#james purtill

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If you are going to keep using your phone before bed, the Sleep Health Foundation recommends dimming the screen as much as possible, using a blue light filter, and putting the phone away at least 30 minutes before you plan to go to sleep. "Let your brain settle a bit to provide good preconditions to sleep," Professor Hillman said. More broadly, he said, consider whether you're putting pressure on yourself to do too much — whether a culture of "rise and grind" is doing you harm. Only about 3 per cent of people do fine on less than six hours of sleep a night: chances are you're not in that category. "There's a sentiment out there that sleep is a waste of time, but unfortunately there's a basic physiological need for it," Professor Hillman said. "There's a group amongst us who wear lack of sleep like a medal."

James Purtill, ‘Millions of Australians aren't getting enough sleep — and they say phones are to blame’, ABC

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Property prices on the South Coast have boomed during the COVID pandemic as people in capital cities seek a sea or tree change. Geoff says he’s sold his block, which housed his home of 20 years, to “Sydney money”. As with many others, Geoff’s decision to leave came down to the rebuild cost. And the size of this figure was decided by a piece of paperwork known as a BAL rating. Most of the houses destroyed in the Black Summer were built before BAL ratings, which were made mandatory for bushfire-prone areas in 2009. As a a result, most of those rebuilding are encountering the ratings for the first time.

James Purtill, ‘Can’t stay, won’t leave’, ABC

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Australians in rural areas are generally more exposed to the impacts of climate change than those elsewhere. Yet the Australia Talks National Survey 2021 revealed that Australians in rural areas are the least likely to say that climate change is a problem for them personally or Australia generally. Many of Kiah’s residents, for example, say the drought that led to the Black Summer was due to a “natural cycle”. They say the climate will “go back to normal”. The science says otherwise. There may be ups and downs, but warming will continue — and the barrage of extreme weather will worsen.

James Purtill, ‘Can’t stay, won’t leave’, ABC

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Most of the houses destroyed in New South Wales during the 2019-20 fire season are not in the process of being rebuilt. From a statewide sample of 1300 destroyed houses across nine shires and councils, less than a quarter have been the subject of development applications. Many people say they can’t afford to rebuild, and fear that only the wealthy will be able to live in these beautiful, isolated locations. Those who have the money — and can stomach the risk — are rebuilding in very high-risk areas.

James Purtill, ‘Can’t stay, won’t leave’, ABC

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The solutions to heat require co-operation between many stakeholders, including developers, planners and different levels of government, says Beck Dawson, who heads the Resilience Sydney program. "It really reminds of the 1980s, when there was a really big change in the building code for cyclones." That change was precipitated by Cyclone Tracy, which levelled Darwin. Ms Dawson says Sydney's heatwave equivalent of this natural disaster will be a string of days of record-breaking heat combined with high levels of humidity. "When we have one of those events, it'll be a very dangerous disaster across the city," she says. "I really hope we don't have to wait for that event to galvanise the scale of action that we need."

James Purtill, 'Heatwaves may mean Sydney is too hot for people to live in 'within decades'', ABC

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Already, heat kills more people in Australia than any other natural disaster, including floods, cyclones and bushfires.

James Purtill, 'Heatwaves may mean Sydney is too hot for people to live in 'within decades'', ABC

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Sebastian Pfautsch, an urban heat expert at Western Sydney University, proposes replacing the model of runaway suburban sprawl with one that prioritises green space. He's calculated that in some Western Sydney's suburbs, 80 per cent of the surface area is sealed with roads, pavements, car parks buildings and other kinds of construction that trap heat. That figure, he says, needs to get down to 25 per cent. "If you don't want to have urban development where you increase the temperature then you can only achieve that where you're the covering area with two portions open space and one portion of closed space," he says. To do this, he says, houses and shops need to be built largely underground, which has the added advantage of making them easier to cool. Another option is to house people in high apartment blocks surrounded by vast areas of parkland. "We need to build up or build down," he says. "This may sound utopian but it is a necessary type of progressive thinking in hot areas. "A large shopping centre built underground can bring its cooling cost down by 95 per cent..." Dr Pfautsch points out that poorly insulated houses with heat-absorbing black roofs are still being constructed in great numbers out west. Unsuspecting buyers chasing the Australian Dream are being locked into decades of sweltering heat. "When it comes to development itself, I cannot say that I see any change," Dr Pfautsch says. "How long can we afford to build these hotboxes that will at least be there for 30 to 60 years?"

James Purtill, 'Heatwaves may mean Sydney is too hot for people to live in 'within decades'', ABC

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In Sydney, the most expensive suburbs are also the coolest — the harbour and coastal areas are often 10C cooler than inland.

James Purtill, 'Heatwaves may mean Sydney is too hot for people to live in 'within decades'', ABC