Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Forehead, Research Fellow, University of Wollongong

Air quality on Australia’s roads matters. On any given day (when we’re not in lockdown) people meet, commute, exercise, shop and walk with children near busy streets. But to date, air quality monitoring at roadsides has been inadequate.

I and my colleagues wanted to change that. Using materials purchased from electronics and hardware stores for around A$150, we built our own air quality monitors.

Our newly published research reveals how our devices detected particulate pollution at busy intersections at levels ten times worse than background levels measured at official air monitoring stations.

Read more: These 5 images show how air pollution changed over Australia’s major cities before and after lockdown

Our open-source design means citizen scientists can make their own devices to measure air quality, and make the data publicly available.

This would provide more valuable data about city traffic pollution, giving people the information they need to protect their health.

Particulate matter: a tiny killer

Everyone is exposed to airborne particulate matter emitted by industry, transport and natural sources such as bushfires and dust storms.

Particulate matter from traffic is a mixture of toxic compounds, both solid and liquid. It’s a well-known health hazard, particularly for children, the elderly, pedestrians, cyclists and people working on or near roads.

Particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometres in diameter, referred to as PM2.5, is particularly harmful. To put this in context, a human hair is about 100 micrometres in width.

When inhaled, these fine particles can damage heart and brain function, circulation, breathing and the immune and endocrine systems. They have also been linked to cancer and low birth weight in newborns.

Do-it-yourself air monitoring

Highly reliable equipment to measure air quality has traditionally been expensive, and is not deployed widely.

Official air quality monitoring usually takes place open spaces or parks, to provide an averaged, background reading of pollution across a wide area. The monitoring stations are not typically placed at pollution sources, such as power stations or roads.

However there is growing evidence that people travelling outdoors near busy city roads are exposed to high levels of traffic emissions.

Air quality monitors can be bought off the shelf at low cost, but their readings are not always reliable.

So I and other researchers at the University of Wollongong’s SMART Infrastructure Facility made our own monitors. They essentially consist of a sensor, weatherproof housing, a controller and a fan. Anyone with basic electronics knowledge and assembly skills can make and install one. The monitor connects to the internet (we used The Things Network) and the software required to run it and collect the data is available for free here.

The weatherproof housing cost about A$16 to make. It consists of PVC plumbing parts, a few screws and small pieces of fibreglass insect screen, which can be bought at any hardware store.

Sensors can be bought from electronics retailers for little as A$30, but many are not tested, calibrated or overseen by experts and can be inaccurate. We tested three, and chose the Novasense SDS011, which we bought for A$32.

A controller is needed to run the monitor and send data to the internet. We bought ours from an online retailer for under A$60. A fan, needed to circulate air through the housing, was bought from Jaycar for A$14.

Accounting for wiring and a few other parts, our monitors cost under A$150 each to make – ten times cheaper than mid-grade commercial detectors – and produce reasonably accurate results.

What we found

Following community meetings, we deployed our sensors at nine key locations and intersections around Liverpool in Western Sydney, a region which has traditionally suffered from poor air quality.

Our monitors have been in place since March 2019, placed close to pedestrian height on structures such as light poles, shade awnings or walls.

Read more: Australia needs stricter rules to curb air pollution, but there’s a lot we could all do now

They have detected roadside measurements of PM2.5 at values of up to 280 micrograms per cubic metre in morning peak traffic. This is more than ten times the readings at the nearest official monitoring station. The severity of the pollution and how long it lasts depends on how bad the traffic is.

These findings are comparable to other studies of busy roads.

Breathing easier

Our experience of roadside air quality can be improved in a number of ways.

Obviously, exposure to air pollution is worst at peak traffic times, so plan your travel to avoid these times, if possible.

Pollution levels drop quickly with distance from busy roads and can be at near background levels just one block away. So try to detour along quieter back streets or through parks.

Barriers, such as dense roadside vegetation, can shield pedestrians from pollution. Children in prams are more exposed to traffic pollution than adults, as they are closer to the level of vehicle exhaust pipes. Pram covers can reduce infants’ exposure by up to 39%.

Of course, the best way to reduce air pollution from traffic is to have fewer vehicles on our roads, and cleaner fuel and engines.

In the meantime, we hope our low-cost technology will prompt citizen scientists to develop their own sensors, producing the data we need to breathe easy in city streets.

Read more: Even for an air pollution historian like me, these past weeks have been a shock

– ref. Air quality near busy Australian roads up to 10 times worse than official figures – https://theconversation.com/air-quality-near-busy-australian-roads-up-to-10-times-worse-than-official-figures-137227

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Beattie, Associate Professor of Law and Criminology, CQUniversity Australia

Before we lived with the reality of a global disease outbreak, Pandemic was just the title of a popular series of board games. In the time leading up to the lockdown, game stores noted interest in the Pandemic games had increased.

Games in the series have been regular fixtures in the Amazon board games top ten lists for a decade and Pandemic Legacy Season 1 is second on the BoardGameGeek user rankings. Australian sales have reportedly surged since isolation began.

Why have players turned towards a game about the very thing they are seeking to avoid in real life? Pandemic is providing more than entertainment – helping players think through problems creatively, focus, adapt and reflect on serious issues.

Since ancient times

Ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote the earliest games were created to help people cope with long term woes.

In the reign of Atys the son of Manes their king there came to be a grievous dearth over the whole of Lydia; and the Lydians for a time continued to endure it, but afterwards, as it did not cease, they sought for remedies; and one devised one thing and another of them devised another thing. And then were discovered, they say, the ways of playing with the dice and the knucklebones and the ball … These games they invented as a resource against the famine … on one of the days they would play games all the time in order that they might not feel the want of food, and on the next they ceased from their games and had food: and thus they went on for 18 years.

We invoke this history when we take the benefits of board games seriously and understand the skills they can cultivate.

These benefits can include coping and well-being skills developed from games’ social problem solving experiences. The Victorian government is even interested in looking at how “gamification” can provide specific health gains, for example, using consoles to motivate physical rehabilitation exercises or using games to test kids’ hearing.

Much of the research has focussed on video games such as Minecraft, but the recent rise in popularity of board games means these too deserve closer attention.

Games such as Pandemic have led a resurgence in board gaming as an adult pastime, bolstered by a desire for authentic social experiences, disenchantment with online gaming (and trolls) and the proliferation of board game cafes.

Playing Pandemic

Pandemic was created by Matt Leacock, a former Chicago graphic designer who developed the idea after the SARS epidemic of 2003. The first Pandemic game was published in 2008 and was at the crest of the wave of new board games for adults. It is a game for 2–4 players and can be completed within an hour.

The game creator has said part of the game’s appeal is the way it “offers escalating moments of hope and fear that really draw you and your team in”.

There are no dice involved although there is a randomised deck of cards that models the spread of the viruses across a global map. Significantly it is a cooperative game where the players must work together against the game, to collectively make hard decisions about strategy. Each turn requires an allocation of limited resources – to stop outbreaks, create research centres, research a cure or focus on global mobility.

Though there are no official rules for doing so, some discussion boards outline ways to play Pandemic solo – making it ideal for isolation.

Back in the official version, players take on the roles of different specialists, including the scientist, the medic, the dispatcher and others. Each of these roles provides a specific power that allows them to break the rules of the game in an interesting way, giving each member of the team a distinctive niche, encouraging plenty of replay in order to find out how they all work.

While not the first cooperative game, it led the demand for new non-adversarial games. The popularity also came from the contemporary theme that appeals to a broader audience outside of fandom communities; there are no wizards or spaceships on the box art. Pandemic has been used in training settings and can be a useful way to introduce epidemiology in the classroom and challenge conventional ideas about globalised systems.

Expansion sets (additional cards and components bought separately) add more complexity, new roles and tougher viruses. There are standalone variants that use the game’s escalation models to challenge barbarian hordes attacking ancient Rome, battle rising floodwaters of industrial age Holland and even counter the sinister rise of Cthulhu cultists.

The most significant variant is the Pandemic Legacy games, which takes place in two “seasons” like television drama. Each Legacy season is made up of a series of games where events and consequences carry over to the next. Legacy games involve permanent changes to the board, introduction of new game elements and even asking the players to tear up certain cards.

Why now?

So why, when confronted with the reality of a pandemic would we be reassured by a game that eerily foreshadowed COVID-19? It’s not like the game trivialises the problem. Pandemic presents problems as complex, requiring changing strategies but ultimately presents a solution via cooperation and clever planning.

Playing the game at home might provide a chance at creating order out of a crisis. We can feel reassured wicked problems require evolving strategies, setbacks may be temporary and provide routes to more creative solutions. Games provide a safe environment in which to manage complex systems and deal with ill-defined problems.

The popularity of games such as Pandemic have led to the creation of new games with serious themes and spaces for creative problem solving. The King’s Dilemma explores complex ramifications of political dealmongering. Holding On: the Troubled Life of Billy Kerr looks at palliative care.

Whether we play them as families and roommates, via video conferencing, or tabletop simulators, board games can help us distract ourselves from the isolation of lockdowns and social distancing, but they also have potential to make us think about the challenges our world is facing.

As for Pandemic creator Matt Leacock, he’s working on a possible game about the climate crisis. Stay tuned.

– ref. Playing Pandemic – the hit board game about the very thing we’re trying to avoid – https://theconversation.com/playing-pandemic-the-hit-board-game-about-the-very-thing-were-trying-to-avoid-137009

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Morrison, Associate Professor, Auckland University of Technology

As lockdowns are relaxed around the world and people return to their workplaces, the next challenge will be adapting open office spaces to the new normal of strict personal hygiene and physical distancing.

While the merits and disadvantages of open plan and flexible workspaces have long been debated, the risk they posed of allowing dangerous, highly contagious viruses to spread was rarely (if ever) considered.

But co-working spaces are characterised by shared areas and amenities with surfaces that need constant cleaning. Droplets from a single sneeze can travel over 7 metres, and surfaces within pods or booths, designed for privacy, could remain hazardous for days.

Even in countries such as Australia and New Zealand where efforts to “flatten the curve” have been successful and which have relatively easily controlled borders, it’s fair to ask whether communal workspaces might be a thing of the past.

Perhaps – if vigilant measures are in place – some countries can continue to embrace collaborative, flexible, activity-based workplace designs and the cost savings they represent. But this is unlikely to be the case in general in the coming years. Even if some organisations can operate with minimal risk there will be an expectation they provide virus-free workplaces should there be future outbreaks.

Working from home

Worldwide, there will undoubtedly be fewer people in the office – now workers have tried working from home, they may find they like it. And organisations may have little choice but to limit the numbers of workers on-site. Staggered shifts, enforced flexitime, and 24/7 operations may become the norm, along with working remotely.

The open plan model has been criticised for everything from lowered productivity, less interpersonal interaction, antisocial behaviour, reduced well-being, too much distraction, a lack of privacy, and making workers feel exposed and monitored.

Read more: Get out of my face! We’re more antisocial in a shared office space

But it has also been shown to improve cooperation and communication. Whether these innovative spaces are within a large organisation or are communal workspaces where start-ups, freelancers, and contractors can sit together (such as GridAKL in Auckland or The Commons in Sydney), their popularity is undeniable. The sense of community and the ability to share knowledge and ideas are key attractions of co-working.

Read more: Open plan offices CAN actually work, under certain conditions

Riding the shared/flexi-space wave have been companies such as WeWork – popularising communal tables within co-working hubs and providing “pods” for private conversations. But there is now little doubt WeWork will be an early casualty of COVID-19. Already in financial trouble before the pandemic, WeWork will cut more than 1,000 jobs this month.

But what about the thousands of organisations that retooled their densely populated work environments to encourage flexibility, activity-based work, and movement within and between spaces?

James Muir, CEO of sustainability start-up Crunch and Flourish has no doubt using co-working offices in central Auckland has been a positive: “We benefited from the great community at GridAKL,” he says. “And before long we were collaborating with other start-ups on marketing and design as well as getting great advice from more experienced entrepreneurs.”

Missing social cues online

Those fortuitous conversations and information exchanges will inevitably become rarer as we avoid the risk of interpersonal contact – and they are almost impossible to mimic online. Personal interaction (even within the office) will be replaced with the already familiar virtual video meeting – or even, as TIME magazine reports, holograms and avatars.

Read more: How women’s life-long experiences of being judged by their appearance affect how they feel in open-plan offices

However, communication is more challenging when conducted remotely. We are more persuasive in person, particularly if we know the person. Being on a video call is more draining than a face-to-face chat because workers must concentrate harder to process non-verbal cues such as tone of voice and body language. Anxiety about technology is another barrier, and some find lack of eye contact in virtual meetings (mimicked by staring at the “dot” of your own camera) disquieting.

New norms of hand sanitising, cleaning equipment and wearing masks will emerge. Handshaking or friendly pecks on the cheek may soon be things of the past, as will family photos and mementos on desks, if they prove too difficult to sanitise.

Aside from behaviours, policies, and attitudes, the physical office will need to change. Already, a company in the Netherlands has coined the term the “6 feet office”, aiming to redesign workspaces to help workers maintain social distancing at work.

We may even see the return of the high-walled cubicle, and the introduction of wide corridors and one-way foot traffic, already found in some hospitals. Activity-based work and hot-desks (which oblige people to move throughout the day) could be replaced by assigned desk arrangements where workers sit back to back.

New builds might incorporate touch-free technology such as voice-activated lifts, doors and cabinets, touchless sinks and soap dispensers, improved air venting and UV lights to disinfect surfaces overnight.

In the meantime, will James Muir resume running Crunch and Flourish from his co-working office after the pandemic? “Yes,” he says, “once the risk of any new cases is under control.”

– ref. Goodbye to the crowded office: how coronavirus will change the way we work together – https://theconversation.com/goodbye-to-the-crowded-office-how-coronavirus-will-change-the-way-we-work-together-137382

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sophie Lewis, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW

Many Australians, especially those experiencing financial hardship due to COVID-19, are asking whether they can afford to keep their private health insurance.

Others don’t know if they should drop or downgrade their cover, especially if they cannot or don’t want to access services they’ve paid for.

Now consumer group Choice is recommending people think about dropping extras cover, dropping or downgrading hospital cover and asking their insurance company for hardship considerations, which include waiving premiums or suspending their policy.

What options do you have? And what are the implications of dropping or downgrading your cover?

Read more: Do you really need private health insurance? Here’s what you need to know before deciding

What services can I use?

Our research shows people take out private health insurance because of shorter waiting times for elective surgery, choice of doctor or hospital, access to a private hospital room, and extras like dental and physiotherapy services.

Although some elective surgeries are due to resume this week, it’s unclear how long it will take hospitals to clear the backlog, which surgeries will be performed and where. This raises questions about whether consumers will be able to access the benefits they value in having private health insurance.

Read more: What elective surgery will be allowed now the coronavirus situation has improved? It’s up to your surgeon or hospital

While a key reason for taking out private health insurance is to avoid waiting times, people may now have to wait while hospitals and health care providers resume a staged approach to resuming elective surgery and general treatments impacted by the pandemic.

People may also be worried about whether they will receive the care they need if they have COVID-19. However, they should be assured that emergency treatment will be provided through the public system. Many private health insurance companies will also now cover COVID-19 related treatments.

How are private insurers responding?

Modelling by the Australia Institute shows private health insurers could make considerable savings due to a reduction in claims paid to, or on behalf of, consumers during the pandemic.

This is because services, such as elective surgery, and general treatments, such as dental services, are not available or are limited. And it recommends some of these savings should be passed on to policy holders.

Private health insurance companies have assured consumers that any increase in premiums will be delayed by at least six months.

They have also said that some funds resulting from the cancellation of elective surgery or allied health services will be returned to customers. It isn’t clear, though, how this will be done and over what period.

What options do I have?

It’s not surprising if you’re confused about whether to keep, drop or downgrade your private health insurance.

Our research consistently shows consumers find changing private health cover confusing. Increasing costs of premiums, value for money and difficulties understanding policies are common concerns. People aren’t certain what they need cover for, what is a reasonable price to pay, and how much difference there is between the public and private systems.

Read more: Confused about your private health insurance coverage? You’re not alone

If you are thinking about downgrading your hospital cover or stopping extras cover, think about what services you may need in the future.

Remember that if you downgrade your hospital cover to a lower level of cover some services may be excluded (for instance, pregnancy). If you decide to increase your level of hospital cover in the future you may also need to re-serve waiting periods for those services excluded at the lower level of cover.

If you drop your hospital cover and take it up again in the future, you may pay more due to the Lifetime health cover loading (if you do not take private health insurance up again within 1,094 days of dropping your cover).

Choice is also recommending people drop their extras cover. But your decision about this will depend on the types of services you typically use.

If you decide to drop your extras cover, you may also be required to re-serve waiting periods if you take up extras again in the future.

This means you may need to wait two months for general dental services or physiotherapy, but 12 months for major dental procedures. However these waiting periods vary according to procedure and insurer. So to find out what waiting periods apply, ask your health fund.

If you are experiencing financial hardship you may be able to ask your fund to temporarily waive your premiums or suspend your policy. However, you won’t be covered while your health insurance is suspended.

What happens after the coronavirus?

The pandemic highlights issues with Australia’s health-care system, and how private health insurance operates and is funded.

There has been much critique of government policy encouraging Australians to take out private health insurance, and in particular the subsidising of premiums through the private health insurance rebate.

Read more: Elective surgery’s due to restart next week so now’s the time to fix waiting lists once and for all

At a time when more consumers are experiencing financial hardship they will question the value of their private health insurance even more than before.

There may be other ways of providing health-care, including fixing waiting lists, that meet the needs of all Australians, while retaining the best aspects of both public and private care.

As decisions about whether to change your private health insurance depend on your personal circumstances, please discuss your options and their implications with your health fund or read the fine print on policy documents.

For independent advice and consumer resources, see the government’s private health insurance website, health department website or consumer organisation websites such as Consumers Health Forum of Australia or Choice.

– ref. Should I drop my private health insurance during the pandemic? – https://theconversation.com/should-i-drop-my-private-health-insurance-during-the-pandemic-137156

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Wilkins, Professorial Fellow and Deputy Director (Research), HILDA Survey, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne

JobKeeper is by “no means perfect”. Treasury Secretary Stephen Kennedy used those exact words when he appeared before a Senate committee on COVID-19 on Tuesday, going on to observe that getting it right would “require continuous work”.

We have dug into the JobKeeper numbers to work out how it could be improved.

The Morrison government announced JobKeeper on March 30. For a cost of A$130 billion, employers of eligible workers in eligible businesses will receive a flat $1,500 per fortnight wage subsidy for up to six months, irrespective of the worker’s previous wage.

The most striking insight from those figures is the number of workers that are expected to receive the payment – more than 6.6 million, six out of every ten private sector workers.

It doesn’t quite jell with another number – the number of workers treasury expects JobKeeper to keep in work.

We can get an idea of this from Treasurer Frydenberg’s statement on April 14 that “treasury estimates the unemployment rate would be 5 percentage points higher without JobKeeper.”

The labour force is 13.7 million. Allowing for the fact that some of the workers who lose jobs will withdraw from the labour market and not be counted as unemployed, the implication is that JobKeeper will save, at most, one million jobs.

Payments to 6.6 million, to save 1 million

Put crudely, JobKeeper will go to 6.6 million Australians in order to save the jobs of around one million

Of course, it is also designed to benefit workers who lose hours but are still employed. Taking this into account explains only some of the difference.

Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe expects total hours worked to fall by around 20% over the first half of the year, 2.6 million full time jobs’ worth. That is a long way short of 6.6 million.

Read more: JobKeeper is quick, dirty and effective: there was no time to make it perfect

It isn’t surprising that coverage of JobKeeper is broader than predicted job loss. That was inherent in the design. What is surprising is the size of gap between the predicted number of payments and the predicted number of jobs at risk. This has three important implications.

1. Mutual obligation

If JobKeeper does end up being paid in the name of 6.6 million Australians rather than the one million or so that would need it to stay in work, it will be a substantial subsidy to business. Many businesses will have received $1500 per fortnight for workers they would have kept on anyway.

This can be justified as a means of putting those businesses on a stronger footing to stay afloat during the shutdown and expand when it is over, maintaining high employment into the future. But such support comes with an obligation. Businesses that receive this sort of wage subsidy are implicitly entering into a contract with the community to maintain employment when JobSeeker ends. This commitment should be made explicit.

2. Investigation

The incredibly rapid onset of COVID-19 means the eligibility criteria for JobKeeper are based on changes in monthly revenue. Any other approach would have delayed payments. But using revenue as a trigger provides an incentive for businesses to manipulate month-to-month revenue.

That makes it imperative that JobKeeper scheme is accompanied by substantial monitoring. One way to do it is by cross-referencing claims for JobKeeper with other data on the impact of COVID-19.

As an example, the chart below compares the actual size of falls in employment by industry between mid March and early April with shares of inquiries to the Tax office about JobKeeper by industry. Some industries appear to be outliers – with relatively high shares of inquiries but relatively small job losses.

Job lost versus inquiries about JobKeeper by industry

The chart is rudimentary.

It shows the accommodation and food services industry lost the most jobs, but nowhere near the most inquires about JobKeeper.

The most were in the professional, scientific and technical services industry, which lost nowhere near as many jobs.

As time goes on, it should be possible to monitor claims in ways that are more sophisticated.

3. Scope to extend JobKeeper

Forecasts – even those based on the most relevant and up-to-date information – can be wrong. This isn’t a criticism. Making forecasts is hard.

But it might be that 6.6 million turns out to be an overestimate. If so, it creates an opportunity.

Read more: Why temporary migrants need JobKeeper

It would allow JobKeeper to be extended to some of the workers who at present miss out, among them casual employees in their job for less than 12 months and the temporary visa holders who are currently excluded.

Such a change would be consistent with the stated goal of trying to keep workers connected to their workforce. It will be needed when the crisis is over, and it would be the right thing to do for equity, ensuring there is a safety net for all of us.

The treasury secretary is correct. JobKeeper should be anything but set and forget.

– ref. That estimate of 6.6 million Australians on JobKeeper, it tells us how it can be improved – https://theconversation.com/that-estimate-of-6-6-million-australians-on-jobkeeper-it-tells-us-how-it-can-be-improved-137237

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Labor’s Katy Gallagher is chair of the Senate committee that will assess the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, both its economic and health challenges. It is set for the deep dive, having a final reporting date of mid-2022.

With parliament currently sitting only in fits and starts, Gallagher considers the committee a “key accountability vehicle”.

“We don’t want political grandstanding, we don’t want long winded political arguments, there are other forums for those,” she says.

“We do expect public servants and ministers to attend with information and provide information. I don’t want it to be turned into one of those committees that we see so often where we ask questions and the officials at the table work out how not to answer them”

The committee’s role will be “to explore why decisions were taken and provide that conduit back to the public.”

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– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Katy Gallagher on the Senate’s coronavirus watchdog – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-katy-gallagher-on-the-senates-coronavirus-watchdog-137484

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cris Brack, Associate Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

Are you feeling anxious or irritated during the coronavirus lockdown? Do you constantly want to get up and move? Maybe you need a moment to engage with nature.

Getting into the great outdoors is difficult at right now. But our research soon to be published in Australian Forestry shows you can improve your mood by experiencing nature indoors. This could mean placing few pot plants in the corner of your home office, or even just looking at photos of plants.

Our work adds to a compelling body of research that shows being around nature directly benefits our mental health.

Biophilia

Public gardens and parks, street verges with trees and bushes, and even rooftop gardens bring us a broad range of benefits – boosting physical health, reducing air pollution, and even lowering crime rates.

Read more: Biodiversity and our brains: how ecology and mental health go together in our cities

But inside, in your hastily constructed home office or home school room, you may be unable to take full advantage of urban nature.

Embracing the notion of “biophilia” – the innate human affinity with nature – while locked down inside may improve your productivity and even your health.

The biophilia hypothesis argues modern day humans evolved from hundreds of generations of ancestors whose survival required them to study, understand and rely on nature. So a disconnection from nature today can cause significant issues for humans, such as a decline in psychological health.

In practice at home, connecting with nature might mean having large windows overlooking the garden. You can also improve working conditions by having natural materials in your office or school room, such as wooden furniture, natural stones and pot plants.

Indoor plants

Our research has demonstrated that even a small number of plants hanging in pockets on along a busy corridor provide enough nature to influence our physiological and psychological perceptions.

These plants even caused behavioural differences, where people would change their route through a building to come into contact with the indoor plants.

We surveyed 104 people, and 40% of the respondents reported their mood and emotions improved in the presence of indoor plants.

They felt “relaxed and grounded” and “more interested”. The presence of indoor greenery provides a place to “relax from routine” and it made the space “significantly more pleasant to work in”.

As one person reported:

When I first saw the plants up on the wall brought a smile to my face.

Whenever I walk down the stairs or walk past I mostly always feel compelled to look at the plants on the wall. Not with any anxiety or negative thoughts, rather, at how pleasant and what a great idea it is.

Looking at wildlife photography

Our research also explored whether viewing images, posters or paintings of nature would make a difference.

We photographed the plants from viewpoints similar to those the corridor users experienced. Survey responses from those who only viewed these digital images were almost the same as those who experienced them in real life.

While we can’t say for sure, we can hypothesise that given the importance of vision in modern humans, an image that “looks” like nature might be enough to trigger a biophilic response.

Read more: We know contact with nature makes you feel better. Can virtual contact do the same?

However, physically being in the presence of plants did have some stronger behavioural effects. For example corridor users wanted to linger longer looking at the plants than those who viewed the photographs, and were more likely to want to visit the plants again. Maybe the other senses – touch, smell, even sound – created a stronger biophilic response than just sight alone.

So the good news is if you can’t get to a nursery – or if you have a serious inability to keep plants alive – you can still benefit from looking at photographs of them.

If you haven’t been taking your own photos, search the plethora of images from wildlife photographers such as Doug Gimesy, Frans Lanting and Tanya Stollznow.

Or check out live camera feeds of a wide range of environments, and travel to far-flung places without leaving the safety of home.

While we haven’t tested the mood-boosting effects of live videos, we hypothesise their physiological and psychological effects will be no different than digital photographs.

Here are seven places to help you get started.

• The Bush Blitz citizen science app launched a new online tool today. The species recovery program encourages children to explore their backyard to identify different species.

• “From the bottom of the sea direct to your screen”: watch this underwater live stream of Victoria’s rocky reef off Port Phillip Bay

• The Coastal Watch website offers live camera feeds on beaches around Australia.

• Watch the running water, trees and occasional fauna in California’s Redwood Forest River.

• In pastoral Australia, go on a four-hour drive through the country side along tree-lined roads.

• Zoos Victoria has set up live cameras that show its animals in natural (and nature-like) environments from Melbourne Zoo and Werribee Open Range Zoo.

• Yellowstone National Park may be closed right now, but webcams are stationed in various locations throughout the park.

Read more: The science is in: gardening is good for you

– ref. Can’t go outside? Even seeing nature on a screen can improve your mood – https://theconversation.com/cant-go-outside-even-seeing-nature-on-a-screen-can-improve-your-mood-135320

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gorica Micic, Postdoctoral research fellow, Flinders University

I am wondering why people can’t hear when they are asleep? – Joanna

This is a fantastic question, Joanna!

During sleep, our body can decide to ignore sounds, movements and smells happening around us which might otherwise wake us.

This decision-making mostly happens in our brain.

Although our ears continue to work as usual, our brain acts as a filter and decides whether we should respond to the sound and wake up or continue sleeping.

Read more: Curious Kids: why don’t people fall out of bed when they are sleeping?

If we wake up, then we can form a memory of having heard the sound, but if we don’t wake up then it’s as though we didn’t hear anything.

This is an extraordinary tool as it protects our sleep so we don’t wake up to everything happening while we sleep.

But it also doesn’t completely shut us off from the outside world which would be terrible for our survival.

Our brain responds to loud sounds

Louder sounds are more likely to wake us up than quieter sounds.

For example, a loud bang from someone dropping something in the middle of the night is likely to startle and wake us.

But we’ll probably sleep through the sound of a mosquito quietly buzzing nearby.

The type of sound matters too

Sounds that are either unusual or important to us are also more likely to wake us.

Our brain interprets unusual sounds as a threat and alerts us to that danger. This allows us to decide if we need to protect ourselves or run away if necessary.

Just imagine how useful and protective this would have been for our ancestors who likely slept in the wild surrounded by dangerous predators, such as lions and tigers!

Read more: Curious Kids: What happens in our bodies when we sleep?

Luckily, we don’t have to worry about sabre-toothed cats anymore, but it’s still useful to be aware of loud bangs or strange noises while we sleep so we or parents can respond.

Our brain is also more likely to wake us to sounds it considers important like our name.

We will more readily wake when our name is called compared to someone else’s name being called out.

What about depth of sleep?

When we sleep we go through cycles consisting of light and deep stages of sleep.

We have about five to six sleep cycles each night, depending on how long we sleep.

During light sleep you will be woken more easily than during deep sleep.

Read more: Curious Kids: why are some people affected by sleep paralysis?

We have more deep sleep in the first half of the night and more light sleep in the second half of the night.

This means that the sound of a crowing rooster that instantly woke us at the break of dawn, may have have been ignored by our brains early in our sleep period.

Everyone’s different

Finally, people have very different sensitivity levels toward sounds.

Background chatter in your house while you are napping might not wake you if you’re not sensitive to noise.

Read more: Curious Kids: Why do we always fall asleep in cars?

However, someone who is very sensitive to noise might find it unbearable to keep sleeping in this noisy environment.

If we are more sensitive to sounds, then our brain is more likely to make the decision to wake us.

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

– ref. Curious Kids: why can’t people hear in their sleep? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-cant-people-hear-in-their-sleep-132441

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Education Policy Lead, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

Several Australian universities (Australian National University, Swinburne and the University of Western Australia) have announced they will accept students based on their year 11 results.

The rationale is that the disrupted 2020 year will affect year 12 results. So, it’s fairer to use their results from last year.

It’s clear finishing school in the midst of a global pandemic is tough. Students are facing escalating pressure from learning online and loss of vital connections to peers, extended family and the community.

Rates of mental health issues and self-harm among Australian young people have risen over the last decade. Easing the pressures they face is a priority.

But universities accepting students based on year 11 scores is only a small response in a world experiencing enormous changes.

Is using year 11 results a good thing?

The Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR) is a rank used by universities to select which students, out of high school, will be offered a place in a particular course. It represents the Holy Grail of school achievement for many Australian students and schools.

Its importance is reinforced by media reports of ATAR excellence each December. The decision to use year 11 results will likely be welcomed by many students concerned their ATAR is in jeopardy.

Some students have argued using year 11 results is unfair or flawed, as some students may have eased off in year 11 and planned to put in the extra effort to recover in year 12. But using year 11 results is unlikely to damage these students’ chances.

That’s because ATAR scores are strongly correlated with earlier school achievement, which means high achievers are unlikely to lose their position in the race.

Importantly, using year 11 results will go some way towards reducing the effects of the ‘”digital divide“ on student learning. Students with limited access to technology, or from less wealthy schools with fewer resources to cope with the sudden adaptation to online learning, will be further disadvantaged in the Class of 2020.

Read more: Schools are moving online, but not all children start out digitally equal

One downside is the potential for confusion for students who have been assured by education minister Dan Tehan that they will still receive an ATAR in 2020, with appropriate adjustments.

It’s not yet clear what these adjustments will be, and state differences in senior secondary assessments complicate matters further.

What else do students need?

Even before COVID-19, only around one-quarter of students entered Australian universities based on their ATAR.

Universities already offer a range of other entry pathways including interviews, preparation tests, portfolios, recognition of knowledge from paid or voluntary work, or pathways through vocational education and training to gain credit for university entry.

Read more: Don’t stress, your ATAR isn’t the final call. There are many ways to get into university

The post-COVID-19 tertiary education landscape will be a buyers’ market, as universities compete for students in a less globally mobile world.

Australian universities are experiencing massive drops in their numbers of international students. This means the university sector will be experiencing estimated losses of up to A$19 billion. A logical policy response would be to enable universities to open up access for domestic students to make up some of the shortfall.

So, the biggest question may be how to create fair entry pathways into tertiary education for the surge in participation the sector will need to survive – not how to cobble together fair ATAR scores for the relatively small proportion of university students who use it for an entry pathway.

Success at university does not depend on a high ATAR. This is especially so in courses like teaching and nursing where interpersonal skills and attitudes matter even more.

Calls to ditch the ATAR “straitjacket” and develop alternative assessments like learner profiles (student records that include academic and other learning) existed before COVID-19. Such calls are intensifying in the current environment.

This may be the perfect opportunity to rethink the ATAR as the main entry assessment for school leavers into university.

Not everyone goes to university

The preoccupation with ATAR scores ignores around half of school leavers who aren’t bound for university. Many of these students head to TAFE or other vocational education and training (VET) courses, which depend more on practical skills than academic achievement.

The COVID-19 crisis has reinforced the importance of practical, hands-on skills in the Australian economy. Many people in the occupations that have kept Australia going during the crisis – including nurses, aged care workers, early childhood educators and freight and logistics workers – have VET qualifications.

COVID-19 may have an even bigger impact on students in the Class of 2020 who prefer practical skills to academic subjects as students doing VET subjects are missing out on hands-on learning. Meanwhile, young aspiring apprentices are struggling to find work, as job adverts for new apprenticeships collapse.

Read more: Trade apprentices will help our post COVID-19 recovery. We need to do more to keep them in work

Australia is notoriously bad at recognising the value of learning that does not lead to university. There is a risk these students will again be forgotten in the current focus on ATAR.

While university-bound students might begin to breathe a sigh of relief, many more are still waiting for solutions that keep their year 12 dreams alive.

– ref. How will the class of COVID-19 get into university? Using year 11 results is only part of the answer – https://theconversation.com/how-will-the-class-of-covid-19-get-into-university-using-year-11-results-is-only-part-of-the-answer-137158

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lotti Tajouri, Associate Professor, Biomedical Sciences, Bond University

There are billions of mobile phones in use around the globe. They are present on every single continent, in every single country and in every single city.

We reviewed the research on how mobile phones carry infectious pathogens such as bacteria and viruses, and we believe they are likely to be “Trojan horses” that contribute to community transmission in epidemics and pandemics.

This transfer of pathogens on mobile phones poses a serious health concern. The risk is that infectious pathogens may be spreading via phones within the community, in workplaces including medical and food-handling settings, and in public transport, cruise ships and aeroplanes.

Currently mobile phones are largely neglected from a biosecurity perspective, but they are likely to assist the spread of viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more: We know how long coronavirus survives on surfaces. Here’s what it means for handling money, food and more

What the research shows

We reviewed all the studies we could find in peer-reviewed journals that analysed microbes found on mobile phones. Our conclusions are published in the Journal of Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease.

There were 56 studies that met our criteria, conducted in 24 countries around the world between 2005 and 2019.

Most of the studies looked at bacteria found on phones, and several also looked at fungi. Overall, the studies found an average of 68% of mobile phones were contaminated. This number is likely to be lower than the real value, as most of the studies aimed to identify only bacteria and, in many cases, only specific types of bacteria.

The studies were all completed before the advent of SARS-CoV-2, so none of them could test for it. Testing for viruses is laborious, and we could find only one study that did test for them (specifically for RNA viruses, a group that includes SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses).

Some studies compared the phones of healthcare workers and those of the general public. They found no significant differences between levels of contamination.

What this means for health and biosecurity

Contaminated mobile phones pose a real biosecurity risk, allowing pathogens to cross borders easily.

Viruses can live on surfaces from hours to days to weeks. If a person is infected with SARS-CoV-2, it is very likely their mobile phone will be contaminated. The virus may then spread from the phone to further individuals by direct or indirect contact.

Mobile phones and other touchscreen systems – such as at airport check-in counters and in-flight entertainment screens – may have contributed to the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the globe.

Why phones are so often contaminated

Phones are almost ideal carriers of disease. We speak into them regularly, depositing microbes via droplets. We often have them with us while we eat, leading to the deposit of nutrients that help microbes thrive. Many people use them in bathrooms and on the toilet, leading to faecal contamination via the plume effect.

And although phones are exposed to microbes, most of us carry them almost everywhere: at home, at work, while shopping, on holidays. They often provide a temperature-controlled environment that helps pathogens survive, as they are carried in pockets or handbags and are rarely switched off.

On top of this, we rarely clean or disinfect them. Our (unpublished) data suggests almost three-quarters of people have never cleaned their phone at all.

Read more: How to clean your house to prevent the spread of coronavirus and other infections

What this means: clean your phone

While government agencies are providing guidelines on the core practices for effective hand hygiene, there is little focus on practices associated with the use of mobile phones or other touch screen devices.

People touch their mobile phones on average for three hours every day, with super-users touching phones more than 5,000 times a day. Unlike hands, mobile devices are not regularly washed.

We advise public health authorities to implement public awareness campaigns and other appropriate measures to encourage disinfection for mobile phones and other touch screen devices. Without this effort, the global public health campaign for hand washing could be less effective.

Our recommendation is that mobile phones and other touch screen devices should be decontaminated daily, using a 70% isopropyl alcohol spray or other disinfection method.

These decontamination processes should be enforced especially in key servicing industries, such as in food-handling businesses, schools, bars, cafes, aged-care facilities, cruise ships, airlines and airports, healthcare. We should do this all the time, but particularly during a serious disease outbreak like the current COVID-19 pandemic.

– ref. Mobile phones are covered in germs. Disinfecting them daily could help stop diseases spreading – https://theconversation.com/mobile-phones-are-covered-in-germs-disinfecting-them-daily-could-help-stop-diseases-spreading-135318

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sebastian Leuzinger, Professor, Auckland University of Technology

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz

If carbon dioxide levels were to double, how much increase in plant growth would this cause? How much of the world’s deserts would disappear due to plants’ increased drought tolerance in a high carbon dioxide environment?

Compared to pre-industrial levels, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere will have doubled in about 20 to 30 years, depending on how much CO₂ we emit over the coming years. More CO₂ generally leads to higher rates of photosynthesis and less water consumption in plants.

At first sight, it seems more CO₂ can only be beneficial to plants, but things are a lot more complex than that.

Read more: Climate explained: why plants don’t simply grow faster with more carbon dioxide in air

Let’s look at the first part of the question.

Some plants do grow faster under elevated levels of atmospheric CO₂, but this happens mostly in crops and young trees, and generally not in mature forests.

Even if plants grew twice as fast under doubled CO₂ levels, it would not mean they strip twice as much CO₂ from the atmosphere. Plants take carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, but that carbon is going straight back via natural decomposition when plants die or when they are harvested and consumed.

At best, you might be mowing your lawn twice as often or harvesting your plantation forests earlier.

The most important aspect is how long the carbon stays locked away from the atmosphere – and this is where we have to make a clear distinction between increased carbon flux (faster growth) or an increasing carbon pool (actual carbon sequestration). Your bank account is a useful analogy to illustrate this difference: fluxes are transfers, pools are balances.

Read more: Climate explained: why your backyard lawn doesn’t help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

The global carbon budget

Of the almost 10 billion tonnes (gigatonnes, or Gt) of carbon we emit every year through the burning of fossil fuels, only about half accumulates in the atmosphere. Around a quarter ends up in the ocean (about 2.4 Gt), and the remainder (about 3 Gt) is thought to be taken up by terrestrial plants.

While the ocean and the atmospheric sinks are relatively easy to quantify, the terrestrial sink isn’t. In fact, the 3 Gt can be thought of more as an unaccounted residual. Ultimately, the emitted carbon needs to go somewhere, and if it isn’t the ocean or the atmosphere, it must be the land.

So yes, the terrestrial system takes up a substantial proportion of the carbon we emit, but the attribution of this sink to elevated levels of CO₂ is difficult. This is because many other factors may contribute to the land carbon sink: rising temperature, increased use of fertilisers and atmospheric nitrogen deposition, changed land management (including land abandonment), and changes in species composition.

Current estimates assign about a quarter of this land sink to elevated levels of CO₂, but estimates are very uncertain.

In summary, rising CO₂ leads to faster plant growth – sometimes. And this increased growth only partly contributes to sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. The important questions are how long this carbon is locked away from the atmosphere, and how much longer the currently observed land sink will continue.

Read more: Climate explained: how different crops or trees help strip carbon dioxide from the air

The second part of the question refers to a side-effect of rising levels of CO₂ in the air: the fact that it enables plants to save water.

Plants regulate the exchange of carbon dioxide and water vapour by opening or closing small pores, called stomata, on the surface of their leaves. Under higher concentrations of CO₂, they can reduce the opening of these pores, and that in turn means they lose less water.

This alleviates drought stress in already dry areas. But again, the issue is more complex because CO₂ is not the only parameter that changes. Dry areas also get warmer, which means that more water evaporates and this often compensates for the water-saving effect.

Overall, rising CO₂ has contributed to some degree to the greening of Earth, but it is likely that this trend will not continue under the much more complex combination of global change drivers, particularly in arid regions.

– ref. Climate explained: why higher carbon dioxide levels aren’t good news, even if some plants grow faster – https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-higher-carbon-dioxide-levels-arent-good-news-even-if-some-plants-grow-faster-137235

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Nugent, Co-Director, Australian Centre for Indigenous History, Australian National University

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.

In 1970, the bicentenary of the Endeavour’s voyage along the east coast of Australia contributed to a renaissance of storytelling about Captain James Cook.

While government-sponsored commemorations celebrated Cook as an Enlightenment explorer and national founder, Aboriginal people provided their own viewpoints on Cook and his legacy.

During this commemorative period, Indigenous stories about Cook were recorded in the Kimberley region, Arnhem Land and the Wave Hill region in the Northern Territory, along with places on the Queensland coast.

Coinciding with an emerging national movement for Indigenous land rights, these renditions of Cook provided radically different accounts of colonisation and its enduring structures and effects.

These stories questioned the settler mythologising that rendered Cook’s actions as heroic, benign or of historical interest only. And they politicised in unprecedented ways the figure of Cook and the longstanding traditions around the ways Australians remember and celebrate him.

In time, these alternative accounts transformed the ways we understand Cook in Australia – both his own time here in 1770, as well as the cultural production of him as a historical figure in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The stories told by Hobbles Danaiyarri

I began thinking quite differently about my own research on Cook’s encounters at Botany Bay in 1770 after reading the stories told by Hobbles Danaiyarri, a senior Aboriginal lawman and knowledge holder, to the ethnographer Deborah Bird Rose.

Danaiyarri considered Bird Rose a consummate listener, faithful recorder, intelligent interlocutor, incisive interpreter and generous executor. And as Bird Rose later recounted, almost from the moment she arrived to do anthropological fieldwork at Yarralin in the Northern Territory in 1980,

Hobbles had been telling me about Captain Cook and the hidden history of the north.

For nearly three decades, she wrote about the gifts of knowledge – and ways of knowing – he shared with her. Danaiyarri’s spoken-word poetic history – which focused quite extensively on Cook – is one of the great pieces of Australian literature, yet it is still not as widely known as it should be.

The power of a greeting

There’s one section in Danaiyarri’s epic narrative – or saga, as Bird Rose calls it – in which he describes Cook’s failure to say “hello” to the people whose territory he had entered on the east coast. He explains:

[Cook] should have asked him – one of these boss for Sydney – Aboriginal people. People were up there, Aboriginal people. He should have come up and: ‘hello’, you know, ‘hello’. Now, asking him for his place, to come through, because [it’s] Aboriginal land. Because Captain Cook didn’t give him a fair go – to tell him ‘good day’, or ‘hello’, you know.

This sharp accusation that Cook’s monumental failing during his initial trespass into Aboriginal territory was “not saying hello” – rather than, for instance, opening fire – draws attention to the social and cultural expectations, values and dynamics that should have governed such an event.

Danaiyarri’s account peeled back the curtain to show us how this first encounter might have looked from “the other side of the beach”.

Until this time, such critical Indigenous knowledge had not penetrated the vast amount of settler storytelling devoted to Cook’s first landing on the shores of Botany Bay.

The stories we inherited of this episode had cast the Aboriginal people Cook encountered as either ferocious warriors or pathetic cowards. They were not properly seen as bosses for the country, who would expect a stranger to recognise them in that way and act accordingly.

Without acknowledgement of that fundamental principle, our interpretations of Cook’s landing were lacking a full understanding of this moment, specifically what motivated the local people’s responses to his forceful entry onto their land.

Read more: Captain Cook wanted to introduce British justice to Indigenous people. Instead, he became increasingly cruel and violent

Responding to the crew’s presence

What does it mean to accuse Cook of failing to say hello? Why was this such a blunder and what were the implications of this impolite behaviour?

Curious about the implications of what Danaiyarri said, Bird Rose asked Yarralin people what would have happened if Cook had asked properly to enter the local people’s land. She explained,

I was told that either he would have been denied permission and therefore would have gone way, or he would have been allowed to stay but only on terms decided by the owners of the country.

Cook was in Botany Bay for eight days, and throughout that time, the local people sought to impose the terms on which the crew stayed.

They kept their distance from the strangers and never opened up direct communication with them. But they also did not abandon the country to Cook’s crew. Rather, they orchestrated as best they could the crew’s presence – keeping them contained within a limited space.

They behaved, as Danaiyarri would put it, as bosses should.

Understanding why the ‘beach’ is so important

One of the marketing slogans for this year’s (now suspended) 250th anniversary of Cook’s voyage along the east coast was

the view from the ship and the view from the shore.

While it implies equal weighting would be given to understanding both sides of the story of Cook’s landing, it’s a wrong-headed idea. It suggests each party remained – and can remain still – suspended in their own separate worlds: on the ship or on the shore.

Missing from the tagline is the “beach” – the literal and metaphorical space where cross-cultural encounters, misunderstandings and, too often, violence has taken place.

As Danaiyarri reminds us, Cook did come ashore and the way he did set some of the terms for future colonial-Indigenous relations.

These encounters are challenging and complex to understand. Aboriginal stories, like those told by Danaiyarri, tell us what ought to have happened on the beach. And they ensure none of us forget where, how and why the troubles between Indigenous and other Australians began.

This year’s 250th commemoration provides yet another occasion to grapple with this difficult history – but the opportunity will be lost if we remain blinkered in seeing things only from one, or other, vantage point.

– ref. A failure to say hello: how Captain Cook blundered his first impression with Indigenous people – https://theconversation.com/a-failure-to-say-hello-how-captain-cook-blundered-his-first-impression-with-indigenous-people-126673

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners should be aware the podcast accompanying this story contains the names of people who are deceased.

It’s 250 years since Captain James Cook set foot in Australia, and there’s a growing push to fully acknowledge the violence of Australia’s colonial past.

On today’s episode of the podcast, historian Kate Darian-Smith of the University of Tasmania explains that the way Australia has commemorated Cook’s arrival has changed over time – from military displays in 1870 to waning interest in Cook in the 1950s, followed by the fever-pitch celebrations of 1970.

Now, though, a more nuanced debate is required, she says, adding that it’s time to discuss the violence that Cook’s crew meted out to Indigenous people after stepping ashore at Botany Bay.

“I think discussing those violent moments is quite confronting for many Australians, but also sits within wider discussions about Aboriginal rights and equality in today’s Australia,” Darian-Smith told The Conversation’s Phoebe Roth.

In her companion essay here, co-authored with Katrina Schlunke, Darian-Smith argues many of the popular “re-enactments” of national “foundation moments” in Australia’s past have elements of fantasy, compressing time and history into palatable narratives for mainstream Australia.

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Additional audio credits

Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks.

Podcast episode recorded by Phoebe Roth and edited by Sophia Morris.

Tasfilm report on the 1970 commemorations of Cook’s arrival.

1970 news report of protest.

Lead image

David Crosling/AAP

Read more: As we celebrate the rediscovery of the Endeavour let’s acknowledge its complicated legacy

– ref. 250 years since Captain Cook landed in Australia, it’s time to acknowledge the violence of first encounters – https://theconversation.com/250-years-since-captain-cook-landed-in-australia-its-time-to-acknowledge-the-violence-of-first-encounters-132098

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter N. Meihana, Lecturer, Massey University

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

Commemorations of Captain James Cook’s 1769/70 Pacific voyage began late last year in New Zealand, marking the first encounters between Māori and Cook’s crew 250 years ago.

A flotilla of traditional twin-hulled ocean voyaging vessels and tall ships, including a replica of Cook’s Endeavour, sailed along the coast for more than two months as part of Tuia 250, a government-sponsored series of events framed around New Zealand’s voyaging heritage.

The events have polarised many communities. Māori in several areas protested, while others took part enthusiastically. The community to which I belong – Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne and Ngāti Apa – made up the latter.

For us, Tuia 250 was about many things, but least of all about James Cook. We inverted the “Cookfest” in the same way our ancestors took European technologies and put them to customary use.

Insight into our world

My ancestors were present in Tōtaranui/Queen Charlotte Sound, at the top of the South Island, when James Cook arrived in 1770. Fifty years later, the area was invaded by tribes from the north, armed with muskets.

The inter-tribal conflicts that occurred in New Zealand during the 1820s and 1830s are known as the “musket wars”. While the weapon technology was new, the causes for conflict between tribes were customary and many were settled in accordance with custom, primarily through marriage.

Read more: Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi

The musket wars led up to 1840, the year tribal chiefs and representatives of the Crown signed the Treaty of Waitangi. By then, the geo-political situation in the northern South Island was quite different from 1770.

I mention these events – Cook’s expeditions, the musket wars and the treaty – because they have framed our historical experience and influence our contemporary response. When the government announced its plans for Tuia 250, we saw an opportunity to revisit the past, re-imagining it in order to create a new reality in the present.

We knew that our ancestors had met Cook, but more importantly, they had established a relationship with Tupaia, the Ra’iātean navigator who had joined the expedition in Tahiti. The intensity of that relationship is reflected in the lament composed by our ancestors when they heard of Tupaia’s death.

Custom goes to court

The muskets wars certainly influenced the history of the northern South Island. From that point on the area was occupied by new tribes whose “take whenua” (occupation rights) were based on “raupatu” (conquest). But my tribal community soon faced a far more formidable opponent – the Crown and British settlers.

Following the signing of the treaty, the Crown imposed its native policy. Fundamentally this meant relieving Māori of their “idle” lands. Through the Native Land Court system, judges were asked to determine who held rights to certain areas according to native custom. Despite having heard evidence from my tribes, the court decided that they had been conquered and had therefore lost their rights to land they claimed through “take tupuna” (ancestry).

These issues were revisited 110 years later. The Waitangi Tribunal, a specialist commission of inquiry, found that Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne and Ngāti Apa had retained rights following the invasion and that the Crown had failed them. The Crown subsequently apologised and compensated the tribes in 2014.

All of these factors influenced why and how my tribes engaged with Tuia 250. The fact that the flotilla included voyagers from East Polynesia reminded us of the relationship our ancestors forged with Tupaia 250 years earlier. Cultural imperatives demanded that our guests be received in an appropriate manner.

Pragmatic solutions

The events following Cook’s arrival and the musket wars were significant but did not constrain the aspirations of coming generations. The boundaries that were later imposed on us through Crown policy were both artificial and ultimately temporary.

Few people had the opportunity to witness the pōhiri (traditional welcome) for the flotilla at Meretoto/Ships Cove in Queen Charlotte Sound last November. It was an interesting example of custom whereby tribal leaders worked to accommodate each other’s cultural practices.

Despite a history of conflict and ongoing disputes, the pōhiri demonstrated that Māori are also pragmatic and search for solutions that maintain the mana (status, authority) of all – at least on this occasion.

Tuia 250 also showed that Māori history continues to unfold, both in relation to the Pākehā (non-Maori) world, and independent of it. With the government’s recent announcement that New Zealand history will be made compulsory in schools, it will be interesting to see how these diverse realities are incorporated into the curriculum.

Read more: Why it’s time for New Zealanders to learn more about their own country’s history

Another theme of Tuia 250 is the notion of shared futures. The rekindling of a relationship that began 250 years ago was strengthened through the retelling of oral traditions, and the creation of new ones. This was a reminder that we are a Pacific island nation and our shared future is here, not in London or Whitby.

– ref. My ancestors met Cook in Aotearoa 250 years ago. For us, it’s time to reinterpret a painful history – https://theconversation.com/my-ancestors-met-cook-in-aotearoa-250-years-ago-for-us-its-time-to-reinterpret-a-painful-history-128771

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Gascoigne, Emeritus Professor, UNSW

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here, and an interactive here.

After Captain Cook’s Endeavour voyage in 1770, the east coast of Australia was drawn on European maps of the globe for the first time. Yet, in terms of European contact with the continent, there was an 18-year lull in between Cook’s 1770 landings and the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.

The main reason for this was Britain’s preoccupation with subduing its rebellious colonists in the War of American Independence from 1776-83.

Britain’s defeat in that war brought forth an urgent problem that eventually led to the colonisation of Australia: what it saw as a need to dispose of convicts who were overflowing the available prisons at home.

Previously, many British convicts were transported to the American colonies but after independence this option was no longer available.

The next penal colony: let the search begin

Discussions about alternative penal colonies meshed with Britain’s larger strategic and commercial goals at the time. Many hoped a new convict settlement would provide a base for extending British power in the wake of the American debacle and be “advantageous both to navigation and commerce”.

The search began in 1779 when the House of Commons established a committee under the chairmanship of British politician Sir Charles Bunbury. Various locations were considered, in particular, Senegal and Gambia on the west African coast.

But a new destination soon emerged with the testimony of Joseph Banks, the botanist on board the Endeavour, who had recently been elected president of the Royal Society. Botany Bay on the Australian coast, he contended, would be the best site for a penal colony since it had a Mediterranean climate and would be fertile. Banks added, too, that

there would be little Probability of any Opposition from the Natives

It was a prediction that would ultimately prove incorrect.

Why Botany Bay?

The search for a penal settlement lost momentum during the war, but regained some sense of urgency with its end in 1783.

James Matra, an American-born seaman aboard the Endeavour, circulated a proposal among policy-makers about establishing a new settlement at Botany Bay. It was based on his own first-hand knowledge of the coast, as well as his discussions with Banks, who remained the most influential advocate for the site.

Matra’s most immediate concern was to provide a home for the American loyalists – those, like his own family, who had lost their property in the new United States because of their loyalty to the British crown during the war.

Matra’s proposal also appealed to some key strategic and commercial concerns:

• flax and timbers could be brought from New Zealand to grow in the new colony, providing the British navy with much-needed supplies;

• the planting of spices and sugarcane would reduce Britain’s reliance on the Dutch East Indies;

• the site could be used as a base for those engaged in the lucrative fur trade in America; and

• the settlement could act as a strategic base to challenge the Dutch in the East Indies and the Spanish in the Philippines and even South America.

Another serious contender emerges

After Matra submitted his proposal, another House of Commons committee was established in 1785, chaired by Lord Beauchamp. Both Matra and Banks gave evidence in favour of Botany Bay, with Banks arguing,

from the fertility of the soil, the timid disposition of the inhabitants and the climate being so analogous to that of Europe I give the place the preference to all that I have seen

The committee, however, opted for an African site. It believed Das Voltas Bay, in southwest Africa, could reduce British dependence on the Dutch Cape of Good Hope in what is now South Africa and serve as a refuge for the American loyalists.

Before venturing down the path of establishing a colony, however, an exploratory voyage was sent to the African coast. It concluded the site was unsuitable as it lacked an effective harbour and fertile land.

Botany Bay was back in serious contention.

Dreams of Pacific trade

Other supporters soon emerged to sing the praises of Botany Bay.

Sir George Young, a naval officer and former East India Company officer, argued a colony at the site could serve as a base for trade with South America and underlined its strategic importance. If war broke out with Spain in the region, Botany Bay could be a place of refuge for British naval vessels.

Another advocate, John Call, an engineer with the East India Company, saw the advantages of a secondary settlement on nearby Norfolk Island. Flax grew in abundance on the island, he said, and the mighty Norfolk pine tree would be ideal for the masts of ships.

Read more: Terra nullius interruptus: Captain James Cook and absent presence in First Nations art

These observations were based on reports from Cook’s second and third Pacific voyages. The second included a visit to Norfolk Island, while the third ventured to the northwestern coast of America and traded furs in China, further fuelling British aspirations for Pacific trade.

Such arguments eventually led Prime Minister William Pitt and his Cabinet to accept the proposal to establish the settlement at Botany Bay.

A costly endeavour

Such a settlement demanded an unprecedented degree of state planning and financing.

The First Fleet, for example, consisted of 11 ships (no larger than the Manly ferry) that carried, among other things, a supply of seeds from Banks to help establish a “new Europe” on the other side of the Earth.

The convicts sent to New South Wales also incurred considerable state expense compared to those sent to America. From 1788-89, the new colony accumulated expenses of over 250,000 pounds, which equated to 100 pounds per convict per annum.

Read more: Cooking the books: how re-enactments of the Endeavour’s voyage perpetuate myths of Australia’s ‘discovery’

The fact it cost considerably more to transport a convict to New South Wales than to keep him or her in a British jail supported the view held by some in England that the penal colony was a subterfuge for broader strategic goals.

Rival nations also thought the British were trying to deceive them. Alejandro Malaspina, who captained a Spanish expedition that visited Sydney in 1793, thought the settlement could be a potential naval base for an attack on Spanish America.

A repository for convicts

And yet, in the end, the settlement at New South Wales did little to advance British strategic goals.

The site lacked a naval base and its defences were so weak, François Péron, a naturalist aboard the French Baudin expedition that circumnavigated much of Australia from 1801-03, thought it could be easily captured.

In fact, no naval expedition was mounted from New South Wales during the Napoleonic wars of 1803-15. Nor did New South Wales live up to the commercial benefits some had invested in it. Tropical fruits and spices would not grow in Sydney, and Norfolk Island proved a disappointment as a source for naval supplies.

The American loyalists also chose to resettle in nearby Canada instead of distant New South Wales.

But New South Wales proved to cater to the most immediate reason for British settlement: a repository for convicts.

– ref. From Captain Cook to the First Fleet: how Botany Bay was chosen over Africa as a new British penal colony – https://theconversation.com/from-captain-cook-to-the-first-fleet-how-botany-bay-was-chosen-over-africa-as-a-new-british-penal-colony-128002

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Bishop, Associate Lecturer, Macquarie University

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

The Australian government has allocated tens of millions of dollars to commemorate the anniversary of Cook’s voyage to the South Pacific and Australia in 1770. Though several events have now been suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, others will take place online.

This could also be an opportunity for teachers to disrupt the same white-washed versions of colonisation (brave, heroic and necessary) taught in Australian schools for centuries.

Read more: Captain Cook ‘discovered’ Australia, and other myths from old school text books

There is a plethora of education policy mandating teachers incorporate Indigenous perspectives across year levels and subject areas. But in practice, this is much harder to do without Indigenous perspectives becoming trivialised or tokenistic.

Policy isn’t enough

Many teachers don’t feel confident or capable to include Indigenous perspectives in their classrooms.

In our recent study in a cluster of primary and secondary schools, teachers were paired with Aboriginal community members to plan and deliver lessons. Initially, teachers reported feeling ill-equipped to genuinely include an Aboriginal perspective.

One teacher said:

I’ve always felt that I wasn’t very good at embedding Aboriginal perspectives in my lessons. It was always, for me, seen as a tick-box, and I spoke about Dreamtime, I ticked a box, and that’s it[…] you didn’t want to step on any toes, and you didn’t want to offend anyone, so you just touched – you just skimmed the surface.

Teachers involved in the project had the best of intentions and a fierce willingness to learn. Some had been teaching for more than 20 years and openly admitted their ignorance towards Indigenous dispossession and the way schooling was used as a vehicle of colonisation.

Another teacher expressed the problem of not having adequate skills to teach Indigenous perspectives:

I’m blatantly aware how Anglo the room looks. But I guess I don’t want to do something that is tokenistic […] I don’t agree with tokenistic things. I think you’ve got to do it and do it well and I think to just have an Aboriginal flag in the corner, oh and now we’re going to do dot painting and, oh, right, now we’re going to do – you know? It’s kind of a bit insulting, really.

Without Indigenous perspectives in the classroom, or with only tokenistic inclusion, students’ views on Aboriginal peoples, colonialism and “Australian history” are more susceptible to negative media and social attitudes.

This leaves many non-Indigenous students ill-equipped to think critically about the world they live in.

As one teacher said:

If at school we teach it as tokenistic and then the media teaches it as, you know, stereotypical, then how are we going to produce the next generation of people that will work towards reconciliation and recognise the things of the past but move forward without these stereotypes, you know?

Read more: Captain Cook ‘discovered’ Australia, and other myths from old school text books

I’m just following the syllabus

Some teachers feel protective of the formal curriculum. In this instance, Indigenous perspectives become a tick-the-box policy, something to add into the lesson, but not so much that it interferes with the “real” learning outcomes.

But what are these “real outcomes”?

In the NSW curriculum, the stage two (years three and four) unit “First Contacts”, provides the earliest comprehensive glimpse of world exploration and the colonisation of Australia. The key questions for inquiry include:

• why did the great journeys of exploration occur?

• what was life like for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples before the arrival of the Europeans?

• why did Europeans settle in Australia?

• what was the nature and consequence of contact between Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples and early traders, explorers and settlers?

Note the use of presumptive (“great”) and passive (“settle”, “explorers”) language in these questions. The last dot point also raises concerns about how teachers will challenge entrenched whitewashed versions of history.

Read more: A failure to say hello: how Captain Cook blundered his first impression with Indigenous people

Research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander high school students highlights the frustration Indigenous students feel, particularly during history lessons.

As one student said:

You always have to learn from a white perspective, especially in history. Why don’t they learn from us for once?

Another student described the tension in the classroom as their teacher downloaded information from the internet:

Usually half of the class would get into a very heated racial discussion, which we had to sit through. Because the teacher had no idea what he was going on about. Some of the stuff he had on the board, because he just copies it from the Internet, so some of the stuff he has got on the board is racist, and he is teaching us. So it’s like very […] uncomfortable.

What will it take?

Teachers must critically reflect on their own identity and how it potentially influences their personal bias and worldview. They must also be willing to confront the ongoing effects of colonialism in and outside the classroom and listen to Indigenous people.

Read more: ‘They are all dead’: for Indigenous people, Cook’s voyage of ‘discovery’ was a ghostly visitation

Teachers must aspire to adequately and systemically overturn the harm schooling continues to inflict on many Indigenous people. A critical dialogue of Cook’s arrival that familiarises students with topics like racial hierarchies and white supremacy is long overdue.

– ref. ‘I spoke about Dreamtime, I ticked a box’: teachers say they lack confidence to teach Indigenous perspectives – https://theconversation.com/i-spoke-about-dreamtime-i-ticked-a-box-teachers-say-they-lack-confidence-to-teach-indigenous-perspectives-129064

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Buchan, Associate Professor, Griffith University

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.

In Vincent Namatjira’s Ramsay Award winning Close Contact (2018), the artist construes Captain James Cook as the reverse image of his own self-portrait. The colonising presence of Cook looking toward a colonial future is satirised by making another present: Vincent Namatjira’s self-portrait looks out in a diametrically different direction.

Towards what, exactly?

Australia’s link to Cook has always been mediated by iconography. Cook was a promise recollected in pigment, bronze and stone to a nation at war with its first inhabitants and possessors.

Cook, and the violence of colonisation in his wake, embodied a claim to a vast inheritance: of Enlightenment and modernity at the expense of peoples already here.

Since his foundational ritual of possession, First Nations people have called for a reckoning with Cook’s legacies, and in recent years First Nations artists have reinvigorated this call.

By invoking the presence of Cook, they ask their audience to recognise how colonisation and empire rendered them all but absent – and his celebration today continues to do so.

Taking possession

In Samuel Calvert’s 1865 print, Cook Taking Possession of the Australian Continent on Behalf of the British Crown, the noisy presence of the newcomers’ industry and weapons drives two huddled Aboriginal men into the bush.

Wathaurung Elder Aunty Marlene Gilson re-worked Calvert’s image in The Landing (2018): widening the lens to show peoples living in the landscape.

Gilson imaginatively runs together Calvert’s imagery with accounts of Governor Phillip’s later landing. As the flag is hoisted ships hover in the bay. Colonisation was a process of denying who was already there, the First Nations families and figures Gilson captures in lively habitation on land and water.

Gilson challenges the mythology of empire: that empty territory needed no treaty.

Gilson’s image is also a homage to Gordon Bennett’s earlier reworking of Calvert in Possession Island (1991). Bennett deliberately obscured Cook and his companions, with the exception of one dark-skinned servant. The presumptuous act of possession is only glimpsed behind a Jackson Pollock-like forest of lines. Visual static intervenes. Terra nullius interruptus.

This obscurity stands in marked contrast to Christian Thompson’s Othering the Explorer, James Cook (2015). Part of his Museum of Others series, his images invite us to consider the effacement of First Nations people by colonial authority and knowledge.

Thompson superimposes Cook’s head and shoulders on the artist’s own. His choice of images is deliberate, the 1775 Nathaniel Dance portrait of Cook in full naval regalia glowering over his Pacific “discoveries”.

Since European colonisation, the assertion of the discoverer’s right to possess has erased the rich tapestry of prior ownership and belonging. In Thompson’s wry self-effacement, Cook’s superimposition is a reminder of someone already there. This was always the coloniser’s ploy. Presence as absence is a conceit of colonisation.

The presence of absence informs Daniel Boyd’s re-imagination of Cook’s landing in We Call Them Pirates Out Here (2006), a re-working of E. Phillips Fox’s Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay (1902).

Phillips Fox portrayed Cook restraining his men from shooting the distantly pictured “natives”. This was empire as it wished to be seen: peaceful, British, white and triumphant.

Boyd plays on the flattery of imperial self-imagining by exposing the wilful piracy of colonial possession. Boyd’s Cook cuts the same imperial dash, but with an eye patch and skull and crossbones on the Union Jack behind him empire is revealed as the pirate’s resort.

Challenging mythologies

The growing First Nations challenge to Cook’s iconography highlights his continued presence in our nation’s colonial mythology.

It is a challenge to Cook’s elevation as hero of the modern Australia built on Indigenous erasure. Jason Wing’s bronze bust of a balaclava-wearing Captain James Crook (2013) symbolises that challenge.

Wing’s addition of the balaclava forces us to confront Cook’s legacy not as the projected shining icon of Enlightenment, but as a mythic presence built on deliberate theft, dispossession and violence.

These are only a small collection of artists reconsidering the place of Cook in our collective memory. Provocative, challenging, arresting, often satirical and sometimes funny, First Nations artists powerfully challenge us to reconsider Cook and our nation’s iconography.

Within the art lies an open invitation to reflect on who we have become and where we are headed.

This invitation is highlighted in Fiona Foley’s most recent retrospective, named for a song by Joe Gala and Teila Watson performed in Badtjala and English: Who are these strangers and where are they going?

Read more: Tall ship tales: oral accounts illuminate past encounters and objects, but we need to get our story straight

The song weaves together the narratives of the First Nations people who first saw the Endeavour make its way along the coast. Together with the photographs and installations drawn from across Foley’s long career, the retrospective is a powerful affirmation of continuing presence: in 1770, in 1788, and today.

As we confront the Cook commemorations, Foley’s and the Badtjalas’ question, like Namatjira’s double-sided self-portrait, is a nudge to our nation’s future. Who are these strangers and where are they going?

By reminding us that the question was asked of Cook’s sudden presence in 1770, we must ask it again of ourselves to confront the absence his possession still makes present for us 250 years on.

– ref. Terra nullius interruptus: Captain James Cook and absent presence in First Nations art – https://theconversation.com/terra-nullius-interruptus-captain-james-cook-and-absent-presence-in-first-nations-art-129688

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Buchan, Associate Professor, Griffith University

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

James Cook and his companions aboard the Endeavour landed at a harbour on Australia’s southeast coast in April of 1770. Cook named the place Botany Bay for “the great quantity of plants Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander found in this place”.

Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander were aboard the Endeavour as gentleman botanists, collecting specimens and applying names in Latin to plants Europeans had not previously seen. The place name hints at the importance of plants to Britain’s Empire, and to botany’s pivotal place in Europe’s Enlightenment and Australia’s early colonisation.

‘Nothing like people’

Cook has always loomed large in Australia’s colonial history. White Australians have long commemorated and celebrated him as the symbolic link to the “civilisation” of Enlightenment and Empire. The two botanists have been less well remembered, yet Banks in particular was an influential figure in Australia’s early colonisation.

When Banks and his friend Solander went ashore on April 29, 1770 to collect plants for naming and classification, the Englishman recollected they saw “nothing like people”. Banks knew that the land on which he and Solander sought plants was inhabited (and in fact, as we now know, had been so for at least 65,000 years). Yet the two botanists were engaged in an activity that implied the land was blank and unknown.

They were both botanical adventurers. Solander was among the first and most favoured of the students of Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish botanist and colonial traveller who devised the method still used today for naming species. Both Solander and Banks were advocates for the Linnaean method of taxonomy: a systematic classification of newly named plants and animals.

When they stepped ashore at “Botany Bay” in 1770, the pair saw themselves as pioneers in a double sense: as Linnaean botanists in a new land, its places and plants unnamed by any other; as if they were in a veritable terra nullius.

Botany in ‘nobody’s land’

Terra nullius, meaning “nobody’s land”, refers to a legal doctrine derived from European traditions stretching back to the ancient Romans. The idea was that land could be declared “empty” and “unowned” if there were no signs of occupation such as cultivation of the soil, towns, cities, or sacred temples.

As a legal doctrine it was not applied in Australia until the late 1880s, and there is dispute about its effects in law until its final elimination by the High Court in Mabo v Queensland (No. II) in 1992.

Cook never used this formulation, nor did Banks or Solander. Yet each in their way acted as if it were true. That the land, its plants, and animals, and even its peoples, were theirs to name and classify according to their own standards of “scientific” knowledge.

In the late eighteenth century, no form of scientific knowledge was more useful to empire than botany. It was the science par excellence of colonisation and empire. Botany promised a way to transform the “waste” of nature into economic productivity on a global scale.

Plant power

Wealth and power in Britain’s eighteenth century empire came from harnessing economically useful crops: tobacco, sugar, tea, coffee, rice, potatoes, flax. Hence Banks and Solander’s avid botanical activity was not merely a manifestation of Enlightenment “science”. It was an integral feature of Britain’s colonial and imperial ambitions.

Throughout the Endeavour’s voyage, Banks, Solander, and their assistants collected more than 30,000 plant specimens, naming more than 1,400 species.

By doing so, they were claiming new ground for European knowledge, just as Cook meticulously charted the coastlines of territories he claimed for His Majesty, King George III. Together they extended a new dispensation, inscribed in new names for places and for plants written over the ones that were already there.

Long after the Endeavour returned to Britain, Banks testified before two House of Commons committees in 1779 and 1785 that “Botany Bay” would be an “advantageous” site for a new penal colony. Among his reasons for this conclusion were not only its botanical qualities – fertile soils, abundant trees and grasses – but its virtual emptiness.

Turning emptiness to empire

When Banks described in his own Endeavour journal the land Cook had named “New South Wales”, he recalled: “This immense tract of Land … is thinly inhabited even to admiration …”. It was the science of botany that connected emptiness and empire to the Enlightened pursuit of knowledge.

One of Banks’s correspondents was the Scottish botanist and professor of natural history, John Walker. Botany, Walker wrote, was one of the “few Sciences” that “can promise any discovery or improvement”. Botany was the scientific means to master the global emporium of commodities on which empire grew.

Botany was also the reason why it had not been necessary for Banks or Solander to affirm the land on which they trod was empty. For in a very real sense, their science presupposed it. The land, its plants and its people were theirs to name and thereby claim by “discovery”.

When Walker reflected on his own botanical expeditions in the Scottish Highlands, he described them as akin to voyages of discovery to lands as “inanimate & unfrequented as any in the Terra australis”.

As we reflect on the 250-year commemoration of Cook’s landing in Australia, we ought also to consider his companions Banks and Solander, and their science of turning supposed emptiness to empire.

– ref. Botany and the colonisation of Australia in 1770 – https://theconversation.com/botany-and-the-colonisation-of-australia-in-1770-128469

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today.

Click through below to explore Cook’s journey through the Pacific, his interactions with Indigenous peoples and how that journey led to Australia becoming a penal colony 18 years later.

You can see other stories in the series here.

– ref. Explorer, navigator, coloniser: revisit Captain Cook’s legacy with the click of a mouse – https://theconversation.com/explorer-navigator-coloniser-revisit-captain-cooks-legacy-with-the-click-of-a-mouse-137390

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

Editor’s note: This is an edited transcript of an interview with John Maynard for our podcast Trust Me, I’m An Expert. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names of deceased people.

There are a multitude of Aboriginal oral memories about Captain James Cook, right across the continent.

As the research from Deborah Bird Rose shows, many Aboriginal people in remote locations are certainly under the impression that Cook came there as well, shooting people in a kind of Cook-led invasion of Australia. Many of these communities, of course, never met James Cook; the man never even went there.

But the deep impact of James Cook that spread across the country and he came to represent the bogeyman for Aboriginal Australia.

Even back in the Protection and Welfare Board days, a government car would turn up and Aboriginal people would be running around screaming, “Lookie, lookie, here comes Cookie!”

I wrote about Uncle Ray Rose, sadly recently departed, who’d had a stroke. Someone said, “How do you feel?” And he said, “No good. I’m Captain Cooked.”

Cook, wherever he went up the coast, was giving names where names already existed. Yuin oral memory in the south coast of NSW gives the example of what they called Gulaga and Cook called “Mount Dromedary”:

[…] that name can be seen as the first of the changes that come for our people […] Cook’s maps were very good, but they did not show our names for places. He didn’t ask us.

Cook has been incorporated into songs, jokes, stories and Aboriginal oral histories right across the country.

Why? I think it’s an Aboriginal response to the way we’ve been taught about our history.

Read more: Captain Cook wanted to introduce British justice to Indigenous people. Instead, he became increasingly cruel and violent

Myth-making persists but a shift is underway

I came through a school system of the 50s and 60s, and we weren’t weren’t even mentioned in the history books except as a people belonging to the Stone Age or as a dying race.

It was all about discoverers, explorers, settlers and Phar Lap or Don Bradman. But us Aboriginal people? Not there.

We had this high exposure of the public celebration of Cook, the statues of Cook, the reenactments of Cook – it was really in your face. For Aboriginal people, how do we make sense of all of this, faced with the reality of our experience and the catastrophic impact?

We’ve got to make sense of it the best way we can, and I think that’s why Cook turns up in so many oral histories.

I think wider Australia is moving towards a more balanced understanding of our history. Lots of people now recognise the richest cultural treasure the country possesses is 65,000 years of Aboriginal cultural connection to this continent.

That’s unlike anywhere else in the world. I mean no disrespect, but 250 years is a drop in a lake compared to 65,000 years. From our perspective, in fact, we’ve always been here. Our people came out of the Dreamtime of the creative ancestors and lived and kept the Earth as it was in the very first day.

With global warming, rising sea levels, rising temperatures and catastrophic storms, Aboriginal people did keep the Earth as it was in the very first day to ensure that it was passed to each surviving generation.

There was going to be a (now-cancelled) circumnavigation of Australia in the official proceedings this year, which the prime minister supported. But James Cook didn’t circumnavigate Australia. He only sailed up the east coast. So that’s creating more myths again, which is a senseless way to go.

‘With the consent of the Natives to take possession’

Personally, I have high regard for James Cook as a navigator, as a cartographer, and certainly as an inspiring captain of his crew. He encouraged incredible loyalty among those that sailed with him on those three voyages. And that has to be recognised.

But against that, of course, is the reality that he was given secret instructions by the Navy to:

With the consent of the Natives to take possession of the convenient situations in the country in the name of the king of Great Britain.

Well, consent was never given. When they went ashore at Botany Bay, two Aboriginal men brandished spears and made it quite clear they didn’t want him there. Those men were wounded and Cook was one of those firing a musket.

There was no gaining any consent when he sailed on to Possession Island and planted that flag down. Totally the opposite, in fact.

And the most insightful viewpoint is from Cook himself, who wrote that:

all they seem’d to want was for us to be gone.

Cook’s background gave him insight

James Cook wasn’t your normal British naval officer of that time period. To get into such a position, you normally had to be born into the right family, to come from money and privilege.

James Cook was none of those things. He came from a poor family. His father was a labourer. Cook got to where he was by skill, endeavour, and, unquestionably, because he was a very smart man and brilliant at sea. But it’s also from that background that he’s able to offer insight.

There’s an incredible quotation of Cook’s where he says of Aboriginal people:

They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition… they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholsome Air.

Now, Cook is comparing what he is seeing in Australia with life back Britain, where there is an incredible amount of inequality. London, at the time, was filthy. Sewerage pouring through the streets. Disease was rife. Underprivilege is everywhere.

In Australia, though, Cook sees what to him looks like this incredible egalitarian society and it makes an impact on him because of where he comes from.

But deeper misunderstandings persisted. In what’s now called Cooktown there are, at first, amicable relationships with the Guugu Yimithirr people, but when they come aboard the Endeavour they see this incredible profusion of turtles that the crew has captured.

They’re probably thinking, “these are our turtles.” They would quite happily share some of those turtles but the Bristish response is: you get none.

So the Guugu Yimithirr people go off the ship and set the grass on fire. Eventually, there’s a kind of peace settlement but the incident reveals a complete blindness on the part of the British to the idea of reciprocity in Aboriginal society.

Read more: ‘They are all dead’: for Indigenous people, Cook’s voyage of ‘discovery’ was a ghostly visitation

A collision of catastrophic proportions

The impact of 1770 has never eased for Aboriginal people. It was a collision of catastrophic proportions. The whole impact of 1788 – of invasion, dispossession, cultural destruction, occupation onto assimilation, segregation – all of these things that came after 1770.

Anything you want to measure – Aboriginal health, education, employment, housing, youth suicide, incarceration – we have the worst stats. That has been a continuation, a reality of the failure of government to recognise what has happened in the past and actually do something about it in the present to fix it for the future.

We’ve had decades and decades of governments saying to us, “We know what’s best for you.” But the fact is that when it comes to Aboriginal well being, the only people to listen to are Aboriginal people and we’ve never been put in the position.

We’ve been raising our voices for a long time now, but some people see that as a threat and are not prepared to listen.

An honest reckoning of the reality of Cook and what came after won’t heal things overnight. But it’s a starting point, from which we can join hands and walk together toward a shared future.

A balanced understanding of the past will help us build a future – it is of critical importance.

New to podcasts?

Everything you need to know about how to listen to a podcast is here.

Additional audio credits

Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks.

Marimba On the Loose by Daniel Birch, from Free Music Archive.

Podcast episode recorded and edited by Sunanda Creagh.

Lead image

Uncle Fred Deeral as little old man in the film The Message, a film by Zakpage, to be shown at the National Museum of Australia in April. Nik Lachajczak of Zakpage.

– ref. An honest reckoning with Captain Cook’s legacy won’t heal things overnight. But it’s a start – https://theconversation.com/an-honest-reckoning-with-captain-cooks-legacy-wont-heal-things-overnight-but-its-a-start-130389

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fullagar, Associate Professor in Modern History, Macquarie University

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.

Several recent exhibitions on James Cook have sought to include discussions of the Indigenous people who journeyed with him on his Pacific voyages.

In exhibitions marking the 250th anniversary of the Endeavour’s departure from Britain in 2018, for example, both the British Library and the National Library of Australia focused in part on the priest Tupaia, who travelled with Cook from Tahiti to Batavia (present-day Jakarta) in 1769.

These exhibitions emphasised Tupaia’s navigational prowess, but didn’t provide extensive detail on the role he played in the British enterprises.

Likewise, little to no attention has been paid to the islander who journeyed with Cook the longest, Mai, who joined the captain’s second and third voyages.

Shining a light on the islanders who travelled with Cook is necessary to put his achievements in proper context. Cook was more reliant on their assistance for his empire-expanding project than is often acknowledged. And these islanders had more agency during the so-called Age of Discovery than is typically believed.

The stories of Tupaia and Mai highlight the central role Indigenous people played during this period, which for too long has been described as one of only European exploration. And they also question the way Cook has been portrayed throughout history – as a lone genius, connecting the world more closely through his unique abilities.

It turns out many different people contributed to globalisation in the 18th century.

Tupaia’s motivations for joining the Endeavour

Mai, or Omai as he was mostly known by the British, shared many characteristics with Tupaia. Both were motivated to journey with Cook because of intense dramas playing out on their home island of Ra‘iatea in what is now French Polynesia. And both became useful to the British voyagers by brokering introductions with other islanders in the Pacific.

But in other ways, the two men differed. They were from separate social ranks and they experienced very different fates.

Tupaia was of the exalted ari’i rank, a leading priest of the ‘Oro sect that ruled most of the Tahitian archipelago during this era.

Because of his high status, he was directly involved in a tumultuous war between Ra‘iatea and neighboring Bora Bora in the 1760s, which eventually ended in defeat for the Ra‘iateans. After the war, he became a refugee in Tahiti, where he came into contact with the Endeavour and befriended the naturalist, Joseph Banks.

For Tupaia, the motivation to join the Endeavour voyage was complex and political. He saw in the British tallships an opportunity to gain arms, knowledge and possibly even men for a restorative offensive against the Bora Borans at Ra‘iatea.

Some descendants today also suggest he joined the crew as a way of continuing a long-established practice of voyaging – returning to islands he had previously visited in his own waka (canoe) and by his own navigational techniques.

And Banks saw in Tupaia’s adventurousness a chance to fulfill a dream to study man in a so-called “state of nature” back home in Britain.

Tupaia’s assistance during the voyage

Tupaia joined the Endeavour in July 1769. Cook, until now skeptical of including islanders in his crew, acquiesced partly because he saw it appeased Banks and partly because he judged Tupaia

a Shrewd, Sensible, and Ingenious Man.

The captain learned a great deal from Tupaia. Not only did Cook listen to and attempt to document all of Tupaia’s recitations on the scores of islands around Tahiti, he also gained rare insight into Pacific voyaging.

Most of all, he had Tupaia’s help when he met wary islanders in other archipelagos. With Tupaia mediating, these encounters went smoothly.

Tupaia was ill through much of the Endeavour’s stay at Botany Bay. Unfortunately, his health only worsened and he died during the ship’s layover in Batavia, thwarting Banks’ long-term aim of bringing him to Britain.

Perhaps, though, Tupaia fulfilled at least part of his own dream to travel the Pacific once more.

Mai’s fierce determination to join Cook

Banks was not on Cook’s second voyage, but the captain carried with him the memory of the naturalist’s hopes to study a Pacific islander.

As I recount in my latest book, The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire, Cook found that man when he encountered Mai in 1773.

Like Tupaia, Mai was also displaced by the Bora Boran invasion of Ra‘iatea. A generation younger than Tupaia, Mai had been a child at the time and also lost his father in the conflict. In Tahiti, his lower social rank meant he had fewer concessions as a refugee.

Arguably these conditions made Mai even more determined to join Cook’s expedition when the chance came.

Mai travelled to Britain on Cook’s second ship, captained by Tobias Furneaux. The Englishman admired Mai and remarked several times on his maritime and culinary skills. Mai also helped translate and mediate with other islanders they encountered. This wasn’t because he sympathised with the British; rather, he was eager to speed up their return to Britain.

Mai’s mission in London and return home

Arriving in London in 1774, Mai met with Banks, who assumed responsibility for his accommodation. Due to his high-profile patron, Mai encountered and bedazzled much of the glamorous set in London, including King George III.

Mai seemed to enjoy himself well enough, but his mind was always focused on his larger mission. Everyone who met him recorded that his aim in Britain was not to impress or assimilate but to gain support for his mission of retaking his home island of Ra‘iatea from the Bora Borans.

Mai found himself aboard Cook’s third voyage to the Pacific in mid-1776, with promises from Banks and the Admiralty to take him home and provide him with British goods to help him achieve his goals.

Once again, he provided critical assistance to the captain during negotiations with other Pacific islanders, as well as with Indigenous people in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). Only when the expedition neared the Tahitian archipelago did Mai start to doubt Cook’s good faith.

He saw Cook give away much of the livestock that had been promised to him and watched as he held long meetings with assorted elders. Mai realised Cook planned to dump him on another island rather than fulfill the Admiralty pledges to land him on Ra‘iatea.

Mai was devastated. After four long years away, his life project had collapsed.

Grand ambitions only partly realised

Historians like to recount the emotional farewell between Cook and Mai in late 1777, noting Mai’s desperate wailing and Cook’s misty eyes. It’s usually depicted as a touching example of how Mai had grown to love the British and, equally, of how Cook had a softer heart than most believed.

From Mai’s perspective, though, the moment likely had a far different meaning.

Neither Tupaia nor Mai had achieved their ultimate goals in joining the Cook voyages, but this does not discount the grandness of their ambitions.

Both undertook epic feats of exploration. And their missions were just as political as Cook’s had been. Instead of imperial expansion, however, these men had sought a continuation of their Indigenous ways of life.

And it’s worth pointing out that Cook failed in his ultimate goal in the third voyage, too. He had been tasked with finding a northwest passage for imperial trade and to deliver Mai home according to his wishes. Instead, he ended up assassinated in Hawai’i.

– ref. The stories of Tupaia and Omai and their vital role as Captain Cook’s unsung shipmates – https://theconversation.com/the-stories-of-tupaia-and-omai-and-their-vital-role-as-captain-cooks-unsung-shipmates-126674

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Darian-Smith, Executive Dean and Pro Vice-Chancellor, College of Arts, Law and Education, University of Tasmania

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison stumbled on the word “re-enactment” when outlining his government’s (now suspended) plans for commemorating the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook’s mythologised “discovery” of Australia.

Certainly, the planned route of the replica HMB Endeavour with 39 stops (and funded at A$6.7 million) could not be described as such: Cook never circumnavigated mainland Australia nor visited Tasmania on the Endeavour.

Morrison quickly clarified that the only gesture of historical accuracy would be a “retracing” of Cook’s voyage up the eastern seaboard.

Historical re-enactments of Cook’s landing are not new to settler Australia. They have focused on Cook’s landfall at Botany Bay, south of Sydney, where the Endeavour’s crew first stepped onto the continent on April 29 1770.

His journal recorded they were greeted by two Dharawal men “who seem’d resolved to oppose our landing”. Cook fired his musket at the men three times, including aiming directly, forcing their retreat.

Cook’s active role in British hostility to Aboriginal peoples was erased from subsequent performances of the Botany Bay landing.

These have also been embellished with Cook claiming the east coast of Australia — this actually occurred some months later at Possession Island in the Torres Strait.

Such popular “re-enactments” of national “foundation moments” have elements of fantasy, compressing time and history into palatable narratives for mainstream Australia.

The history of Cook re-enactments

Cook’s arrival was commemorated as early as 1822, when Sydney’s Philosophical Society erected a plaque at Kurnell, on the headland of Botany Bay. By 1864, the Australian Patriotic Association had located the “exact” site a kilometre away.

Following the 1870 centenary of Cook’s landfall, annual pro-British “celebrations” at Botany Bay involved the presence of the governor, flag-raising, gun salutes, and military displays.

In a society eager to erase its convict stain, Cook was a more acceptable founder than Governor Arthur Phillip, who had established the penal colony in Sydney Cove in 1788.

Considerable confusion existed then – and continues today — about the historical roles of Cook and Phillip. Even during the 1888 Centennial of the First Fleet, the largest triumphal arch in Sydney was adorned with Cook’s image and a model of the Endeavour.

The inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia in January 1901 provided the impetus for a major re-enactment at Kurnell, headlined as the “Second Coming of Cook”. The spectacle attracted a crowd of over 5,000, with 1,000 enjoying a champagne luncheon in an enormous marquee.

The re-enactment began with the arrival of the Endeavour, represented by local fishing vessel “Fanny Fisher”. Once ashore, Cook and his sailors and marines encountered 25 Aboriginal men armed with spears and decorated with feathers and ochre. A gun was fired overhead, then Cook ordered a sailor to shoot at the Aborigines before making his imperial claim on the continent. Cook, Joseph Banks and a nymph symbolising Australia gave speeches on the “greatness” and unity of the Britannia of the Southern Ocean.

Although an Aboriginal community lived at La Perouse on the opposite shore of Botany Bay, the re-enactment involved a troupe of Indigenous men from Queensland. They were directed by parliamentarian and entrepreneur Archibald Meston, who had previously toured Indigenous performers in his “Wild Australia” show.

It is unknown under what circumstances the Aboriginal men were recruited for the Federation re-enactment, or if they were paid.

Despite dramatising a beach-side skirmish between the Aborigines and British, the Federation performance cemented Cook as the conquering peacemaker. This was promoted by E. Phillips Fox, who was commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria to paint The Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770 (1902).

This monumental work is a tableau – or frozen re-enactment — of Cook striding purposefully up the beach, stretching out his hand as he takes territorial possession. It was widely reproduced and circulated, becoming the best-known and influential image of Cook’s landing across Australia.

The evolution of performances

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the anniversary of the Endeavour’s arrival at Botany Bay was marked by performative gestures to the past. Dignitaries arrived by steamship, coming ashore to give speeches situating Cook as founder of the nation.

For instance, in 1930 at the height of the Depression, spectators were exhorted to “practice self-denial and self-reliance as exemplified in Captain Cook’s exploits”.

Although a full-scale re-enactment was staged in 1951 for the Federation jubilee, interest in Cook waned and the formalities were abandoned.

This changed dramatically in 1970, with the bicentenary of Cook’s Australian landing. Cook was suddenly everywhere, with government funding supporting pageants, memorials and other Cook novelties around the nation.

The nationalistic climax of months of events was an elaborate re-enactment at Kurnell, performed for the visiting Queen Elizabeth and her entourage. Directed by musical theatre aficionado Hayes Gordon, the spectacle was designed for global television, with actors selected after a nationwide search. Held on “Discovery Day”, it attracted a crowd of over 50,000 people.

Promoted as portraying the “birth of modern Australia”, this re-enactment capitalised on the groundswell of popular interest in Australia’s past. Emphasis was placed on historical accuracy, although nothing challenged the well-established nonsense of Cook’s party briefly confronting Indigenous peoples before peacefully claiming the continent.

To show how far the nation had progressed, “multicultural” schoolchildren and boy scouts and girl guides rose and fell in waves along the beach.

Protesting and mourning

Amid this “celebration”, diverse Aboriginal protests were under way, although they were little covered by the press.

At La Perouse, Aboriginal poet and activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker) was among hundreds of protesters who boycotted the re-enactment and released funeral wreaths into the sea.

A silent vigil had been held the night before, and a “day of mourning” was observed at Sydney Town Hall and in other Australian cities.

In 1970, a second re-enactment was held in Cooktown, also witnessed by the queen. The original Endeavour had spent seven weeks there, undergoing repairs after running into the Great Barrier Reef.

Cooktown has a long record of Cook-related performances, though initially these were sporadic. But from 1960, the Cooktown Re-enactment Association organised an annual event.

The performances evolved from a battle with Aboriginal people to Cook landing and taking possession and, more recently, celebrations of acts of conciliation.

Future direction: same old or new path forward?

Until coronavirus and social distancing made all public events impossible, the federal government had slated to spend A$5.45 million on the Cooktown 2020 Expo, including a re-enactment of the landing of Captain Cook and his interactions with the Guugu Yimithirr bama.

As this historical overview of over a century of re-enactments of Cook’s landing has shown, these events have served to reinforce Australia’s imperial and British connections. They ignore the violence of Cook’s encounters with Aboriginal people and Indigenous resistance, and perpetuate the myth of Cook’s discovery of Australia.

You can hear Kate Darian-Smith discussing these ideas in an episode of our podcast, Trust Me, I’m An Expert, over here.

– ref. Cooking the books: how re-enactments of the Endeavour’s voyage perpetuate myths of Australia’s ‘discovery’ – https://theconversation.com/cooking-the-books-how-re-enactments-of-the-endeavours-voyage-perpetuate-myths-of-australias-discovery-126751

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shino Konishi, ARC Research Fellow, University of Western Australia

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.

In The Apotheosis of Captain Cook, anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere describes James Cook as a Kurtz-like figure, inspired by Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness.

He suggests Cook initially saw himself as an enlightened “civiliser”, bringing a new vision of the world to the so-called “savage lands” of the South Seas.

But over the course of his three voyages, Cook instead came to embody the “savagery” he ostensibly despised, indulging in increasingly tyrannical, punitive and violent treatment of Indigenous people in the Pacific.

Cook’s evolution was triggered by Indigenous people’s seeming refusal to embrace the gift of civilisation he offered, such as livestock and garden beds sown with Western crops and a justice system modelled after Britain’s.

After revisiting Tahiti on his third voyage, he was dismayed to discover that despite a decade of European encounters and exchanges, he nonetheless found

neither new arts nor improvements in the old, nor have they copied after us in any one thing.

He became increasingly frustrated by their determination to maintain their own laws and manners, especially their tendency to “steal”.

‘Hints’ for fostering good relations

For his first expedition on the Endeavour, Cook received a document called Hints prepared by the Earl of Morton, president of the Royal Society, providing advice on how to deal with Indigenous people.

The earl reminded Cook’s crew that Indigenous peoples were the “legal possessors of the several regions they inhabit” and

No European Nation has the right to occupy any part of their country … without their voluntary consent.

He also advised Cook and his naturalists to:

Exercise the utmost patience and forbearance with respect to the Natives of the several lands where the ship may touch. To check the petulance of the Sailors and restrain the wanton use of Fire Arms. To have it still in view that shedding the blood of these people is a crime of the highest nature.

Cook decided the best way to prevent violence and foster good relations with Indigenous people he encountered was to demonstrate the “superiority” of European weapons, assuming

once they are sensible of these things, a regard for their own safety will deter them from disturbing you.

Cook’s early attempts to promote British justice

Cook was determined, however, to follow Morton’s instructions to the letter and ensure his crew, under threat of punishment, treated Indigenous people respectfully.

He enforced this rule in April 1769 during their first sojourn in Tahiti, when the ship’s butcher threatened to slit the throat of the high chief Te Pau’s wife when she refused to exchange her hatchet for a nail.

Outraged, Te Pau told the botanist Joseph Banks, with whom he had developed a close relationship. Cook then ordered the butcher to be publicly flogged in front of the Tahitians so they could witness British justice.

Yet, instead of being satisfied, the Tahitians were appalled to witness this form of corporal punishment.

A few days later, Cook’s resolve to maintain peaceful relations was tested again when their quadrant was stolen from a guarded tent. This scientific instrument was essential for observing the transit of Venus, a central aim of the expedition.

According to Cook’s journal, his first response was to “seize upon Tootaha” [Tutaha], the chief of Papara in western Tahiti, or

some others of the Principle people and keep them in custody until the Quadt was produce’d.

But he soon realised this would alarm the Tahitians. After realising Tutaha played no role in the theft, Cook ordered his men not to seize him. And Banks, tipped off by Te Pau as to the quadrant’s whereabouts, soon retrieved it.

On these occasions, Cook attempted to demonstrate what he saw as the fairness of British law to the Tahitians.

Johann Reinhold Forster, naturalist on Cook’s second voyage, also suggested Cook’s reactions were tempered by the presence of the naturalists, who were not subject to his authority.

A change in temperament

By his third voyage on the Resolution and Discovery from 1776-80, however, Cook would no longer be so measured in his treatment of Indigenous people.

This was evident during his almost three-month stay in Tonga, then known as the Friendly Islands.

In May 1777, Cook visited Nomuka, and after exchanging gifts with the leading chief, Tupoulangi, he set up a market where the British received great stores of fresh meat and fruit.

Despite the efforts of both Cook and Tupoulangi to ensure order in the market, however, thefts still occurred.

On one occasion, an islander was caught trying to steal a small winch used to make rope, and Cook “ordered him a dozen lashes”. After the man was “severely flogg’d”, his hands were tied behind his back and he was carried to the market where he was

not releas’d till a large hog was brought for his ransom.

William Anderson, a surgeon on the expedition, thought the lashes were a justifiable punishment and deterrent. However, he said what came after would

not be found consonant with the principles of justice or humanity.

Cook later complained the chiefs were ordering their servants to steal from the market and “floging [sic] made no more impression” on them since the chiefs would “often advise us to kill them”.

Reluctant to resort to execution for stealing, Cook’s crew soon found an alternative method of punishment: shaving the heads of offenders. This, he said,

was looked upon as a mark of infamy.

A month later, the expedition moved to the island Tongatapu. Here, there was a radical shift in Cook’s conduct. As anthropologist Anne Salmond described it, he was “guilty of great cruelty” even in the eyes of his own men.

Historian John Beaglehole believes Cook was “at his wits’ end” by the thievery at Tongatapu and responded by applying “the lash as he had never done before”.

Instead of shaving the heads of thieves, Cook again ordered them to be severely flogged and ransomed.

Cut-throat retribution

The Discovery’s master, Thomas Edgar, kept a tally of these punishments and noted that in a two-week span, eight men were punished with 24-72 lashes apiece for stealing items such as a “tumbler and two wine glasses”.

Cook even punished his own men with the maximum 12 lashes for “neglect of duty” when thefts happened on their watch.

He also resorted to punishments which midshipman George Gilbert deemed “unbecoming of a European”, including:

cutting off their ears; fireing at them with small shot; or ball as they were swimming or paddling to the shore; and suffering the people (as he rowed after them) to beat them with the oars; and stick the boat hook into them; wherever he could hit them

Edgar described how one Tongan prisoner who received 72 lashes and then was dealt “a strange punishment” by

scoring both his Arms with a common Knife by one of our Seamen Longitudinally and transversly [sic], into the Bone.

This horrific and excessive carving of crosses into the man’s shoulders is most reminiscent of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.

Blind hypocrisy

Cook’s increasingly violent punishments reflected his sheer frustration over the refusal of Indigenous people to recognise the superiority of Western ways and Europeans’ concepts of property.

Of course, while they were very protective and jealous of their own possessions, Cook and his crew were blind to any Indigenous concepts of property.

As he journeyed through the Pacific, Cook, like other European voyagers, freely collected water and fruit, netted fish and turtles, hunted birds and game and cut down trees for wood, never thinking Indigenous people would regard these valuable resources as their property nor construe such actions as theft.

When the expedition reached Endeavour River, near present-day Cooktown in far-north Queensland, the Guugu Yimithirr people tried to reclaim turtles Cook’s men had fished from their waters. They were rebuffed by Cook’s men and angrily set fires in retaliation.

Cook, however, did not recognise this as punishment or retribution for the stolen turtles. Instead he thought their actions were “troublesome”, so was

obliged to fire a musquet load[ed] with small short at some of the ri[n]g leaders.

Throughout his voyages, Cook faithfully followed the Earl of Morton’s advice to show off the superiority of European might, but he increasingly failed “to check” his own “petulance” and “restrain the wanton use of Fire Arms”.

Most, significantly, through his administering of rough justice against Indigenous people for apparent thieving, Cook forgot Morton’s edict that

shedding the blood of these people is a crime of the highest nature.

– ref. Captain Cook wanted to introduce British justice to Indigenous people. Instead, he became increasingly cruel and violent – https://theconversation.com/captain-cook-wanted-to-introduce-british-justice-to-indigenous-people-instead-he-became-increasingly-cruel-and-violent-127025

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fabien B. Vincent, Research Fellow; Rheumatology Research Group, Centre for Inflammatory Diseases, Monash University

You may have heard about psoriatic arthritis after Kim Kardashian West said last year she was diagnosed with this illness.

Psoriasis is a relatively common chronic skin condition that causes rapid build-up of skin cells, resulting in a rash. Around 20% of sufferers will develop psoriatic arthritis where a person’s joints become inflamed and sore, in addition to the skin symptoms.

Recent evidence suggests that psoriatic arthritis is an autoimmune disease, meaning the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks its own skin and joints.

How common is it?

Around 1% of people in the United States have psoriatic arthritis, and it affects men and women roughly equally.

Symptoms usually begin between the ages of 40 and 50, though they can also begin in childhood or older age.

In around 85-90% of patients, psoriasis symptoms start first.

What causes it?

Psoriatic arthritis is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental or lifestyle factors. Infection, stress, obesity, and smoking have been suggested to increase the risk of developing the condition.

Researchers have also investigated a possible link with gut microbiota, the bacteria that live in the digestive tract. Some think changes in gut microbiota diversity may be involved. However, it’s not clear whether this is a cause or a consequence of chronic inflammation.

What are the symptoms?

Psoriasis causes a skin rash of scaly red patches or plaques that can spread all over the body. Typically it affects the knees, elbows, hairline, ears, natal cleft (the groove that runs between the two buttocks), belly button and nails.

It might be painful and itchy. It usually evolves with a period of flare, where the illness gets worse, followed by a period of improvement.

Psoriatic arthritis occurs in one or more joints. It can affect peripheral joints, such as the hands and feet, the spine, and the entheses, where ligaments and tendons attach to bones (such as where the Achilles tendon connects to the heel). In around 40-50% of patients, the entire toe or finger can swell like a small sausage, known as dactylitis. It particularly affects the tips of the fingers and toes, known as the distal joints, as well as the buttocks and lower back.

Arthritis symptoms include pain, redness, swelling, and tenderness of the affected joints. It usually presents with morning stiffness, and joint pain increases while resting and improves while moving. Joint pain can also wake people up at night.

General symptoms can include fatigue, unexplained fever, unintentional weight loss, and loss of appetite. Early diagnosis can be challenging because these symptoms are non-specific and can be mistaken for other illnesses.

Patients can also suffer from eye inflammation and inflammatory bowel disease, where the digestive tract becomes inflamed.

How is it diagnosed?

There is no single blood or imaging test for diagnosing psoriatic arthritis. Patients with symptoms should be referred to a rheumatologist, where they will be examined.

If psoriatic arthritis is suspected, a doctor will investigate the skin, nails, joints, spine, and entheses, the junctions where ligaments and tendons attach to the bones. They’ll also check for any dactylitis, the sausage-like swelling in the hands and toes.

They will request X-rays of affected peripheral joints and the spine to look for cartilage and bone damage, as well as new bone formations. MRI and ultrasound scans may also help.

Read more: What is rheumatoid arthritis, the condition tennis champion Caroline Wozniacki lives with?

Patients will have routine blood tests looking for signs of inflammation, as well as a marker named HLA B27, present in approximately 25% of affected people.

Potential complications

Left untreated, patients can suffer joint deformity and damage to bones, cartilage and organs, potentially leading to permanent disability. Early diagnosis and optimal treatment are key to preventing this.

Patients are at increased risk of heart and blood vessel disease due to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions including high blood pressure.

Psychological consequences can also impact patients’ well-being and quality of life. The condition is also linked to an increased risk of depression.

How is it treated?

There is no cure for psoriatic arthritis, but treatment can be very effective in controlling symptoms. The challenge is to diagnose early so treatment can begin as soon as possible.

Painful symptoms are treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen, but these are generally insufficient to control the arthritis alone.

The clinician may then add a disease modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD). These immunosuppressant drugs aim to control the inflammatory flare ups. Methotrexate is usually used first, while apremilast is an alternative for milder cases.

If these are not sufficient, so-called biological treatments must be used. These target certain inflammation proteins and are often administered via injection using an easy-to-use pen, as diabetics do with insulin. They are generally very effective, well tolerated and have the advantage of easing both joint and skin symptoms.

More recently, innovative treatments have been developed that patients take as a tablet, known as JAK inhibitors. These drugs work by blocking a key pathway involved in inflammation.

There is a risk of side effects when using drugs that suppress the immune system. Primarily, they can leave patients more vulnerable to infections.

Read more: What does it mean to be immunocompromised? And why does this increase your risk of coronavirus?

In addition to medication, it’s important for patients to maintain regular physical activity and a balanced diet.

Given the effectiveness of these treatments, the goals of caregivers have also changed. Clinicians are no longer targeting improvement, but remission, where the signs and symptoms are completely resolved.

– ref. What is psoriatic arthritis, the condition Kim Kardashian West lives with? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-psoriatic-arthritis-the-condition-kim-kardashian-west-lives-with-129899

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sebastian Leuzinger, Professor, Auckland University of Technology

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz

If carbon dioxide levels were to double, how much increase in plant growth would this cause? How much of the world’s deserts would disappear due to plants’ increased drought tolerance in a high carbon dioxide environment?

Compared to pre-industrial levels, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere will have doubled in about 20 to 30 years, depending on how much CO₂ we emit over the coming years. More CO₂ generally leads to higher rates of photosynthesis and less water consumption in plants.

At first sight, it seems more CO₂ can only be beneficial to plants, but things are a lot more complex than that.

Read more: Climate explained: why plants don’t simply grow faster with more carbon dioxide in air

Let’s look at the first part of the question.

Some plants do grow faster under elevated levels of atmospheric CO₂, but this happens mostly in crops and young trees, and generally not in mature forests.

Even if plants grew twice as fast under doubled CO₂ levels, it would not mean they strip twice as much CO₂ from the atmosphere. Plants take carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, but that carbon is going straight back via natural decomposition when plants die or when they are harvested and consumed.

At best, you might be mowing your lawn twice as often or harvesting your plantation forests earlier.

The most important aspect is how long the carbon stays locked away from the atmosphere – and this is where we have to make a clear distinction between increased carbon flux (faster growth) or an increasing carbon pool (actual carbon sequestration). Your bank account is a useful analogy to illustrate this difference: fluxes are transfers, pools are balances.

Read more: Climate explained: why your backyard lawn doesn’t help reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

The global carbon budget

Of the almost 10 billion tonnes (gigatonnes, or Gt) of carbon we emit every year through the burning of fossil fuels, only about half accumulates in the atmosphere. Around a quarter ends up in the ocean (about 2.4 Gt), and the remainder (about 3 Gt) is thought to be taken up by terrestrial plants.

While the ocean and the atmospheric sinks are relatively easy to quantify, the terrestrial sink isn’t. In fact, the 3 Gt can be thought of more as an unaccounted residual. Ultimately, the emitted carbon needs to go somewhere, and if it isn’t the ocean or the atmosphere, it must be the land.

So yes, the terrestrial system takes up a substantial proportion of the carbon we emit, but the attribution of this sink to elevated levels of CO₂ is difficult. This is because many other factors may contribute to the land carbon sink: rising temperature, increased use of fertilisers and atmospheric nitrogen deposition, changed land management (including land abandonment), and changes in species composition.

Current estimates assign about a quarter of this land sink to elevated levels of CO₂, but estimates are very uncertain.

In summary, rising CO₂ leads to faster plant growth – sometimes. And this increased growth only partly contributes to sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. The important questions are how long this carbon is locked away from the atmosphere, and how much longer the currently observed land sink will continue.

Read more: Climate explained: how different crops or trees help strip carbon dioxide from the air

The second part of the question refers to a side-effect of rising levels of CO₂ in the air: the fact that it enables plants to save water.

Plants regulate the exchange of carbon dioxide and water vapour by opening or closing small pores, called stomata, on the surface of their leaves. Under higher concentrations of CO₂, they can reduce the opening of these pores, and that in turn means they lose less water.

This alleviates drought stress in already dry areas. But again, the issue is more complex because CO₂ is not the only parameter that changes. Dry areas also get warmer, which means that more water evaporates and this often compensates for the water-saving effect.

Overall, rising CO₂ has contributed to some degree to the greening of Earth, but it is likely that this trend will not continue under the much more complex combination of global change drivers, particularly in arid regions.

– ref. Climate explained: why higher carbon dioxide levels isn’t only good news even if some plants grow faster – https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-higher-carbon-dioxide-levels-isnt-only-good-news-even-if-some-plants-grow-faster-137235

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Schuijers, Research Fellow in Environmental Law, University of Melbourne

Independent MP and barrister Zali Steggall recently drew public attention to a federal government program that supports gas, hydro and coal power projects through underwriting.

Writing to Auditor General Grant Hehir, Steggall called for an investigation into the “underwriting new generation investment” (UNGI) program, saying it lacks transparency at a time when visibility of public spending is crucial.

Read more: The government’s electricity shortlist rightly features pumped hydro (and wrongly includes coal)

“Underwriting” is when a degree of financial risk associated with a project is taken on by the government, rather than the project’s proponent.

Amid an economic crisis and a pressing need to transition to lower-carbon energy, people are understandably interested in where government money is being invested within the energy sector, and on what grounds.

As we face mounting job losses and stranded assets from the transition away from coal – and from the COVID-19 pandemic – taxpayers have a right to anticipate that the government’s investments will be strategically sound.

But the UNGI program lacks the important detail needed to assure the public that smart decisions are being made.

UNGI explained

The UNGI program was introduced in 2018. It followed the collapse of Malcolm Turnbull’s National Energy Guarantee and an Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) inquiry, which found competition in Australia’s electricity sector needs to be stronger to reduce prices.

The federal government describes UNGI as “technology neutral”. This means the government’s focus is on supporting “best and lowest cost” energy generation options to get off the ground – whether coal, gas, or renewables.

What’s unclear is the extent to which a costs analysis under UNGI will consider long-term and indirect costs, such as by using social costing metrics.

A holistic analysis like this is important in the context of the climate crisis, which could set the Australian economy back more than A$762 billion in damages by 2050. Only considering short-term and direct costs is a recipe for long-term damage when it comes to energy and the impacts of climate change.

Read more: It’s clear why coal struggles for finance – and the government can’t change that

Half the projects currently shortlisted for potential support are fossil fuel projects. The other half are renewables-powered pumped hydrogen projects.

But as Steggal has written, the government hasn’t been transparent about how they decide on which projects to underwrite.

These 12 shortlisted projects were chosen without any final guidelines published informing the public on the selection process. Preliminary criteria, identified in the request for proposals, hasn’t been converted into a decision-making mandate, despite an indication this would happen.

Does the UNGI program have legal support?

Steggal’s letter to the Auditor General referenced research by the Australia Institute think tank, which has criticised the UNGI program as having no legal foundation.

The institute published advice from barristers Fiona McLeod SC and Lindy Barrett, which outlines hypothetical ways UNGI could proceed. These include via an agreement with states, existing legislation, or new legislation. They concluded that there was no identifiable support mechanism in place at the time of the advice.

More than a year later, there hasn’t been any new legislation. And the government has flagged the Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s Grid Reliability Fund as the existing mechanism to support the UNGI program.

So why might that be a problem?

There are restrictions on the types of financial instruments this fund can support, as well as on what types of projects. While the Clean Energy Finance Corporation can provide loans, it may not be able to support the types of contracts envisaged by the early UNGI documents.

As the name suggests, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation could not support a coal project. And yet a coal project has been shortlisted.

The Grattan Institute’s energy program director Tony Wood also expressed concern, saying last year that UNGI appeared “quite different” to what the ACCC inquiry called for: a scheme to provide certainty for debt financing and facilitate new entrants into the wholesale market.

Read more: Scott Morrison’s gas transition plan is a dangerous road to nowhere

And the CEFC is apparently not on the same page as the government that has designated its role in supporting the UNGI program, either. Although it welcomed the funding, CEO Ian Learmonth noted there was no investment mandate, and the Grid Reliability Fund was separate to UNGI.

No transparency

Steggall and the Australia Institute’s main concerns voiced over the past couple of days seem spurred by an unwillingness or inability of the government to provide information around how UNGI is proceeding.

Transcripts from parliament both last year and earlier this month reveal a number of important questions into the program are repeatedly bookmarked.

Still, several of the shortlisted projects, particularly the gas projects, have been promised support. This includes two already the subject of preliminary agreements and one that’s all but guaranteed funding through an agreement with the NSW government. This suggests the government is ploughing ahead with UNGI despite the lack of clear process or identifiable support mechanism.

Do we really need to support more gas?

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has noted growth in gas supply could emerge from natural competitiveness flowed from the effects of COVID-19.

Whether we need to underwrite more gas at this stage is questionable, given the oft-touted role of gas as a transition fuel is not clear-cut. And in any case gas will not have long-term viability in a net-zero emissions context.

Post-COVID-19 recovery stimulus must be focused on markets, industries and technologies that need support, but which also, as Steggall puts it, “have a future”.

Read more: 5 big environment stories you probably missed while you’ve been watching coronavirus

Yes, competitive pricing is important, as is reliable energy supply. But how that’s achieved must not frustrate the ability to address climate change, or compound current economic concerns by locking in future costs.

At the very least, clearer information about how projects are meeting the “best and lowest cost” criteria, and what financial and legal mechanisms are supporting UNGI as it proceeds, is what we require – and deserve.

– ref. The government’s UNGI scheme: what it is and why Zali Steggall wants it investigated – https://theconversation.com/the-governments-ungi-scheme-what-it-is-and-why-zali-steggall-wants-it-investigated-137252

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Zarmati, Lecturer in Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here, and an interactive here.

Approaching the 250th anniversary of Cook’s first journey to the Pacific, The Conversation asked readers what they remembered learning at school about his arrival in Australia.

Most people said they learnt Cook “discovered” Australia – especially if they were at school before the 1990s.

Depending on when you went to school, you may have learnt differently about Captain Cook’s role in Australian history. To find out how the teaching of Cook in Australian schools has changed, I examined textbooks used in the 1950s until today.

School years 1950s and early 1960s

If you were at school after the second world war to the mid-1960s, Australia still had strong links to the British Empire.

Cook was portrayed as a one of the greatest explorers in history and textbooks presented clear messages Cook “discovered” Australia and “took possession” of the land for England.

The 1959 Queensland text Social Studies for Standard VIII (Queensland) by G.T Roscoe said Cook “landed on Possession Island, hoisted the Union Jack, claiming the country for the King of England”.

In Conquering the Continent (1961), C.H. Wright mentions some contact with Indigenous people at Botany Bay, but there is no mention of conflict. Wright writes

The blacks offered little resistance; they quickly stood off after being frightened by gun shots.

School years 1965 to 1979

If you went to school between 1965 and 1979, you were learning during the era of the Whitlam, Fraser and Hawke governments.

This was when awareness was beginning to grow of the negative impact of colonisation on Australia’s Indigenous people.

E.S. Elphick’s 1974 Birth of a Nation continued the “discovery and possession” narrative, but acknowledged Indigenous people were in Australia beforehand:

The first Australians came here at least 30,000 years ago, and for all but the last 200 years of this period enjoyed uninterrupted possession of the land they came to[…] The white man, in fact, took a very long time to arrive.

Paul Ashton’s chapter in David Stewart’s Investigating Australian History Using Evidence (1985) encouraged students to “work as historians” by examining primary sources (in this case old maps) and evaluating interpretations of history.

Ashton emphasised the importance of the scientific “discovery”:

Cook’s achievements were indeed great, as were his talents as a navigator. At last, a reasonably accurate chart of the east coast of Australia could be added to European knowledge of the continent, along with a mass of natural and scientific discoveries. However, the discovery was not as yet completed […]

School in 1981 to 1995

If you went to school in the 1980s and early to mid ‘90s, you may have learnt history from a more inclusive perspective that included the lived experiences of those who were largely left out of the traditional narrative, such as children, women and Indigenous people.

But in Australia: All Our Yesterdays (1999), author Meg Grey Blanden presented a benign account of Cook facing no resistance from Indigenous people:

On a small island now named Possession Island, Cook performed the last and most important official task of his entire voyage. Like others of his time, Cook was undeterred by the presence of native people on the island. He noted that they obligingly departed and left the Europeans to get on with their ceremony.

School in 1996 to 2015

In the first decade of the 21st century, history was embedded into social studies in all states and territories, except New South Wales. Australian colonial history focused on “discovery”, foundation and expansion was relegated to years four to six.

Some teachers may have chosen to use critical inquiry to teach about Cook’s expedition in year nine. Most tended to focus on the more complicated 20th century history of world wars and progress in year nine and ten syllabuses.

The Australian Curriculum, which was implemented in all schools from 2012, has maintained this chronological divide of historical knowledge. In year four, students learn about Cook by “examining the journey of one or more explorers of the Australian coastline … using navigation maps to reconstruct their journeys”.

It would be unusual for secondary teachers these days to teach their students about Cook because the topic is not in the secondary curriculum.

This means if children do not learn about Cook’s achievements in the primary years it’s quite possible if they were asked what they learnt about Cook in school, they may not know anything about him.

– ref. Captain Cook ‘discovered’ Australia, and other myths from old school text books – https://theconversation.com/captain-cook-discovered-australia-and-other-myths-from-old-school-text-books-128926

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Beck, Senior Research Fellow, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University

The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically shifted our lives and the ways we move about our cities. Despite tight restrictions on non-essential work and outings, and on social gatherings in every state and territory, governments have listed exercise as one of four essential activities. As a result, we have seen increases in the number of people walking and cycling, including children.

Physical activities such as walking and cycling are perfectly compatible with physical distancing – but only with the right infrastructure. More than 100 Australian health and transport experts have signed an open letter calling on governments to enact urgent measures to support safe walking and cycling and social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more: Coronavirus reminds us how liveable neighbourhoods matter for our well-being

Increased numbers lead to crowding

If you have walked or ridden around your neighbourhood, you have probably noticed more people on footpaths and shared walking and cycling paths. This increase in numbers is exposing much of our walking and cycling infrastructure as inadequate. It simply doesn’t provide enough space to follow physical distancing rules, leading to reports of overcrowding on these paths.

The pandemic has highlighted the volume of street space given to motor vehicles, at the cost of space for people to walk and cycle. Given the far lower traffic volumes on roads, cities across the globe have been reallocating road space to enable people to walk and cycle safely while adhering to physical distancing. Australian cities appear to have lagged behind.

Read more: Cycling and walking are short-changed when it comes to transport funding in Australia

The pandemic has highlighted the importance of our local neighbourhoods and the need to provide safe space locally for walking and riding, particularly for our children. As many Australians are staying home, most of our physical activity occurs on the streets and paths around our homes.

Therefore, we must focus our efforts on our neighbourhoods, local streets and shopping centres, where residents need safe and easy opportunities to be active. This includes providing safe routes to children’s schools, activity centres and other hubs.

Experts call for action

The call by more than 100 health and transport experts for infrastructure to enable safer walking and cycling has been supported by key organisations including the Heart Foundation, Public Health Association of Australia, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, the Australasian College of Road Safety, the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Trauma Committee, Kidsafe, the Australasian Injury Prevention Network, Doctors for the Environment Australia, The Committee for Sydney and The Committee for Adelaide.

Across the world we see many examples of the rapid roll-out of social distancing infrastructure to support cycling and walking during the COVID-19 pandemic:

• Paris is rolling out 650km of emergency bicycle lanes

• Milan has announced 35km of streets will be transformed for walking and cycling

• Oakland is allocating 10% of the city’s streets for walking and cycling

• New Zealand has announced significant funding to help councils create more people-friendly spaces in towns and cities.

These are just a few examples. We must also consider lowering the default urban speed limit to 30km/h and reducing traffic on residential streets and around local business areas.

Read more: Cities lead the charge on the coronavirus front lines

Australia lagging behind

Despite the urgent need for connected networks of walking and cycling infrastructure in Australia, we have not seen a similar response from federal, state and territory governments.

At the moment, local councils often don’t have the authority to make changes locally or take road space without the approval of the state or territory government. We need these governments to recognise the need for rapid action and provide temporary delegation powers to local councils to enable quick infrastructure changes to support safe walking and cycling. This has happened in New Zealand and the UK.

The roll-out of this infrastructure will also be critical in reactivating the economy when physical-distancing measures are relaxed.

Financial and planning experts have recommended against investing in major road projects. Instead, they recommend smaller-scale projects that focus on sustainable modes of transport. Such projects will enable people to travel to work and school using transport modes that are both safe and healthy.

A turning point for our cities

Public transport typically moves up to half of all people travelling to work in some city centres. However, physical distancing is often a challenge on public transport. As restrictions are eased, shifting even a proportion of these passengers to walking or cycling trips will have infection-control advantages that limit transmission.

Read more: For public transport to keep running, operators must find ways to outlast coronavirus

If there is not a significant shift to cycling or walking, private car use is likely to increase. The results will be increased congestion and pollution and reduced community amenity.

Never before have we seen such a shift to active modes as our population has sought to stay healthy and active during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our immediate priority must be to tackle the inadequacies of current walking and cycling infrastructure to enable physical distancing.

Beyond this, we must look to the future. To promote active transport, we need more space that encourages these modes. We need space for health.

This is one moment in time to undo the wrongs of past transport policies that promoted the use of private cars and harmed population health and the environment. We must use this opportunity to future-proof our cities, invest in active modes of transport and ensure we provide safe and equitable mobility solutions for people today and for generations to come.

– ref. Physical distancing is here for a while – over 100 experts call for more safe walking and cycling space – https://theconversation.com/physical-distancing-is-here-for-a-while-over-100-experts-call-for-more-safe-walking-and-cycling-space-137374

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Morley, Professor of Macroeconomics, University of Sydney

Governments are being asked to do the near impossible: to deliver on both health and the economy. In many circumstances doing both at the same time would be completely impossible. But fortunately in Australia we have separate instruments we can use to target separate goals.

The health objective is to minimise the number of lives lost and keep the spread of the virus low enough to not overwhelm the health care system. Until there is a vaccine we will need to keep in place many of the current restrictions, including bans on large gatherings and international travel.

The economic objective can be assisted by relaxing other restrictions, such as those on the maximum number of people who can gather in one place, alongside careful monitoring and a readiness to reimpose them where needed. But any relaxing of restrictions won’t be anywhere near enough to restore the economy to its full health.

Why we’ll need more stimulus

That’s where Australia’s two separate tools come in. Restrictions are (for now) the primary means of maintaining health.

Huge government spending is the primary means of fending off massive unemployment and a recession worse than any since the Great Depression.

Treasury Secretary Stephen Kennedy acknowledged the scale of what we are facing on Tuesday, telling a Senate committee Australia had “never seen an economic shock of this speed, magnitude and shape.”

Even if we lifted all of its restrictions right now, demand for our exports would remain at global recession levels, pushing our economy backwards.

Adding to the case for enormous extra spending is the additional reality that business cycles are almost always asymmetric: the output lost in a recession isn’t regained in the recovery.

To allow a big recession is to permanently alter our standard of living, and possibly our future growth path; all the more so in downturns caused by pandemics which have been linked to a long-lasting increase in precautionary saving.

Fortunately, fiscal stimulus has been shown to be at its most effective when the economy is massively under-utilising its resources, as it is now.

JobKeeper is a placeholder

The bridging measures undertaken by the government, including JobKeeper, will be critical for mitigating the severity of the recession and maintaining a platform for recovery.

But they will only mitigate the severity of the recession. They won’t avoid it. In common language, they are not “stimulus” measures, but measures that will merely maintain (some of) the status quo.

Even with them, it is entirely reasonable to expect the unemployment rate to climb into double digits as 15-20% of the workforce lose their jobs.

Australia is in the fortunate position of being able to spend big in part because of its prudent policy during the good times and in part because of its comparatively good trade prospects once the global recession is over.

Read more: The charts that show coronavirus pushing up to a quarter of the workforce out of work

And Australia is able to borrow at historically low levels. The Commonwealth government can issue 10 year bonds or longer at an annual interest rate well below 1%.

This means that even A$1 trillion of extra spending (more than one half of Australia’s annual gross domestic product) would carry a price tag of $10 billion a year or about $400 per person.

As the economy grows, partly as a result of this extra spending, net debt will shrink as a proportion of gross domestic product, just as it did after the second world war.

Crucially, it won’t need budget surpluses to do this, just as net debt withered after the war, even though the budget remained in deficit.

Our government went into this crisis with ample capacity to conduct large scale fiscal stimulus, having one of the lowest net debt to GDP ratios in the developed world – just short of 20%.

Err on the high side

But the scale of the stimulus that will be needed is gargantuan, and it will be better to err on the high side – at least 15-20% of GDP per year, for two to three years.

Anything less runs the risk of a debt-default deflationary spiral of the kind seen in the Great Depression, when the ability of households and businesses to pay their debts decreased with deflation and the resulting defaults led to further deflation.

If stimulus is big enough to be successful, financial markets will understand that debt issued by the Commonwealth will ultimately be backed by a higher GDP.

It will be important to signal in advance that the stimulus measures will be in place by the time JobKeeper ends (currently September). The forward guidance should emphasise that the measures will remain well into the recovery and not end at the first sight of it.

The early measures should focus on boosting the capacity of the economy to make it better able to withstand future pandemics.

Examples include

• improving the national broadband network, with a focus on reducing outages and building infrastructure that will allow homes to act as offices, especially in higher density areas

• improving the ability of Australian Post to deliver physical items to households, and the ability of ports and road transport to get things to where they are needed

• building and encouraging the use of the robust technologies that will be needed to ensure keeping the spread of this virus and others low

• labour intensive programs that boost improve local environments, everything from tree planting and waterway cleanups to cycle path construction and dune repair

• online delivery for universities, including investment in materials for overseas students who will be given a commitment to be allowed to travel to Australian campuses once restrictions are removed

• making Australia a world leader in the remote delivery of arts in a way that makes Australian culture available worldwide, and also a world leader in the local delivery of art via labour-intensive public art works

The general point, more important than the specific examples, is that there is a lot of infrastructure that can be created even the under current circumstances.

And consider war bonds

In normal times it might make sense to develop this infrastructure privately or through public-private partnerships, but in the present crisis it can only be done publicly on the scale that is needed. The Australian government has the capacity to do it.

The best way to make that clear would be a set of separate accounts for the emergency, offset by the issuing of long-term “COVID bonds” at low interest rates, much like the war bonds Australia issued during the second world war.

The bonds would allow visibility into the extent to which the Commonwealth government remained prudent in other spending and would use a precedent already established in making a distinction between spending for investment and spending for consumption.

A broad take-up could also engender the political support needed to extend JobKeeper to more than one million casual workers, and temporary visa holders and students.

Denying people who could contribute to Australia’s economic recovery the opportunity to do it risks denying Australia the resources it will need when the crisis is over.

Read more: Which jobs are most at risk from the coronavirus shutdown? 

Announcing these programs as soon as possible and providing guidance on the scale and duration of the planned spending will help prevent further declines in economic activity right now.

The government is delivering an economic statement in a fortnight, on May 12. It would be the right day to start.

– ref. It’s just started: we’ll need war bonds, and stimulus on a scale not seen in our lifetimes – https://theconversation.com/its-just-started-well-need-war-bonds-and-stimulus-on-a-scale-not-seen-in-our-lifetimes-137155

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Page, Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

Captain James Cook arrived in the Pacific 250 years ago, triggering British colonisation of the region. We’re asking researchers to reflect on what happened and how it shapes us today. You can see other stories in the series here and an interactive here.

On a recent trip to Cape York, I was privileged to sit with Kaurareg/Gudang Yadhaykenu man Uncle Tommy Savage, on a beach in the town of Umagico.

We listened as he sang a song called Markai an Ghule (meaning “ghost ship”), composed by his ancestors when James Cook arrived at Possession Island in August 1770.

A sad lilt permeated the song, an expression of the grief the Kaurareg people felt at having to hide their cultural system, while they determined what the arrival of this preternatural being and his big ship was all about.

We recorded Uncle Tommy’s song for inclusion in The Message, a film commissioned by the National Museum of Australia and opening in April to coincide with 250 years since Cook arrived.

While researching the film, I spent much of last year travelling Australia’s east coast interviewing historians, curators and traditional owners, piecing together stories from the ship and the shore. Here are the stories that have stuck with me.

A voyage of the dead

What is so often described as Cook’s “voyage of discovery” has been viewed consistently by Indigenous people as a voyage of the dead; a giant canoe carrying the reincarnation of ancestral beings.

At the first encounter in Botany Bay, two Gweagal warriors throw stones and spears to Cook, saying “warrawarrawa,” meaning “they are all dead” (not “go away”, as it is often translated).

Perhaps this explains why Banks and Cook write of Aboriginal people persistently declining any of the gifts they were offered. You would have to be crazy to take gifts from the dead!

The warnings about these ghostly visitors were quickly and accurately sent by fire, smoke and message stick up the coast, adding a deeper meaning to the many fires Banks and Cook noted as they travelled north (“Saw several smooks along shore before dark and two or three times afire in the night,” Cook writes).

A collision of beliefs

When the Endeavour smashes into the reef in Cooktown and is forced to stay for 48 days on the river for repairs, Cook and his crew captured “eight or nine” turtles (tellingly, Banks refers repeatedly to “our turtles”).

A contingent of local Guugu Yimithirr men board HMS Endeavour and try to take at least one turtle back, but Cook’s men soon wrest it away – refusing to share or acknowledge the possibility they’d taken too many.

Lamenting this environmental loss, a group of warriors light the grass fires in protest (“I had little Idea of the fury with which the grass burnt in this hot climate, nor of the dificulty of extinguishing it when once lighted”, Banks writes) and Cook shoots one of the Guugu Yimithirr men.

The rising tension is then released by an older man who stands forward in an extraordinary act of governance and breaks the tip off a spear to signify “weapons down”.

‘… in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans’

The incident brought together threads still relevant in Indigenous-settler relations today: environmental care, reconciliation and cultural governance. And this collision of beliefs, it seems, was not lost on Cook.

As he sailed off from the tip of Cape York, Cook wrote an unusual diary entry:

From what I have said of the Natives of New-Holland, they may appear to some to be the most wretched people upon Earth, but in reality they are far more happier than we Europeans; being wholy unacquainted not only with the superfluous but the necessary conveniencies so much sought after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them.

They live in a Tranquillity which is not disturb’d by the Inequality of Condition: The Earth and sea of their own accord furnishes them with all things necessary for life; they covet not Magnificent Houses, Houshold-stuff […]

[…] they live in a warm and fine Climate and enjoy a very wholsome Air, so that they have very little need of Clothing and this they seem to be fully sencible of, for many to whome we gave Cloth to, left it carlessly upon the Sea beach and in the woods as a thing they had no manner of use for.

In short they seem’d to set no Value upon any thing we gave them, nor would they ever part with any thing of their own for any one article we could offer them; this, in my opinion argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of Life and that they have no Superfluities —

For a working class man from Georgian England to see and appreciate the cultural values of Indigenous people is remarkable, considering that clarity of understanding is only just dawning on the average Australian.

The role of Joseph Banks

After all the conversations I’ve had over the last year with historians, traditional owners and curators, I’ve come to believe that history has been unkind to Cook. He is blamed for the many wrongs inflicted on my people.

Joseph Banks, however, emerges as a much colder, unkinder figure. It was Banks who convinced the British government that Australia would be perfect for a penal colony, given it could no longer send convicts to America.

Banks’s view that Australia was “thinly inhabited” (and he speaks frequently of savagery and simplicity of its people) fed directly into the declaration of terra nullius. Banks never went inland, but declared with great hubris that it was almost certainly “totally uninhabited”.

In the end, the decisions made in the 18 years between Cook leaving and the First Fleet arriving have shaped modern Australia far more than those early fleeting ethereal encounters.

There are so many lost chapters in the story of Australia.

But as a nation, we can invite Uncle Tommy and his people – and all those other excluded songs and stories – to come out of hiding.

Revealing our shared history is the only way to make peace with those ghostly visitors of the past. But we will only find that peace in the truth and it’s the truth of our history, which will be our new voyage of discovery.

Alison Page was commissioned by the National Museum of Australia to create the film The Message for the museum’s Endeavour 250 exhibition, opening on April 8.

– ref. ‘They are all dead’: for Indigenous people, Cook’s voyage of ‘discovery’ was a ghostly visitation – https://theconversation.com/they-are-all-dead-for-indigenous-people-cooks-voyage-of-discovery-was-a-ghostly-visitation-126430

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of Queensland

In classical Western theism, God is said to be both good and all-powerful. So how do we square natural disasters – global pandemics, earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, bushfires, and so on – with a God who, because he is good, would not want natural disasters and, because he is all-powerful, could stop them if he wished?

This was a question asked after the devastating Lisbon earthquake by Voltaire (1694-1778), one of the great philosophers of the European Enlightenment. It led to one of his most famous works: Candide, or l‘Optimisme (1759).

On 1 November 1755, at 9.30am, Lisbon in Portugal was almost totally destroyed by an earthquake, followed by further tremors, fires, a tsunami, and civil unrest. It was All Saints Day and large numbers of people were killed as churches collapsed upon them. Statistics for natural disasters, then as now, are notoriously rubbery. But between 20,000 and 40,000 people died out of a population of some 200,000.

Then, as now, people wondered whether there was a divine plan to the devastation that shook their Christian beliefs and monuments.

Read more: Are you there God? Whether we pray harder or endure wrath depends on the religious doctrine of Providence

Beyond the appearance of evil

In writing Candide, Voltaire had the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) in his sights and especially his essays on the goodness of God in Theodicy (1710). For Leibniz, in spite of evils both natural and moral, this was still the best of all possible worlds. It was the best that God could have made. This was because it had both the greatest variety of things and the simplest laws of nature.

Evils both natural and moral, Leibniz declared, were part of an overall universal good. If the “smallest evil that comes to pass in the world were missing in it,” he declared, “it would no longer be this world; which, with nothing omitted and all allowance made, was found the best by the Creator who chose it”.

While Leibniz admitted it was possible to imagine worlds without sin and without unhappiness, “these same worlds would be very inferior to ours in goodness”. God was, in other words, the perfect gardener in spite of the cosmic weeds.

Before God created this world, according to Leibniz, he compared all possible worlds in order to choose the one that was best. Thus, God created a world that was all the more harmonic for some pain, acidity, and darkness rather than being all pleasure, sweetness, and light.

Leibniz wasn’t stupid. He saw that the “appearances” of evil in the world strongly cut against God’s goodness and justice. He refused, however, to allow the evils of the world to count decisively against God. This would be to confuse the surface of the world with its depth.

He believed that the defender of God should proceed from a faith that the world, in spite of its obvious evils, was ultimately good by virtue of its foundation in the goodness of God who had, after all, created it.

Candid comedy

Did Leibniz’s unfailing 18th-century optimism and firm belief in divine goodness fail to take evil seriously? Voltaire thought so. In fact, Voltaire flipped the serious nature of evil on its head; believing that natural and moral evil were so serious they could only be treated satirically.

In Candide, Leibniz was cast as Dr Pangloss, an instructor in “metaphysico-theologico-cosmoloonigology” in the court of the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh.

Pangloss was a committed believer in this world as the best of all possible ones, in spite of its natural evils and the moral evils perpetrated in particular by those of religious faiths (Christians, Jews, and Muslims). Whatever happened in the world, Pangloss, like Leibniz, was able to rationalise it as compatible with its being eventually for the best.

Voltaire found this notion of the best of all possible worlds problematic, given the sheer quantity and quality of evil present in it.

This system of All is good represents the author of nature only as a powerful and maleficent king, who does not care, so long as he carries out his plan, that it costs four or five hundred thousand men their lives, and that the others drag out their days in want and in tears. So far from the notion of the best of possible worlds being consoling, it drives to despair the philosophers who embrace it. The problem of good and evil remains an inexplicable chaos for those who seek in good faith.

Read more: Thoughts and prayers: miracles, Christianity and praying for rain

Carrying on

What was Voltaire’s solution? Surprisingly perhaps, it was not despair. Rather, it was a gentle resignation, a philosophical que sera, sera. This meant the quiet cultivation of our gardens as God had originally intended for us in the first Garden of Eden. We were to be like Adam and Eve.

There was to be, therefore, an avoiding of airy philosophical speculations on how to justify the ways of God to man (like this piece of writing is). Instead, Voltaire advocated doing a little good in the hope of our becoming a little better.

This is a solution that may not satisfy believers in the goodness of God. But it will resonate amongst those of us who, in isolation at home, are quietly tilling the soil, labouring in our vegetable patch, or contentedly mowing our lawns. Simple, but somehow satisfying!

– ref. Is God good? In the shadow of mass disaster, great minds have argued the toss – https://theconversation.com/is-god-good-in-the-shadow-of-mass-disaster-great-minds-have-argued-the-toss-137078

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Pattinson, PhD Candidate, University of Sydney

Recent studies have found alongside older age and chronic health conditions, obesity is a risk factor for becoming seriously ill with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

It’s true a number of the health conditions which we know increase the risk of severe illness from COVID-19 are also associated with obesity. These include type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and respiratory disease.

But new research suggests obesity independently is a strong predictor of severe illness, particularly in those aged under 60 years.

This is concerning given two-thirds (67%) of the Australian adult population have a body mass index (BMI) in the overweight or obese range.

Read more: Explainer: how does excess weight cause disease?

BMI is a person’s weight in kilograms divided by the square of their height in metres (kg/m²). While it’s an imperfect measure for an individual person, BMI is very useful in comparing health and weight across a population and between groups.

For adults, overweight is a BMI of 25 or above, but less than 30kg/m². For a woman of average height (162 cm), this would be equivalent to a weight of 66kg or above, and for a man of average height (176 cm), a weight of 78kg or above.

Obesity is defined as a BMI 30kg/m² or above. This equates to a weight of 79kg and above for a woman and 93kg and above for a man, both of average height.

The evidence

One study from China looking at data from 112 patients reported overweight and obesity were almost five times more prevalent in patients with COVID-19 who died (88%) compared to those who survived (19%).

Preliminary data from another Chinese study involving 383 patients, although not yet peer reviewed, suggests overweight or obesity more than doubled the risk of developing severe pneumonia as a result COVID-19, particularly in men.

Researchers in France found almost half of 124 patients admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) with COVID-19 had a BMI in the obese range. This was nearly double the rate of a comparison group of ICU patients with severe acute respiratory disease unrelated to COVID-19.

Further, the need for mechanical ventilation increased with increasing BMI.

A UK surveillance study of patients admitted to intensive care with COVID-19 reported almost three-quarters (75%) of the 6,720 patients had a BMI in the overweight or obese range, which is greater than the population prevalence of overweight and obesity in adults in the UK (around 67%).

Read more: Why are older people more at risk of coronavirus?

Although some of these studies factored in chronic conditions when reporting their results, it’s difficult to separate all of the conditions associated with obesity that may contribute to some degree to the poorer outcomes.

So it’s likely that some – but not all – of the increased risk of severe COVID-19 associated with obesity could be due to people having other chronic conditions.

Young people

It seems obesity may have more of an impact on the severity of COVID-19 in young people, according to two studies from New York.

One study of 3,615 people who tested positive for COVID-19 found those aged under 60 years with a BMI of between 30 and 34 were almost twice as likely to be admitted to ICU compared to patients with a BMI of less than 30. This likelihood increased to 3.6 times in those patients with a BMI of 35 or greater.

In patients over 60 years, the researchers didn’t find a significant link between obesity and severe illness (as indicated by admission to ICU).

Another study, which recorded weight for 178 patients, found obesity was the most common underlying condition for patients aged under 64 years admitted to hospital for COVID-19.

Why the greater risk?

Taken together, the above data suggest there is an association between obesity and more severe COVID-19 illness, particularly in those with a BMI of 35 or greater.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now lists “severe obesity” as a risk factor for serious COVID-19 illness.

We don’t know exactly what role obesity plays in the severity of COVID-19 symptoms. But the mechanisms are likely to be multifaceted, particularly since obesity itself is the result of a complex interaction between genetic, hormonal, behavioural, social and environmental factors.

We know obesity can have a significant impact on lung function. Excess weight around the abdomen can compress the chest, making it more difficult for the diaphragm to move and the lungs to expand and take in air. This can contribute to lower levels of oxygen in the blood, which may exacerbate the symptoms of COVID-19.

We also know obesity results in a chronic state of inflammation which can impair the body’s immune response. This could potentially make it more difficult for the body to fight coronavirus.

Read more: Does anyone know what your wishes are if you’re sick and dying from coronavirus?

The challenges in caring for patients with severe obesity may also affect their outcomes from COVID-19.

For example, it’s more difficult to intubate or perform imaging such as X-rays and CT scans in patients with obesity.

Further, positioning ventilated patients on their stomachs can increase the amount of oxygen entering the lungs. But this is often not possible for patients with severe obesity.

Should I be worried?

The short answer is no. If your body weight is above the healthy range, these results should not be cause for panic or impetus to engage in crash diets to reduce COVID-19 risk.

While the data does suggest obesity is a risk factor for more severe illness, it’s early days in the life of COVID-19 and we need more research before we can definitively say what’s going on.

The most significant thing you can do to lower your risk is to follow the government’s guidelines.

These restrictions can be challenging and might lead to reduced physical activity and eating for comfort or to ease boredom, potentially resulting in weight gain.

If you find yourself with extra time during the pandemic, you may find it helpful to view it as an opportunity to make healthy choices and cultivate new habits to reduce your risk of illness in general and to enhance health and well-being going forward.

Read more: How to stay fit and active at home during the coronavirus self-isolation

– ref. Evidence obesity is a risk factor for serious illness with coronavirus is mounting – even if you’re young – https://theconversation.com/evidence-obesity-is-a-risk-factor-for-serious-illness-with-coronavirus-is-mounting-even-if-youre-young-137081