Introduction

The environment is under more sustained threat from human activity in the 21st century than at any other time in history with extensive potential social and health consequences. Human health, broadly defined, encompassing physical, mental and spiritual dimensions, is highly dependent on the context in which we live. Any threat to our environmental certainties, therefore, has a significant impact on human well-being. However, the environmental threats now faced by the whole human race are more significant than any previously known. While health remains a significant focus of practice for social workers (Browne, 2005), links between these global environmental concerns and health outcomes have rarely featured in social work discourse. This is despite a long-standing recognition of the impact of the local environment (especially housing) on people's health (for example, Shaw et al, 1998; Brafield and Eckersley, 2007). The environmental conditions into which children are born and which influence both the length and the quality of their adult life are one of the key mechanisms which generate inequalities in health (Wilkinson and Marmot, 2003).

As a social work researcher specialising in exploring the social conditions of rural people, I have become increasingly concerned about the plight of Australians experiencing the deleterious effects of the long-running drought of the 2000s. During the same period there has been a new global awareness of environmental degradation leading to climate change. The link between the drought and climate change led me to research the social and health impacts of the Australian drought and to place it in the context of global climate change research.

Climate change, or climate variability, results primarily from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and refers to changes in weather patterns including rising temperatures which are melting the earth's ice caps and causing more extreme weather events such as flooding and drought (Australian Farm Institute, 2007; IPCC, 2007). Globally, variability in weather patterns and large-scale environmental events such as the tsunami in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Bangladesh, flooding in the Indian sub-continent, New Orleans and Myanmar/Burma, desertification in Africa and drought in Australia are disturbingly frequent and intense.