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Dr Neil Hamilton is the Deputy Executive Director of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change in Bonn, Germany. He has wide experience in the global change research community, including the development of an integrated set of transdisciplinary projects for the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme in 1999. Prior to leaving Australia, Neil developed a number of transdisciplinary research organisations, including the CRC for Greenhouse Accounting at the ANU and the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney. He was previously a project leader at CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology. Neil is a geographer by training, having completed his PhD at the University of Sydney. |
ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM Australia's science future 3-4 May 2000 Changes in the global environment The changing
global environment: Responses and future options
For the first time in history, humanity has the capacity to alter the biogeochemical systems supporting life on Earth. Physical, chemical and biological processes have been reshaping the Earth's environment since its infancy. In recent times, however, humankind has been the major driver of environmental change on our planet, causing climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution and exhaustion of water resources, and desertification among other global issues. Evidence for these changes at a global level ranges from long-term climate records in ice cores to land cover change in China in response to changing diet and growing population. International and national global change research programs are now developing strong linkages between natural and social science communities, and involving policy developers within the research process, to address the extremely complex scientific, technical, political, economic and social questions implied by global change. This sort of integrative, 'whole systems' science has no clear precedent, and is therefore exploratory at a time when results and direction are urgently needed. Australia's role in global change research has, to date, been extremely important and must remain so in the future, as the very nature of these problems implies a global response.
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