped as low-, medium- and high-level based on BFV incidence percentiles. The buffer zones around each BFV case were made using 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 50 km distances. We performed a discriminant analysis to determine the differences between wetland classes and BFV risk within each climate zone. The discriminant analyses show that saline 1, riverine and saline tidal influence were the most significant contributors to BFV risk in all climate and buffer zones, while lacustrine, palustrine, estuarine and saline 2 and saline 3 wetlands were less important. These models had classification accuracies of 76%, 98% and 100% for BFV risk in subtropical, tropical and temperate climate zones, respectively. This study demonstrates that BFV risk varies with wetland class and climate zone. The discriminant analysis is a useful tool to quantify the links between wetlands, climate zones and BFV risk.

Dynamic modeling for construction innovation

Previous research on construction innovation has commonly recognized the importance of the organizational climate and key individuals, often called “champions,” for the success of innovation. However, it rarely focuses on the role of participants at the project level and addresses the dynamics of construction innovation. This paper therefore presents a dynamic innovation model that has been developed using the concept of system dynamics. The model incorporates the influence of several individual and situational factors and highlights two critical elements that drive construction innovations: (1) normative pressure created by project managers through their championing behavior, and (2) instrumental motivation of team members facilitated by a supportive organizational climate. The model is qualified empirically, using the results of a survey of project managers and their project team members working for general contractors in Singapore, by assessing casual relationships for key model variables. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of the model structure for fostering construction innovations.

Epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral learning in the early years of school : relationships and complexities

While investment in young children is recognised as important for the development of moral values for a cohesive society, little is known about early years teaching practices that promote learning of moral values. This paper reports on observations and interviews with 11 Australian teachers, focusing on their epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral education with children aged 5 to 8 years. The analysis revealed three main patterns of thinking about moral education: following others, reflecting on points of view, and informing reflection for action. These patterns suggest a relationship between epistemic beliefs and beliefs about teaching practices for moral learning which have implications for teacher professional development concerning experiences in moral education.