David Shearman
David Shearman is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Adelaide University and previously held senior academic positions at Edinburgh University, where he qualified in Medicine and Biological Science, and at Yale University. He is author of many books on climate change and related issues. He has served on the IPCC, has been President of the Conservation Council of South Australia. With the late Professor Tony McMichael he founded Doctors for the Environment Australia in 2001. He is author and co-author of several hundred scientific and medical papers.
David's recent articles
26 October 2024
Treasurer Chalmers should have attended the biodiversity COP16
The world’s biodiversity crisis gathers pace and any effective action depends on the reduction of economic growth. High-level leadership is needed to explain the fundamental conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation which threatens humanity possibly sooner than the ravages of climate change.
1 October 2024
Climate and environment: both sides of the coin are tarnished
The most important role of government is to protect its citizens. In Australia this is usually taken to mean military defence, alliances with other countries and considerable expenditure. However the governments of many countries including ours have not yet grasped the fact that we are facing defeat in the current battle against the advancing threats of climate change and environmental demise.
17 August 2024
Climate Policy remains a dirty deal for children
The most recent Climate Analytics Report indicates that Australia is playing a major role in sustaining elevated global emissions, threatening the goals of the Paris Agreement. We have not set targets for the phase-out of fossil fuel exploration, production and export and we continue to approve new gas and coal developments. I express my dismay.
26 July 2024
Bad banks, culpable coal industry, compliant government all in bed together
A People's Development Bank would be appropriate to the needs and security of production in rural and regional Australia. The case for action is overwhelming and has been so since the Commonwealth Bank Australia (CBA) was privatised. Crucially the rural sector must lead the charge for Australia to retain our life support systems.
15 July 2024
The gas industry has power and freedom to wreck the world
By now many citizens of our planet recognise that the destructiveness of climate change is moving faster than they imagined, leaving our defences at serious risk and even the money men are concerned about the burgeoning costs and possible economic collapse.
11 June 2024
World War III and our failure to defend against climate
In World War III the enemy is not an array of tanks, shells and soldiers, but a collection of beliefs damaging to the earth’s future. The enemies are the minds and actions of those with the cult of neo-liberalism and greed acting through the power of huge industries, the enemy within.
15 May 2024
Future Gas Strategy is a betrayal of promised Climate and Environmental Policies
Climate scientists reveal data that earth’s heating is accelerating, heat extremes are increasing and 1.5C has been breached faster than forecast. We are failing to treat climate change as the single greatest threat to humanity.
11 April 2024
The Government must abandon its gas policy
For every thousand tonnes of fossil fuels mined, one person dies. As climate science provides increasing evidence of accelerating warming, we must recognise that gas is our main threat and stop producing it.
26 March 2024
EPBC Act reform must offer a sustainable future based on science
The operation of democracy in Australia is incapable of addressing the impending environmental and climate crises because of conflict between tested truth and convenient lies.
26 February 2024
Our life support systems of climate, water and ecological services are in collective crisis
A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. Franklin D. Roosevelt. We must educate and act urgently on these problems.
15 January 2024
Climate adaptation: government action on life support systems is lamentable
The foundation for effective climate change adaptation must be the preservation of ecological life support systems for humans and all other species. We must prioritise the protection and expansion of water, biodiversity and ecological services to provide food security for future generations instead of environmentally damaging industries, especially fossil fuels.
8 December 2023
Amendment of the Climate Change Act will offer a future for young people
Since the industrial revolution, the health damage done to young people by fossil fuels, from the boy chimney sweeps to the household gas cooker amounts to negligence. Do we care?
15 November 2023
Unconscionable: Albanese governments massive fossil fuel developments mock mitigation efforts
Anguish, despair and fear for the future will ravage your brain when you read the latest edition of the UN Production (emissions) Gap Report. Your distress will further increase when you read that Australia will increase the Gap with the development of the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct, when to stand any chance of addressing climate change, we must phase out of all fossil fuel production now.
19 October 2023
Human and Environmental Health cry out for a revised Water Trigger
Environmental and some health organisations are requesting urgent legislative action to amend part of the EPBC Act of 1999, to include shale and tight gas so it can be applied to assessments of the Beetaloo shale gas development.
19 September 2023
Revolution is needed to save the dying River Murray
Many rivers around the world are dying from overuse, pollution, the effects of dams, river barriers and global warming; governmental failures and political squabbles are often paramount. How then do we save the Murray?
11 September 2023
Governments abject failure to understand the gas industrys huge health impacts
Current articles on the governments climate policies increasingly use words such as reckless, hypocrisy and betrayal referring to approval of coal mines. But it is even more difficult to find words to describe the gas industrys infliction of pain on humanity by the approval of gas mines.
1 August 2023
Government on the slow coal train as world faces collapse
The Governments draft Strategy on Health and Climate Change is vital to cope with the expected increase in deaths and illness from accelerating climate change. It fails in many respects and should be rewritten to reflect the views of medical experts.
12 July 2023
Con job: Australian Sea Dumping Bill facilitates fossil fuel mining
Governments around the world are promoting and subsidising carbon capture and storage (CCUS) to facilitate an increase in fossil gas mining. This will dash any hope of controlling world emissions at a time when there are deep concerns for climate change becoming uncontrollable.
27 May 2023
The budget left the homeless, homeless
The housing problem is huge and complex but the plight of the homeless is growing and must be addressed urgently. To solve the problem, what are the practicalities of manufactured housing and their financing?
20 May 2023
The Isaac coal mine approval is a betrayal of our future
The decision to approve the Isaac coal mine is a betrayal of Australians and indeed people worldwide and as a medical doctor I am justifiably angry.
15 May 2023
Universities and the future of humanity
The University Accord has yet to address a future which recognises the huge health and environmental threats to society. It should provide a vision of the university as A centre of learning to ensure the sustainability of the planet and the human race.
30 April 2023
The USA and Australia fail on climate change
Nearly two years ago relief was expressed that the USA had emerged under President Biden to offer world leadership on climate change. Sadly this leadership has been a disappointment and today both the US and other high emitters such as Australia are not on track to meet the challenge.
3 April 2023
Swimming between the flags on Climate policy threatens our future
At the last election, the Labor Party adopted a climate policy of Swimming between the Flags. This resulted in electoral success but it represented an unthinkable future for humanity.
30 March 2023
Land clearing: an environmental and human health disaster that must stop
Governments must come to understand that preservation of life support systems is more vital than many economic ones and they must develop the ability to explain this to the public.
8 March 2023
Will the Lake Eyre Basin be sacrificed on the altar of gas production?
The integrity of the ecology of the Lake Eyre Basin and its water supply from the Great Artesian Basin are threatened by oil and gas development and by ineffective state and federal administration.
26 February 2023
Defence strategy, climate change and the need for AUKUS in 2050
The AUKUS deal for nuclear submarines by 2050 indicates that government has little grasp of the likely chaotic state of the world after current trajectories on climate and environmental change have played out for the next 27 years. In turn this engenders insecurity over their knowledge and ability to deliver appropriate policies on these threats.
15 February 2023
Dire climate crisis requires shift to Make it 16 voting
Government action must lead the way by having 16 and 17 year olds vote at the next national election. Let us copy the Make it 16 campaign in NZ.
5 February 2023
Drastic economic reform needed to address climate change
Realisation is dawning that the climate and environmental crises will not be solved by current national policies. The reason is that the current market economy based on everlasting growth is the prime cause of these crises.
13 January 2023
We need urgent action to save our life support systems
We must modify our sluggish democracy to act urgently, transform our economy, and save our life support systems. The alternative is for economic change to be delivered brutally by nature.
15 December 2022
Deaths from heat waves can be prevented by community shelters
Australia has no national policy to prevent the rising death toll in heatwaves. The provision of insulated and air conditioned housing in many remote communities will take years. In the meantime heat shelters must be urgently provided.
22 November 2022
Badly injured developing nations promised palliative care at COP27
At COP27, oil and gas lobbyists triumphed, while badly injured developing nations were condemned to die with the promise of palliative care.
30 October 2022
Can China lead the way on climate reparations?
At a time when the developing nations are doing it tough in the face of inflation, rising power and food prices, many poor African, Asian and Pacific Island nations, struggling with the ravages of climate change, are asking for reparation. Will it be China and not the US that leads the way?
19 October 2022
The Murray Darling Basin Plan has fundamental problems and needs replacing
After nearly ten years of the Murray Darling Basin Plan, implemented to ensure the river remains viable, there is overwhelming evidence that the Plan is ineffective and should be replaced.
20 September 2022
Beetaloo gas field: Resurrect health impact assessments to save lives
Our new government walks both sides of the street on fossil fuels.
17 June 2022
Ecological services are essential for the sustainable future of our planet home
This a plea for understanding of the crucial functioning of ecological services, a complex issue requiring the interrelationship of many disciplines and most importantly a fundamental reform of economic ideology. These services must be central in the promised Independent Environmental Protection Agency.
18 May 2022
If I was minister for the environment, my one crucial reform would offer a sustainable future for Australia
The most urgent and vital decision that the Minister could make to help secure a sustainable future for Australia would be to establish a scientifically based national independent Environmental Protection Agency with statutory powers.
21 April 2022
A Federal ICAC is needed to protect the environment and climate change laws
The survival of democracy depends on checks and balances, the possibility of corruption being exposed through an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) which will provide a vital check on rorting of the environment.
27 February 2022
We need national unity to act on the climate emergency
The basic science underlying the climate emergency indicates that green house emissions must stop this decade. This now seems unlikely and we need a national unity government to make us more secure from its consequences.
17 December 2021
Economic planners do not reckon with climate crisis bearing down on us
The current population of 25 million may be Australia's limit, unless we are prepared to reduce our lifestyle footprint.
5 December 2021
Crash and burn: the deadly climate policies of our major parties
The Coalition and Labor refuse climate action that will ensure humanity's survival, even as thousands die globally from the burning of fossil fuels.
31 October 2021
Party's over for climate vandals: only informed independents can save us
A new parliament is urgently needed with the ability to act on the climate crisis and this must include young people whose future is at stake.
19 October 2021
One minute to midnight: only fresh thinking can tackle climate and biodiversity crises
The worlds biodiversity will continue to deteriorate even if temperature rise was arrested. The question for the Glasgow summit is whether our emission-driving economic system can respond.
5 September 2021
The climate apocalypse: Can a collapse of global civilisation be avoided?
If OECD countries don't phase out existing coal by 2030, they will be facilitating global collapse.
20 July 2021
The EU tariff plan is good news for Australia's place in the World
The steady deterioration in Australia's environment and the ineffective revision of the EPBC Act suggests that we need help from other developed nations to solve our problem. This help may come from proposals on trade from the EU and the USA.
26 June 2021
The curse of coal and government health malfeasance
Policies which prolong the life of coal shorten the lives of many Australians and must be confronted - they are preventable deaths. It is distressing that ideology and ignorance have come to this.
24 June 2021
Outcomes of the 'Biodiversity, Natural Capital and the Economy' Report at the G7 Summit
Following Australia's extravagant claims to climate leadership at the G7, hopes for a more diplomatic approach were dashed by a Prime Ministerial statement claiming that Australia is a frontrunner when it comes to taking action to conserve our biodiversity...
8 June 2021
Mr Morrison, the G7 Summit and the report "Biodiversity, Natural Capital and the Economy"
When Mr Morrison arrives at the G7 Leaders Summit later this week he will have before him a report on Biodiversity and if he reads and understands it he will realise that Australia's reformed gross domestic product (GDP) would almost certainly be in negative territory and likely to fall further because of our poor record in maintaining natural resources.
30 May 2021
Democratic reform is vital to address the climate and environmental crises
Society faces a fast moving confluence of climate change, environmental decay, and increasing zoonoses but fails to recognise the most compelling underlying problem, the crumbling ability of democratic systems to deliver any meaningful action.
8 April 2021
The importance of environmental water: is the national water initiative up to the job?
Momentous decisions are needed on water policy to ensure that life in Australia is sustainable when climate change is advancing and the natural environment is deteriorating rapidly. Is the National Water Initiative (NWI) capable of reform to ensure a sustainable future?