By Kam Kompani

As the effects of a warming planet unfold, an upcoming climate change study has found that rural Australians are most concerned about “suffering under climate change” — whether it be financially, environmentally, health-wise, or socially.

Study Population

The research is based on a survey sent to 1810 rural residents in New South Wales, Australia’s most populated state, which included two open-ended questions on climate change. The authors analyzed one of the questions: “What is your biggest concern about climate change?”

Out of the 1262 residents who returned the survey, 823 completed the open-ended question analyzed by the study. The participants who answered the open-ended question were more likely to express their apprehensions about water access and availability and that their community had been financially damaged by changing water issues.

The survey was completed in 2010, following the “Millennium Drought (1997-2010) that affected much of eastern Australia and caused devastating environmental, financial and social impacts”, noted the authors. Australian rural communities are particularly vulnerable to climate change given their strong links to water-intensive industries.

Main Findings

The researchers identified four themes based on the responses to the open-ended question (“What is your biggest concern about climate change?”).

“Suffering under climate change” was found to be one of the respondents’ main concerns.

“Personally, having to endure higher temperatures as I age without being able to use air conditioning, which is a part of [the] problem. I find hot days very difficult,” indicated one of the respondents. “In general, I worry about rising costs, especially insurance resulting from more frequent storms and floods.”

Some participants also highlighted climate change’s particular threat to rural identity and problems.

“Continued drought in rural areas, affecting production of food and livelihood of small towns. This in turn ‘closes’ rural towns. Affects employment for all including youth. Social problems are generated and the remaining people are affected.”

Other respondents expressed their anxiety about the possibility of experiencing more extreme events due to climate change.

“If all of Australia was affected at the one time (i.e. drought plus storm activity) our cost of living will dramatically increase and perhaps never decrease.”

“After going through several droughts, especially the last 12 years, I feel we would be too badly affected, both financially and physically, to cope if it was to become dry again.”

The impact on water supplies was another main worry of numerous respondents.

“Lack of permanent water supply here and lack of water security in the future. This will have a huge impact on any future growth of the town and district.”

“I have no concern about climate change. It has been happening for thousands of years and it will continue after I am dead and gone.”

The authors also found that many participants referred to the causes of climate change when describing their concerns. Some of the respondents indicated that they believed climate change to be man-made, while others questioned the science behind such views and considered it to be fear mongering.

“In my opinion the science is reliant too much on unreliable computer modelling. Emphasis on climate change results in poor government policy and diverting funding from environmental problems unrelated to climate change.”

Another major worry of many respondents was the government’s response to climate change, for which the authors also observed clashing views.

“There was a paradox of opinions where participants were either angry about policies to mitigate anthropogenic climate change which they felt were costly or unnecessary, or conversely, that there was ‘not enough government incentive for change’, for example, in relation to renewable energies and research.”