Twelve years ago, on this day, September 26th, 2014 Tony McMichael RIP
In later years, and particularly after returning to Australia in 2001, he worked on the health effects of climate change.[9] He had always been influenced by ideas of anthropogenic crises, first population growth, and latterly of general planetary overload.[10] He argued that a warming world would have significant negative effects on human health. He said “Climate change is not just about disruptions to the local economy or loss of jobs or loss of iconic species. It’s actually about weakening the foundations of the life support systems that we depend on as a human species.”[1] His team showed that tens of thousands of people were dying each year from climate-induced flooding, malnutrition, and infectious diseases.[11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_McMichael
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 399ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
McMichael grew up in Adelaide, and graduated in medicine from the University of Adelaide (1961–1967). As a student, he spent a summer volunteering at a leprosy colony in New Delhi, India where he saw how patients were treated as social outcasts suffering from the stigma of a disfiguring disease although they were no longer contagious. The following year, whilst on a similar service trip to Papua New Guinea he met social sciences student Judith Healy, whom he married shortly after graduation. They had 2 children. He was elected president of the National Union of Students, based in Melbourne, in 1968.[1]
After 18 months in general practice, he was invited to become the PhD student of Professor Basil Hetzel at the new department of social and preventive medicine, Monash University in Victoria, graduating in 1972. Studying factors that influenced the mental health of undergraduate students, he gained skills in epidemiological research. He also showed early evidence of independent inquiry informed by reading the works of thinkers such as Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich who questioned the capacity of the Earth to support a growing world population with increasing consumption of resources.[2]
He then worked at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, studying the health of workers in the tyre industry. Returning to Australia he worked for CSIRO and then became the Foundation Chair in Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Adelaide from 1986 until 1994. From 1994 to 2001, he was the Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, before returning to Australia to follow Prof Bob Douglas as the director of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health[3] at the Australian National University in Canberra. Most recently he held an NHMRC Australia Fellowship at the ANU, where he also ran the Environment, Climate, and Health research program. McMichael was chair of think tank The Australia Institute.[4]
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
September 26, 1950 – Operation Sea-Spray
September 26, 1969 – Death on All Fronts, says Allen Ginsberg
September 26, 1970 – Medical Journal of Australia
September 26, 1989 – Australian Union body tries to add green to red…
September 26, 1998 – Howard decision only to ratify Kyoto if US does leaks.