Climate change exacts a devastating toll on health that is rarely incorporated into the economic calculus of climate action. By aligning health and environmental policy and collaborating across borders, governments and industries can develop powerful initiatives to promote both environmental and human health.

The amount allocated to publicly funded health care for 2005/06 in New Zealand, a small country of some four million people, is $NZ 9.68 billion, or 6.2% of GDP, an increase from the 5.7% of GDP in 2000/01. The Minister of Finance has recently signalled that spending in health and education has outpaced economic growth, and that the present rate of growth in health spending, which has grown at about 7% a year over the last decade, is unsustainable. Despite these big funding increases in recent years, the perception of New Zealanders is that the extra spending has made little difference, at least to hospital services and to people’s ability to access treatment. In surveys, health emerges as a leading concern for New Zealanders. Their concern is apparently less about the quality of services, than about their ability to access treatment - whether they will be able to access timely health care when they or their family members need it.

Functionally gradient materials (FGM) were prepared using layers of ZrO2 –3 mol% Y2O3 ceramic and NiCrAlY powders. A fine-grained zirconia powder was chosen to lower the ceramic sintering temperature and achieve simultaneous metal and ceramic densification. Consolidation of FGM's was achieved by a short time field-assisted sintering technique. Sintering was performed either at a constant temperature or in a temperature gradient by using punches made of different materials (i.e., one graphite and one tungsten). A temperature gradient of at least 100 °C was required with a low value of 1200 °C at the metal end and exceeding 1300 °C at the ceramic end. Increasing the number of intermediate layers alleviates some of the cracks formed during sintering due to different coefficients of thermal expansion.