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More of the same no cure for inherent ills | theage.com.au

More of the same no cure for inherent ills
The Age

Joanne Knight

November 7, 2008

The consumer economy is consuming itself. It has created excessive household and national debt as consumers indulge in compulsive shopping in a system depending on their dollars. The process of producing extraneous consumer goods, electronic gadgets and larger cars has resulted in damage to the environment that some are calling a climate emergency. The Australian Government has just handed out $10 billion, which will exacerbate the shopping binge.

There is a question: why haven’t we spent this money in the long term on green infrastructure such as public transport and renewable energy? The economic crisis represents an opportunity to move the economy away from dependence on consumption and into solutions to global warming.

It seems that creating better public transport, investment in energy efficiency measures, and renewable energy infrastructure will stimulate the economy as much as encouraging spending on plasma TVs………………………..The head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachuari, says that if we continue with business as usual, we will head towards economic and environmental disaster……………………..We need a new economic driver. In their book Climate Code Red, David Spratt and Phillip Sutton argue that the greatest hope for the planet in the “climate emergency” is for government to make large investments in energy efficiency technology, renewable energy production, zero-emissions transport and carbon-capture technology such as biochar…………………………..

A comprehensive government program to improve the energy efficiency of houses or government incentives provided for the home owner to do it would significantly reduce energy consumption and greeenhouse gas production.

Other measures include biodiversity finance, including ecological relations in accounting practices as in carbon credits and payments directly valuing ecosystem preservation. The UN Food and Agriculture Program declared this year that payments to protect ecosystems and encourage permaculture were the only practical ways out of the food crisis.

More of the same no cure for inherent ills | theage.com.au

November 7, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized