Neville Ellis from the Centre for Responsible Citizenship and Sustainability interviewed 22 farmers from the Wheatbelt town of Newdegate, 400kms south east of Perth, over the course of the 2013-14 agricultural season. The interviews revealed that the negative impacts of climate change, as manifested in issues like wind erosion and unpredictable weather, was undermining their wellbeing.
"The South West of Western Australia has experienced abrupt and severe climate change in the last forty years," said Mr Ellis, who carried out the research for his PhD.
"Winter rainfall has fallen 20 per cent since the 1970s, average temperatures have risen almost a degree since the 1950s and climate extremes like heatwaves, frosts and droughts are more frequent and severe.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-12-m...farmers-due.html#jCp
[For more of this story, written by Jo Manning, go to http://phys.org/news/2015-12-m...farmers-due.html#jCp]
Comments (0)