The Australian community has become increasingly concerned about environmental issues, resulting in the Australian Government placing a higher priority on dealing with global warming and climate change. Water Wind Art and Debate highlights current research across a variety of humanities and science disciplines.

In August 2006 a new publications initiative to produce books covering multidisciplinary research on topical areas was suggested by Kerrie Legge in the Research Office at the University of Sydney. Extensive collaboration followed between Sydney University Press and the Research Office, resulting in this book. Through this collaboration the University of Sydney hopes to publish a new series of multidisciplinary books highlighting the breadth of new ideas and insights coming from our researchers.

Timothy Stephen’s chapter, ‘A Slow Burn’ critically examines the patchwork of existing legislation having a bearing upon climate change policy in Australia. It also speculates on the future shape and content of Australian climate change law as negotiations on a strengthened international climate regime gather pace.

Stuart Rosewarne’s ‘Global warming and discourses of uncertainty’ exposes some of the fundamental contradictions of and risks associated with the government’s procrastination under the guise of a discourse of uncertainty. The Australian Government’s longstanding reluctance to accept the science of global warming, or to acknowledge that there is any pressing need to implement policies designed to abate greenhouse gas emissions is discussed.

The chapter of Mladenovic Rosina and Sandra van der Laan, ‘State of the Environment Reporting by Local Government’ examines Councils’ critical role at the micro-level of accountability and reporting processes in activities as diverse as social development through to environmental management, including waste management, land development and use viwhich has consequences for water resources, soil degradation, biodiversity and sewerage. Renewable energy has attracted great attention among governments, industries, academics and societies in the world. In ‘Framing Responsibility’ John Mikler finds that the institutional basis of capitalist relations in firms’ home states is a key determiner of their environmental motivations.

Danielle Spruyt’s chapter on the changing status of water suggests that the rights to use water are increasingly linked to the imperative to use water for productive gain, an approach that does not provide a final resolution to the contest between commercial and environmental interests in water use. This shift in policy emphasis challenges us to evaluate our rights to water. Willem Vervoort’s ‘Management of Water Resources under Uncertainty’ reports that forecasting of stream flows and soil moisture balances will be crucial for planning and policy making in agriculture and natural resource management and that a radical rethink of the way simulation models are used to underpin policy and management decisions is needed.

In the chapter ‘Energy from Offshore Wind’ Dong-Sheng Jeng and Yun Zheng examine the design of offshore wind energy generators and evaluate the selection of potential sites for offshore wind energy in Australia.

Gavin Birch in his chapter, “A short geological and environmental history of the Sydney estuary’ traces the recent geological development of Sydney’s river system and illustrates how a pristine environment has changed due to human activities. Christopher Dey, Manfred Lenzen and their colleagues report on household environmental pressure from consumption, illustrating the impact of the average Australian’s consumption and use of goods and services on the environment. Through detailed census and environmental data, combined with an economy-wide model, they have calculated the total household environmental pressure for over 1300 Australian Statistical Local Areas (SLAs).

Jennifer Barrett’s and Phil McManus’s chapter on ‘Civilising nature: Museums and the environment’ considers some of the key discourses in viinatural history and science museums to reveal a rich legacy of engagement with the environment – arguing that museums shape and reflect environmental attitudes. Catriona Moore’s ‘Not Just a Pretty Picture: Art as Ecological Communication’ traces how the western landscape tradition has been modified by Indigenous concepts of country that combine traditional and inter-disciplinary knowledge within a speculative framework of ecological aesthetics.

The chapter from Gabrielle Higgins, Catherine Maggs, Mathew McKenzie, Eike Christian Meuter, and Erin Semon about the Australian Government’s 2006 Nuclear Energy Campaign examines the issue of nuclear energy in Australia from a public relations perspective and within a framework of political communication theory.

The resulting volume provides a unique insight into how concerns about the environment are influencing every facet of life.

Professor Merlin Crossley
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research
University of Sydney viii