ArticlePDF Available
2017 vol. 41 no. 4 Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 327
© 2017 The Authors
Editorial
Petrichor is a beautiful word. It is the
name for the smell of rain on its way,1
one of those smells that warns that
action will soon need to be taken, be it search
out an umbrella, nd shelter or, if it has not
rained for a while, maybe prepare to dance.
Rain is an essential human resource for use
in hygiene and food preparation, watering
food crops, and animal husbandry, and also
for infrastructure activities from recreation
to hydro-electricity production. But, besides
the mundane problems of raining on the
washing or delaying the bus home, storm
rains aect populations in much more serious
ways including ooding and landslides. For
these more critical events, we have well-
developed, evolving warning systems and
risk management plans designed to protect
us from and mitigate the eects of disasters
such as res, oods, and major storms. We use
these routinely. Our communities know what
we are supposed to do on days of predicted
extreme bushre warning and cyclones. We
have emergency warning telephone trees
and phone applications that actively involve
many organisations working together in
intricate ways to predict and mitigate the
worst eects of natural disaster events,
especially to protect the people who will
be aected. This year, Cyclone Debbie has
delivered a powerful reminder to Australia of
just how devastating storms can be: loss of
life, property damage, stock and crop losses,
resulting in disruption to export income and
food prices for many months to come that
will aect the livelihood of thousands of
people over a wide area of Australia and New
Zealand.
We have been experiencing some warning
signals from the other side of the Pacic that
for things are going to change, probably quite
stormily. While not necessarily a bad thing,
usually we approach change with a degree
of planning, paying due consideration to the
negative, as well as positive, eects of the
change.
From a public health perspective, storms
brewing in the United States certainly
warrant attention. While it is common – even
usual – for new governments to design
their own policies based on their individual
philosophies, generally the basic facts
and science behind these is commonly
acknowledged, understood and, in general,
agreed upon, even if the ne detail is
questioned. However, the latest American
President apparently has some unusual views
about scientic evidence, and has appointed
a set of advisers who, for the most part,
appear to think similarly to him.
Why does this matter? Well, for starters,
years of careful climate science and progress
towards Paris Agreement targets are in
danger of being mothballed. The US EPA
biography of new head Scott Pruitt suggests
that he is committed to a ‘strong and healthy
environment’,2 but as one of his biographies
explains, “Pruitt … is a leading advocate
against the EPAs activist agenda”.3 Reduced
vehicle emission targets, so recently regarded
as sensible, are to be revisited.4 Non-
renewable energy resources such as coal and
iron are assured as being good for us all, a
stance regarded elsewhere as smoggy. While
Trump’s views about the validity of science on
the contribution of humans to climate change
might be changing, he is more concerned
about mitigation eects on the economy
than on human health.5
The new President does seem to be keen on
water. In fact, he likes it so much he has his
own brand of bottled spring water called
Trump Ice – curious for someone so keen on
removing drugs from the streets. During his
campaign he promised, paradoxically, to both
improve water management (particularly
rebuilding old reticulation systems) and
repeal regulations around clean water,
including those designed to protect marshes
and wetlands essential for water health. Now
we hear that attempts are being made to stop
the not-yet enacted sensible consolidation
of confusing water-related legislation in the
1972 Clean Water Act (called Waters of the
United States Clean Water Rule),6 which was
designed to protect American citizens’ health
due to the implications of waters crossing
jurisdictional boundaries.7
When it comes to vaccine policy, it is hard to
nd a real fact among the many alternatives
that pepper the internet. Discounting the
(denitely fake news) 90-day ban on vaccines,
there is a question of whether a commission
into vaccine safely will be instituted. Trump
has met with vaccine sceptics Robert Kennedy
Jr and Andrew Wakeeld, and is widely quoted
as saying “I am totally in favour of vaccines …
but I want smaller doses over a longer period of
time.In 2015, he tweeted Healthy young child
goes to doctor, gets pumped with massive shot
of many vaccines, doesn’t feel good and changes
- AUTISM. Many such cases!”8 With Tom Price
(a conservative ex-orthopaedic surgeon and
vocal critic of the Aordable Health Care Act)9
in charge of Health and Social Services, no
wonder our public health colleagues at CDC
are worried about outbreaks; happily though,
public condence in the US immunisation
program appears sound.10
Progress in health insurance coverage through
the Aordable Care Act (PPACA) (Obamacare)
has assured health care for an additional
20 million Americans and has reduced
the number of Americans without health
insurance to an historic low,11 but as this Act is
to be reformed it is worrying that there are to
date no details about the ‘great replacement
plan’.
In Australia, we are not particularly well
protected from these problems. At various
times, members of our government have
been openly sceptical about the need for (and
use of) climate change evidence.13 Although
reaction was swift, vaccine safety has been
questioned by a Federal MP, who described
the policy of child payments being linked to
immunisation completion as “dictatorship”.14
For several years now, the need for public
health regulations on gambling and alcohol
to be treated as a problem in the same way as
tobacco has been apparent, but progress is
painfully slow.15 While there is at last the start
of a move towards investment in renewable
resources, scepticism about reliability16 and
health eects are both noisily debated,17
changes are driven by economic imperatives12
rather than a concern for our ailing planet, and
bickering about Medicare and its funding is a
political sport.
So, there are some of the gathering public
health storm clouds. We have a choice:
take shelter and hide, or prepare to use the
umbrella of incontrovertible scientic facts.
Petrichor is everywhere.
doi: 10.1111/1753-6405.12707
Petrichor
Priscilla Robinson
ANZJPH Editor
Department of Public Health, College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Victoria
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modications or adaptations are made.
328 Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 2017 vol. 41 no. 4
© 2017 The Authors
Editorial
References
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Correspondence to: Adjunct Associate Professor
Priscilla Robinson, Department of Public Health,
College of Science, Health and Engineering,
La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3086;
e-mail: priscilla.robinson@latrobe.edu.au
... Another intriguing possibility for wetness perception in humans might come through olfaction; a common experience after rainfall is the perception of "petrichor", a musty, earthy smell, often associated with pleasant affective states and relaxation [53,54]. The smell of petrichor is induced by the inhalation of geosmin, a metabolite of some microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria. ...
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One significant obstacle to gaining a widespread awareness of the ongoing climate change is the nature of its manifestations in relation to our perception: climate change effects are gradual, distributed, and sometimes seemingly contradictory. These features result in a lag in collective climate action and sometimes foster climate skepticism and climate denial. While the literature on climate change perception and belief has thoroughly explored its sociocultural and sociopolitical aspects, research on the potential contribution of psychophysiological factors remains scarce. In this perspective paper, we outline evidence and arguments for the involvement of psychophysiological systems such as thermoception, hygroreception, and interoception in modulating climate change awareness. We discuss psychophysiological mechanisms of climate change awareness in animals and humans, as well as possible sources of individual variance in climate change perception. We conclude by suggesting novel research questions which would be worthwhile to pursue in future studies.
... Itinerant populations relied on the avoidance of immediate danger associated with adverse weather conditions, such as landslides and flooding. However, they also relied on water for their long term survival, as it was essential in daily life for drinking, food preparation, hygiene and even primitive forms of animal husbandry, all practices which are reflected in modern populations (Robinson, 2017). The ability to sense rain is also noted in extant humans who, like their ancestors, detect rain via olfaction (Polak and Provasi, 1992). ...
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Hygroreceptors are a type of humidity sensor that have been identified in several invertebrate classes including Insecta and Arachnida. While their structure has been well researched, the nature of the mechanisms behind their function is debated as being either mechanical, evaporative, or psychrometric in insects and potentially also olfactory in arachnids. There is evidence that can be used to support or oppose each of these concepts, which also invites the possibility of multiple unified mechanisms occurring together. The integration of multiple sensory modalities has also formed the foundation of wetness perception in humans, led by thermal and tactile cues with supplementary information from vision and sound. These inputs are integrated by a vast neural network in the brain, which also occurs on a smaller scale in insects and arachnids. It is possible that as cerebral capacity increased throughout human evolution, this facilitated a preferable system of wetness perception via multisensory integration and rendered hygroreceptors obsolete. While this cerebral development hypothesis is only speculative, it gives a framework for further investigation. Additional research needs to be conducted to correctly classify hygroreceptor types in invertebrates and their relative prevalence before evolutionary associations can be made with vertebrate species. This integratory premise also applies to the human system, as knowing the relative contribution and compounding effects of each sensory modality on wetness perception will aid the overall understanding of the system and help to uncover the evolutionary development pathways underpinning each sense.
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  • Breene
Breene R. Trump Said Open to Relaxing Obama's Auto Fuel Efficiency Target. Bloomberg [Internet]; 2017 [cited 2017 Mar 4] March 4. Available from: https:// www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-03/ trump-said-to-plan-reconsideration-of-auto-emissionstandards
Trump Now Says Humans Somehow Contribute To Climate Change
  • L Barron-Lopez
  • Donald
Barron-Lopez L. Donald Trump Now Says Humans Somehow Contribute To Climate Change. "There is Some Connectivity". The Huffington Post [Internet]; 2016 [cited 2017 Mar 4] November 23. Available from: http:// www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/11/22/donaldtrump-now-says-humans-somehow-contribute-toclimate-chang/
Vaccine Safety Turned into One of Trump's First Presidential Priorities Financial Post
  • L Solomon
  • How
Solomon L. How Vaccine Safety Turned into One of Trump's First Presidential Priorities. Financial Post [Internet]; 2017 [cited 2017 Mar 3] January 11. Available from: http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/ lawrence-solomon-how-vaccine-safety-turned-intoone-of-trumps-first-presidential-priorities
Tom Price is Trump's Pick for Health and Human Services Deptprice-trumps-pick-health-and-human-services-dept
  • D Jackson
  • S Solis
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US Drinking Water at Risk from Trump's Cuts to Pollution Rules
  • Whyte
Whyte C. US Drinking Water at Risk from Trump's Cuts to Pollution Rules. New Scientist [Internet]; 2017 [cited March 3] Mar 3 Available from: https://www. newscientist.com/article/2123473-us-drinking-waterat-risk-from-trumps-cuts-to-pollution-rules/
Health Groups Demand Pauline Hanson Retract 'Fringe' Vaccination Comment. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News
  • M Edwards
Edwards M. Health Groups Demand Pauline Hanson Retract 'Fringe' Vaccination Comment. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News [Internet]; 2017 [cited 2017 May 11] March 7. Available from: http:// www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-06/health-groupsappalled-by-hanson-vaccination-remarks/8328714
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Martin S. Cory Bernardi Calls on Australia to Withdraw from Paris Climate Accord. The Australian [Internet];