Nick Towle
Nick Towle
Over the space of a week, doctor Nick Towle typically covers between 75 and 100km as he cycles to work along the busy Bass Highway in Burnie, north-west Tasmania.
Nick’s route gives him spectacular views of Bass Strait but also a unique perspective on the impacts humans are having on the environment.
“It's a fascinating ride as I pass so many features that cause me to reflect on the way our society currently operates,” he says. “There are the denuded cliff faces symbolic of our thirst for resources … the huge Impact Fertilisers depot, and the looming challenges of peak oil; the Burnie mountains, also known as the woodchip piles evidence of our most valuable stores of carbon being sold off for toilet paper; and the disused rail line west of Burnie, a symbol of hope that one day we might have a vibrant public transport system.”
Nick is not only conscious of the ways in which humans change the landscape but also concerned at the influences a changing climate may have on human health, not surprising given he works part-time in the emergency department at North West Regional Hospital.
Keen to raise awareness of climate change and how individual actions could make a difference, in 2006 Nick applied to be a volunteer presenter with The Climate Project – Australia, Al Gore's climate change leadership program with the Australian Conservation Foundation.
“At the time of making my application I was performing and presenting at schools with a sustainability education project called 'The Otesha Project',” he says. “I was looking at ways to incorporate climate change into our travelling show. I was increasingly aware of the need to tackle our unsustainable ways of living and as more news came through about climate change it really struck me that most of the students I was performing to would not even be out of college or university before urgent changes were needed.”
Nick has now given 18 Climate Project presentations, including one to his colleagues at the University of Tasmania’s Rural Clinical School where he discussed the possible global health issues that could result from even a slight increase in the earth’s surface temperature.
“In the context of climate change it is actually very difficult to identify particular disease or particular illness and say ‘that’s caused by climate change’,” Nick says. “But what is perhaps becoming evident now is certain patterns of illness. So, for example, in areas of significant flooding, as the water recedes, we get an increase in mosquito-borne infections. That has happened in Queensland this year, there’s been a surge in mosquito-borne infections and we can link that quite clearly to water lying around in the region for longer.
“Here is Tasmania the sort of things we might see would be increased spikes of gastroenteritis. One degree temperature is a huge difference when it comes to medical and population health. One degree is the difference between bacteria proliferating, say in food that’s been left out on the bench, versus no illness.”
The day Nick gave his presentation at the clinical school was also the day he was filmed for the Australian Conservation Foundation documentary Telling the Truth, which profiles seven Climate Project presenters. “After what felt like an intense day of filming I was travelling with the film crew and we came across a sight that really bought home the messages I'm hoping to convey,” he says. “In the rolling farm landscape was a lone white wind turbine with a billowing forestry burnoff as the backdrop.”