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Economics, Population & Domestic
Violence Book
This book needs much work!!! It is being worked on but
much needs to be done!!
Table of Contents
The Author ......................................................................................................................................................... v Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction Two ............................................................................................................................................. 3 Where I Think Future Money is In ............................................................................................................. 5 The Economics of Domestic Violence ........................................................................................................ 6 ‘Collision Course’ – Kerryn Higgs – The Aim ........................................................................................... 9 ‘Collision Course’ A Summary ................................................................................................................... 10 The World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) .................................................................. 11 The Rich are Too Rich – My Take Higgs Take on this Issue ........................................................................ 14 Economic Growth Touted as the way out of Poverty .................................................................................... 15 `Where the Money Came/s From: ‘Familiar Tactics: Advertising, PR and “Economic Education” -­‐ Higgs ................................................................................................................................................................................. 21 US (mainly), Business Reaction to Environmental Issues ........................................................................... 22 Business Undermining Science to instill the Business Agenda ................................................................. 25 Corporations Creating Law Firms to Protect the Business Agenda ........................................................ 27 More Business infiltration in the US ..................................................................................................................... 28 How to Rein in Multinational Corporations that Seem to be a Law Unto Themselves ................... 28 Aid Budgets – Sustainable Development after Rio, Oil & Paper Stats .................................................... 29 Conclusion In regards to ‘Collision Course’ – Kerryn Higgs Book ............................................................ 32 Population Debates Which Include Economics .................................................................................. 35 ‘Collision Course’ Higgs on population ................................................................................................................ 35 Professor Ian Lowe’s book on mainly Australia’s Population Issues ..................................................... 36 Population in Relation to National Defence ....................................................................................................... 38 ..getting to Economic Issues around Population .............................................................................................. 39 The Pressing Issues for Australia as written by Professor Lowe ............................................................. 50 Too many migrants not enough planning, Lowe ............................................................................................. 50 Our Legacy for Future Generations ....................................................................................................................... 51 Australia has to change Resource per Head ...................................................................................................... 51 How we make our Money – Our economic Activity – Professor Lowe .................................................. 52 How we make our Money – My thoughts .............................................................................................. 52 Robotics and STEM industries ................................................................................................................................. 52 Recycling: .......................................................................................................................................................................... 53 Pharmaceuticals / Medical Research: .................................................................................................................. 54 Blue Sky Science Research ........................................................................................................................................ 54 Electronic Books a new big industry??? .............................................................................................................. 54 Problems with Australia’s Sustainable Fisheries and a Future Industry .............................................. 55 More from Lowe’s Population Book ....................................................................................................... 56 Lowe on Sustainable Industries .............................................................................................................................. 56 Lowe goes back to discuss ‘sustainability’ ......................................................................................................... 59 Other non – energy minerals – where do we stand? / general consumption Australia ................. 59 Our Use of Water, Lowe .............................................................................................................................................. 61 Fisheries given a greater Australian Population ............................................................................................. 63 Then Lowe moves on to forests: ............................................................................................................................. 63 ‘Environmental Impacts – Lowe’s Summary ..................................................................................................... 65 Economics of the Baby Boomers – Professor Lowe ....................................................................................... 68 Lowe specifically on Economics in relation to Population .......................................................................... 70 GDP as a Measure of growth Professor Lowe Discusses .............................................................................. 73 Page ii Skilled Migration – Lowe ........................................................................................................................................... 74 A Move Away from Car Use?? .................................................................................................................................. 75 Education Issues of Overseas students – from ‘Bigger or Better?’ Lowe .............................................. 75 Lowe Specifically on Economic Growth – Peter Victor ................................................................................. 75 An Interesting Comment by Lowe on Free-­‐markets ...................................................................................... 81 Migrants who come here – from Lowe’s book??? ........................................................................................... 82 CEO responsibility – Lowe’s book .......................................................................................................................... 82 Defence -­‐ Lowe and my take on it .......................................................................................................................... 83 Back Against the Ecological Wall ............................................................................................................................ 84 Not all Economists are Wrong or Questionable – Lowe ............................................................................... 85 Engineers and Physicist on Future Energy and Societal Issues – Lowe ................................................ 86 Local Councils – Lowe ................................................................................................................................................. 87 General Economics Issues .......................................................................................................................... 88 Tax Havens / Multinational Tax .............................................................................................................................. 88 Laptops – A new kind of HECS system ................................................................................................................. 88 HECS loans of people who get work overseas .................................................................................................. 88 State of Victoria Not Getting it’s share of Offshore Royalties ..................................................................... 89 Superannuation Infrastructure, Ag and Pharmaceutical Investment .................................................... 91 Superannuation Taxes / Reassessing Taxes Fairly Regularly ................................................................... 91 CEO Incentives to Act Ethically ............................................................................................................................... 92 Ethical Superannuation and the Like ................................................................................................................... 92 Illegal to make financial commissions ................................................................................................................. 93 Trade Practices Act – Ross Olney – Hilarious ................................................................................................... 93 USA not so ‘Free Trade’??? ........................................................................................................................................ 93 Tim Jackson – Points from Prosperity Without Growth .................................................................. 94 Decoupling – Big Point ................................................................................................................................................ 94 An Equitable World – Jackson ................................................................................................................................. 95 Parts of Tim Jackson’s book to be sorted ............................................................................................................ 95 Absolute Decoupling (the necessity)-­‐ Jackson ................................................................................................. 96 Tim Jackson’s Findings ............................................................................................................................................... 96 Letter/s sent out on Economics ............................................................................................................ 106 Letter to ‘All’ my Work on Economics ............................................................................................................... 106 Letter to CEO of ACF – an Idea to ‘start’ to turn the economy to Environmental Sustainability
............................................................................................................................................................................................ 116 Letter on labour standards to CEO of ACF Kelly (economic sustainability etc issues) ................ 118 Tax Letter on Company Breeches to Environment and Labor laws (Australia) ............................. 119 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................ 126 Ebook ............................................................................................................................................................................... 126 Books ............................................................................................................................................................................... 126 Youtube ........................................................................................................................................................................... 126 Page iii This Book is copyright © 2006, Lisa Williams
© This site / book is the copyright of Lisa Alexandra Williams. I note my will is that
if anyone assassinates me over my work / books etc that my work goes is not used
ever in the future etc etc.
Please note this book is under constant review. As the book is being added to, it is
worth coming back and uploading it once more when it is increasingly complete.
I note my position on what I have written is not fixed. I have heard of people who
have written biographies later to change opinion. My work I believe, I’m not likely to
change but sometimes debate and discussion can change views. I do believe my
books are extraordinary important.
Page iv The Author
Written by a Descendant of Captain James Cook
LISA ALEXANDRA WILLIAMS
My main work is that on a new religious model and general work on society.
Indigenous issues are too part of society, however, I think Indigenous issues deserve
its own book. I am writing a number of books which are described in this book.
I do work for England / British, BUT. I want no one to die /harmed / marginalized
and occasionally if I have to I concede points with the aim that no one is harmed,
BIG AIM. So the death of someone, anyone, is not a meager loss to society,
everyone in the world has a story to tell, that we learn from each other to survive and
keep our world in harmony. So I am writing a series of books one looks at British
Ethics, its dealings around the world. Like this book, I hope to be fair and honest. I
hope this book can be debated until society is happy with a ‘good’ way forward.
Page v Chapter
Introduction
INTRODUCTION TO ‘THE BOOKS’
27.1.14 (and again 23.11.14) – I have been writing a book now called ‘The New
Protestant Religion (The World’s Church) - Communism Capitalism and
Democracy Plus other Issues of Society’ since 2006. The book is way too large and
thus I felt a need to separate it into new books. Also subjects such as economics
became and is an important issue to Australia (really the world) and thus I am
working on other new books also.
I do not guarantee that the below books are all the books I’m working on, but the
list of books below give you an idea of my work. I note these books can be found on
my present website. However, Apple Macintosh are discontinuing ‘iweb’ which I
use for my website. This means when I have to upgrade my computer or MAC
operating system, I will loose the ability to work on my website. Due to the time
spent creating my website I will move to have two websites, preserving what has
been done. So my website when I have to upgrade will become obsolete: Well not
obsolete I will loose the ability to do anything to it.
So these are the present books I’m working on 23.11.14:
* My main book: The New Protestant Religion (The World’s Church),
Communism Capitalism and Democracy, Plus other Issues of Society. This also
has a chapter ‘What Has Been Done / What’s Happened’ which logs letters sent
and received covering a wide range of issues.
* An Ethical Assessment on the Colonisation of Australia and Its Impacts on
Indigenous People plus recommendations.
* A females view on all religions, the future of the church. The New: ‘The Worlds
Church’. This book takes on the issues of a new church model in greater detail
than the main book. In particular going through all religions and stating opinions
on such (which doesn’t have to be everyone’s view). Too, new ethical stories to take
us into the future containing stories where males and ‘females’ are depicted as
leaders.
* A book looking at Economics – With two major aims thus far, one that perpetual
economic growth is not sustainable in a finite world. With that, economic growth
favors presently a throw away society, so looking at such issues. The other
economical goal is to work on an economic model which delivers a high standard
of living ‘for all’ across the generations.
* A book on an ethical assessment of Britain’s international dealings / the wider
commonwealth (such as the Boer & Opium wars to name a couple).
* A book on Environmental Issues and my work on such
* A Book Looking Into a Fair Education For All
* A book trying to solve world poverty
* A book tracking Documentary TV – this book is discontinued as it no longer
serves a purpose. However, you can get an idea of the TV I watch, so it’s still on
my website but no longer being worked on.
I hope my work / books better society. Noting that the books are in various stages of
development and the main book, …..The Worlds Church….etc…etc does have some
overlapping work, now in other books. This will be deleted from the main book when
I’m happy that the work is being covered in the new books properly. There will be a
heading in the main book pointing to the new work in the new books.
Page 2 Introduction Two
This book is intended to discuss the future of economics. I came to the knowledge
that all wasn’t well in economics firstly by prominent Australian Dick Smith whilst
addressing the Australian ‘National Press Club’ which I watch each week. The
speech was about August 2014. At the same time I became aware of Professor Ross
Garnaut’s book (through watching Q&A on ABC which I also watch weekly).
Garnaut’s book is titled ‘Dog Days’, life for Australia after the resources boom. I
read ‘Dog Days’ by myself first then I read the book chapter by chapter with Ross
Olney a family friend who I’m in debt much for such. I asked Ross to read it
through with me as I had read through a very important water management book to
do with Australia’s water resources a CSIRO book and I forgot the contents not to
long afterwards. So in reading Ross Garnaut’s book with Ross Olney I hoped to
through conversation remember more, and also due to reading the book with Ross
who is a very cluey person, that he may also help me with further understanding
which he did.
So the most eye opening economics book thus far is (well Garnuat’s book was good)
Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs MIT press 2014. My book will discuss broadly
the issues raised by Collision Course I will take the time to quote quite a large
amount of it to prove what’s happened. To prove a flawed world economics system
mainly (pretty much) starting in the USA with the drive for ‘Free Market’. MIT press
is well known around the world and Collision Course represents the institution well
as the book is extremely well referenced. I came across the book Collision Course
through outgoing President of ACF (Australian Conservation Foundation, where I
volunteer weekly) Professor Ian Lowe. I attended ACF’s AGM in 2014 where I was
speaking to the Professor about Dick Smith’s National Press Club address about the
issue of perpetual economic growth in a finite world. The Professor told me to read
Collision Course, which I’ve just done and now I fully understand why he suggested
such which I will write about in the chapters of this book.
Whilst attending that AGM meeting I also learnt about Professor Ian Lowe’s own
book ‘Bigger or Better?’ Australia’s population debate, 2012. Much of the debates
about population figures are based economically and thus I have joined the two
subjects ‘officially’ that of economics and that of population figures, referencing
again a lot of the professors book.
So this book first aims to highlight the contents of Higgs book in detail as I believe
the truthful figures need reading and understanding by all. Having done that I aim to
Page 3 read widely on what solutions are out there to address our wasteful 1st world
consumer society whilst the poor remain poor. Then if there are not enough ideas
out there to address the issue I will revert to my own ideas. So first, before I forget,
the contents of Higgs book I will overview and the many important societal issues it
shines a light on.
The date is 22.4.15 about three months into writing this book. Today I attended
Archbishop Freiers ‘Conversations’ at Federation Square Melbourne on domestic
violence. I have decided to discuss domestic violence issues in this book on
‘economic’ issues as you will read why in the connected chapter. So this book will
look at flat our economics issues, the economics behind population figures etc and
the economics behind domestic violence.
Page 4 Where I Think Future Money is In
I was walking home from the gym today, today being Easter Sunday, not that it
matters. Anyway I’ve been pondering economics for sometime. Economics is where
my studying has been for the last nine months. I’ve read Professor Ross Garnaut’s
book and Kerryn Higg’s book. Kerryn Higgs book ‘Collision Course’ puts the
question out to all that we can’t have perpetual economic growth in a finite world. At
the conclusion of her book which you can read in this one, she doesn’t answer the
question of what to do, she is just stating the problem. That conclusion is quoted in
this book.
So I think the future for Australia after the mining boom is still mining, mining
rubbish. I believe I have been looking at this issue from the wrong perspective. I
have been looking at recycling as a cost a burden. So Higgs points out our finite
planet that we can only dig up resources once. So I think the future is in recycling I
think the future is in mining rubbish.
I believe the country who is going to lead on this and make the money is the country
who can recycle goods in the fastest most efficient way. I note I hope Australia leads
on this and that it is done totally above board, no cheap labour no environmental
degredation again totally above board. So if I was in the Australian Government I’d
be investing in recycling R&D. To be able to as soon as possible recycle on an
industrial stage leaving as minimal rubbish to landfill as possible. Too to be able to
dig up landfill and recycle that too at an industrial level. So once the worlds
resources have been dug up and used, the money, I think is in recycling them. The
quicker we do it, such as separating rubbish efficiently, the better off the more
competitive we are to selling the recycled goods.
So I think life after the mining boom in Australia is mining rubbish on an industrial
scale.
Page 5 The Economics of Domestic Violence
The date is 2/5/15 – the below chapter on domestic violence was written a couple of
weeks ago. I was on the cross trainer at the gym talking to Jan. We are still getting to
know each other, Jan has joined me in the next Cross Trainer a few times. Jan is
maybe ten years younger than my parents, retired, but she told me a couple of days
ago that she was a police woman in Queensland for much of her life. I told her of
my plan to financially cripple (fine) those who commit domestic violence. She said
to me that many such people don’t have any money. She also told me that domestic
violence is the biggest threat to police welfare, that domestic violence is the number
one killer of police. We did discuss Palm Island – I think the Police acted
disgracefully. I still think fining perpetrators of domestic violence ‘big time’ is the
way to go. I do acknowledge that many such people are poor well I think they’ll be
even poorer. I would though want to try my hardest to rehabilitate such people
through in many cases mandatory courses. So please read below…..
This chapter is not about the cost to the Australian society from domestic violence
which I believe to be in the billions each year. It is 22.4.15 and I attended Anglican
Archbishop Freiers morning ‘Conversations’ this one on domestic violence. I just
rang Rosza my friend who attended with me to see if she remembered the annual
cost of domestic violence, I thought they said 14 billion a year, Rosza agreed about
that and just said to write here that it’s costing us billions. Obviously the money is
well spent to fund organisations like women’s legal services and from the
‘Conversation’ Joanne Fletcher CEO, Women’s Legal Service Victoria said much
more money was needed. She gave an account, I believe she said that some legal
personnel were meeting clients in cars due to lack of funding. So I am not going to
go into the cost of domestic violence to society per say rather I want to talk about
discipline. I want to write about the economics of discipline in relation to domestic
violence.
I am a trained Primary and Secondary School teacher. I did go into education due
to my father, really. My father is an academic but I would not say he ‘nurtured’ our
education rather he was short tempered. I could go into stories but won’t. So I’ve
always thought there’s a better way to bring up and educate kids than with a short
temper and the rare occasional bought of domestic violence.
I’m not saying educating problem children is easy, however, I never condone the use
of domestic violence to do so. If children misbehave I have always gone with taking
away privileges and having read books on the subject it is also important to reward
somewhat (not over the top) good behavior. I also find that there are teacher
Page 6 resources on this subject. I believe one such resource is ‘St Luke cards’ (if I
remember correctly). The cards have pictures of different social aspects to discuss
with children, how to treat a friend and the like. I did use these cards in my first year
of prep teaching and I found them to be of great use. The ‘conversation’ today about
domestic violence, the heads, the people on the coal face said that it’s not just
secondary education required but primary and I would agree 100%. I know how
much the preps responded to the ‘St Luke’s cards’. I totally believe the earlier in
ones life discussion occurs about how to be a good friend, and issues around good
behavior, and obviously not tolerating domestic violence, the better off society will
be given the huge issue domestic violence is.
I do note here that I believe the massive increase in domestic violence cases is
somewhat linked to now having female police. That women now feel with female
police and the like that there are places women can now go to, to get help even
though the resources are very stretched. I further note that women’s legal aid has
only been around for about thirty years so women are now coming forward given
better support on a number of fronts. Female priests in the Anglican Church in
Melbourne have been around since only about 1991.
The rate of domestic violence is shocking, I believe the rate of death from domestic
violence is substantial one death a week is it?? So below is a plan of mine…
I can’t believe I get to write my take on domestic violence in this book and in an
educated manor having been to the ‘conversation’ and having been a school teacher.
I am very proud to announce one aspect, one of my response suggestions to
domestic violence. How are adults so different to children?? If a child plays up as
I’ve written I would take away privileges and look to be positive about good
behavior. I would use this strategy and others (like St Luke’s cards) to train good
behavior. I don’t think it’s hugely different for adults. I think privileges should be
taken away from adults who are found to use domestic violence, privilege in the
terms of substantial money to in most cases the (female / wife) and some money to
the public purse to pay for domestic violence support agencies. In the discussion
with the Archbishop today, a question from the audience was about what is being
done to leave the (generally speaking female) female in the house and the male out.
I think the punishment should go much further in terms of monitory compensation
and the large majority of the house should it be sold, to the victim. If (generally men)
men started to appreciate that they would be slugged considerably financially for
domestic violence I hope such is a deterrent not to do it. Society could look at other
privileges that can be taken away from the offender (male or female) and obviously a
last opinion being bankruptcy and jail.
Page 7 I have ‘always’ believed in non violent discipline and I’m glad to be able to write
such here.
I do note here that forced participation in court orders to attend social classes are
important. It possibly goes back to people in our society who didn’t discuss ‘St
Lukes’ cards and the like. I note that Joanne said such classes are also a way of
keeping track of people, something that happens more in the UK. Joanne said the
police tend to regularly visit domestic violence perpetrators in the UK more so than
here with good results.
Page 8 ‘Collision Course’ – Kerryn Higgs – The Aim
A sustainable society would be interested in qualitative development, not physical
expansion. It would use material growth as a considered tool, not a perpetual
mandate. It would be neither for nor against growth…. Before this society would
decide on any specific growth proposal, it would ask what the growth was for, and
who would benefit, and what it would cost, and how long it would last, and whether it
could be accommodated by the sources and sinks of the planet. – Donella
Meadows, Dennis Meadows, and Jorgen Randers, 19921
‘Collision Course’ does not set out to put forward largely new or minimal previous
ideas to the present economic system rather the whole book is about what has
happened. This is how Higgs concludes her book ‘Collision Course’:
‘It remains for others to invent pathways to solutions for these difficult problems. My
object has been to illuminate the reasons for the ideological dominance of growth,
and to foster an awareness of the actual realities – human and ecological – that
contradict its confident discourse. Challenging the manufactured truths of think
tanks and advancing a sense of reality in the public arena are the critical next steps.’2
This is another quote from the very start of Higgs book:
I we are concerned about our great appetite for materials, it is plausible to seek to
increase the supply, to decrease waste, to make better use of stocks that are available,
and to develop substitutes. But what of the appetite itself? Surely this is the ultimate
source of the problem. If it continues its geometric course, will it not one day have to
be restrained? Yet in the literature of the resource problem this is the forbidden
question. Over it hangs a nearly total silence. It is as though, in discussion of the
chance for avoiding automobile accidents, we agree not to make any mention of
speed! – John Kenneth Galbraith, 1958
1
Collision Course, page 255
2
Collision Course, page 283
Page 9 ‘Collision Course’ A Summary
Follow Up Book to Limits of Growth 1972
‘Collision Course’ starts by informing the reader that the book is a follow up from a
book released in 1972, fifty or so years ago likewise from MIT press. I have it in the
to do list of this book I believe ‘The Limits Of Growth’ by William W. Behrens III,
Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows and Donella Meadows, I believe in its time The
Limits of Growth was a best seller, to be confirmed. …I found it…. ‘The Limits to
Growth, had meteoric popular success at its debut and is cited as the biggest – selling
environmental book ever published.’1
What happened subsequently I personally find unfathomable. What subsequently
occurred had its basis dating back approximately to the 1920’s. What I find
unfathomable is that people in our global society would knowingly act against the
common good. From reading ‘Collision Course’ you start to understand the greed
behind the business world to act against the environment to act against the future of
humanity. The impact this book has had on me. I wouldn’t mind being rich due to
my work on Religion and so forth. I still wouldn’t mind being rich but I definitely
would really think about what to do with the money. I think many people aspire to
be well off and possibly try to have some of or a lot of things the Royals have. I am
not sure that the Royal system is correct I think the royals consume a lot of
resources. So I understand the history of the puritans and I previously have mainly
disagreed with them. I love beautiful churches (give content of what’s taught) I do
like such beautiful church buildings given it is a communal venue. However, my
stance is changing. It is changing because I now realize that we do not have perpetual
world resources. My view is changing in that if we consume resources at the present
rate future generations will have nowhere near the quality of life that we have, what
resources will they have???? So I don’t think the puritans were really thinking about
the aspect of using up world resources, they didn’t like the opulence of the rich (I
am against greed but I like nice communal places). So I am looking to a more
puritan lifestyle because I understand the shortage of world resources being that oil,
iron ore, copper etc etc. From what I’ve read in ‘Collision Course’ I think we may
have to stop having the desire to have a nice new house with new contents to
recycling more of what’s around us. I don’t think the Royals are good public figures
due to what they consume daily. I love fashion and I’d love to wear new clothes all
the time but I think until we have more people out of poverty, it’s just not
appropriate. Not appropriate given many English speaking countries mainly the
USA are responsible for ignoring ‘The Limits To Growth’ 1972 to act
1 ‘Collision
Course’ page 35
Page 10 unconscionably, the UK and Australia’s right wing are in the thick of issues also etc.
I note another reason I’m am rethinking the puritan approach that started of English
USA is having read two other books, both CSIRO publications, that of ‘The Coming
Famine’ The global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it, Julian Cribb and
‘Australia’s Water Resources’ From Use to Management, John J Pigram. So I
understand that we have many issues facing us in the future and I think the rich need
to pull back, to consume less, to share more.
I am going to quote large parts of ‘Collision Course’ so that you understand in detail
that unconscionable actions mainly by the business community. So I don’t think
having new clothes every two seconds is sustainable and as a role model to many,
many people aspire to live in such a way also.
I have been thinking about what kind of world I’d like. I actually like the thought of
a Hobbit village as described by JRR Tolkien, although Bilbo’s Baggins Hobbit hole
does have a bit more silverware, in general people seem to mostly have the same as
everyone else. So I like the thought that everyone around the world has their Hobbit
hole with a similar standard of living to everyone else. I do note that ‘Collision
Course’ does describe what it would be like for everyone in the world to live like the
West, it’s purely unachievable in terms of the paper and other resources we go
through. I will try to quote in future pages about such from the book. So we don’t
have anywhere near the resources to enable everyone in the world to live like the
west, we consume far too much. So that is why I’m saying having new clothes every
two days is the wrong consumer example for society. So I think people should not
aspire to have the newest and latest but to have a basic communal standard of living.
So below I will quote parts of the book ‘Collision Course’ to outline the
unconscionable behavior that has been going on.
Going back a bit, another reason why I am turning to puritan ideals is not only are
we chewing through world resources on a finite planet but having read ‘The Coming
Famine’ by Julian Cribb, I know we are going to be up against the wall to try and
feed the world’s population.
The World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund)
Higgs in her book states that the World Bank and IMF are made up of the
neoliberal right elite whose purpose it is, is to proliferate the ‘American Way’
otherwise known as ‘Free Market’. Higgs points out that the world has not benefitted
by such as reduced poverty has not been the outcome, rather the third world is in
debt to such organizations and private lenders. The third world Higgs hints at
(actually she documents it, not ‘hints’, see chapter ‘Economic Growth Touted as the
Page 11 way out of Poverty’) is just paying off the interest on international loans let alone
help the poor. I believe Higgs is hinting or stating that the first world convinced the
third world to be consumers of goods they possibly didn’t need getting themselves
into unnecessary debt. I will try to quote from the book to reinforce such:
‘Though the Brundtland Commission’s definition of sustainable development has
been criticized by environmentalists for its emphasis on growth and its optimism
about the sustainability of economic growth, (7 Higgs referencing system) it should
be conceded that the commission recognized the failure of the development era up
till then, and was far more attentive to issues of equity and ecological limits than
such institutions as the World Bank, the IMF and GATT.1 – This is in relation to
the 1987 WCED report also known as the Brundtland Commission. For the main
body of the report summarized by Higgs go to the chapter ‘Economic Growth
Touted as the way out of Poverty’.
‘In Ecological Economics, Daly describes his exchange with the World Bank’s chief
economist: (such is reference in Higgs Book).
Many standard economics textbooks introduce students to a diagram of ‘the
economy’ that includes only the relationship between businesses and households
(producers and consumers), depicted as a circular flow and not represented in any
wider physical context. The ecological economist Herman Daly contextualized this
circular diagram by drawing an outer frame around it to represent the natural world,
a world that “contains and sustains the economy” by regenerating renewable inputs
and absorbing unavoidable wastes. In Ecological Economics, Daly describes his
exchange with the World Bank’s chief economist: (reference by Higgs)
I asked the Chief Economist if, looking at that diagram, he felt the issue of the
physical size of the economic subsystem relative to the total ecosystem was important
and if he thought economists should be asking the question, “What is the optimal
scale of the macroeconomy relative to the environment that supports it?” His reply
was short and definitive: ‘That’s not the right way to look at it.” (reference by Higgs)
….. ‘The key assumption here is that the economy is the overarching system, while
nature, if it is considered at all, is a sector of the economy, such as the extractive
sector.’2
The argument about the ‘right way to look at it’ continues in Higgs book on page 30.
“The ‘right way to look at it’ assumes that physical limitations will always be
1
‘Collision Course, Higgs page 127
’
2 ‘Collision Course , Higgs Pages 15 to 16
Page 12 surmounted by combining the fruits of human ingenuity with the magic of the free
market….’ Higgs really continues in her book to outline the physical limitations to
the free market which few are considering as economists. That human ingenuity only
goes so far. That we do have a finite world and there comes a point where you can’t
keep on mining iron ore and that finding equivalent substances for the same job
(human ingenuity) can only go so far.
To further quote from the book on the subject of financing the third world, and to
go back to the topic of this section the involvement of the IMF and World Bank in
relation to the third world.
‘Even legitimate loans made for infrastructure such as dams and ports benefit a
restricted class of people, though serviced by the entire population. And it is the very
poor who suffer most when conditions for debt rescheduling include such measures
as the abolition of health, education, and farming assistance. Since major
infrastructure projects were almost always carried out by global corporations, often
US –based, the cash flowed back to the United States or other parts of the
developed world and often never left. In 1993, for example, the World Bank’s net
disbursements to the third world came to just over $7 billion, while the borrowing
countries’ payments to corporations was $6.8 billion. (36 Higgs refernencing)
When US central bankers began the interest rate hike that aimed to solve the
persistent inflationary trend of the 1970s, third world recipients of massive loans
suddenly found their interest rates tripled and quadrupled; many could no longer
repay even the interest. By the time defaults began, with Mexico in 1982, global
financial institutions had adopted the neoliberal paradigm, and SAP’s were imposed
as the price of rescheduling the debt. State- owned enterprises had to be sold into
private, often foreign, hands; agriculture had to be reoriented toward export
earnings; taxation had to be reduced; and meager local welfare provisions had to be
dropped. These measures masqueraded as rational economic policy for developing
nations, but the privileging of export earnings can be better seen as an attempt to
protect the interests of the first world bankers whose loans were in jeopardy.
The subsequent bailouts of defaulting countries had similar results. The IMF
payments made countries such as Thailand and South Korea after the East Asian
economic crisis 1997 had to be paid straight out again to their creditors in the first
world financial system, while the nations still owed the money to the IMF. (37 Higgs
referencing) Twelve years later, in the wake of the 2008 – 2009 financial crisis, the
G20 provided the IMF with hundreds of billions of dollars, ostensibly to bail out the
world’s poor. Again, the funds were dispensed as loans to be used for repayment of
outstanding debt – described by Ross Buckley, professor of international finance law
Page 13 a the University of New South Wales, as “a stimulus package for the rich countries’
banks.”(38 Higgs Referencing)
Between 1970 and 2002, the total debts of the poorest countries went from $25
billion to $532 billion, with African debt alone rising from $11billion to $295 billion.
Over this period, African countries fully repaid $550 billion on loans totaling slightly
less; because of interest requirements, however, almost $300 billion remains
outstanding (figure 7.1). (39 Higgs Referencing)1 and it goes on…..
The Rich are Too Rich – My Take Higgs Take on this Issue
I don’t want this book to scare people in the first world. Scare them to think their
standard of living will drop if the first world isn’t unscrupulous to the rest of the
world. I would say that the standard of living might drop a bit but I am not looking to
send anyone into what is presently third world situations. Read the next exert from
Higgs, I’m after the super rich. I believe the super rich have been unscrupulous and
it is this section of the community I want to target. I hope the first world might
‘choose’ to forgo a few luxuries knowing that other have a chance in life. Read the
below again who I want to target, basically those responsible for manipulating the
global markets for their means.
The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development
Report for 2005 describes a “Divided World”:
The size of the divide poses a fundamental challenge to the global human
community…. The World’s richest 500 individuals have a combined income greater
than that of the poorest 416 million. Beyond these extremes, the 2.5 billion people
living on less than $2 a day – 40 percent of the world’s population – account for 5
percent of global income. (51 Higgs Referencing)
Another factor inflates the scale of this divide. Financial assets hidden away in tax
havens by the ultra-rich are estimated to be well over $21 trillion as of 2010; these
assets are earning their owners invisible and largely tax-free income, and neither asset
nor income shows up in the statistics of inequality. (52 Higgs Referencing)
Most Studies of inequality use income data or a combination of income and
consumption data. The United Nations University’s World Institute for
Development Economics Research (WIDER), however, has based recent work on
household surveys of assets. According to WIDER:
1
Collision Course – Higgs Page 117 to 118
Page 14 The richest 2 percent of adult individuals own more than half of all global wealth,
with the richest 1 percent alone accounting for 40 percent of global assets. The
corresponding figures for the top 5 percent and the top 10 percent are 71 percent
and 85 percent, respectively. In contrast, the bottom half of wealth holders together
hold barley 1 percent of global wealth. (53 Higgs Referencing)1
So I reiterate I don’t want to scare the first world I am really wanting to chase down
people who have abused the global community financially, including those people
who have money hidden away in tax havens. You will read more about the people
who have abused their position to shove the ‘Free Market’ down people’s throats by
very dubious means. Means including making up fake environmental organisations
to dispel community environmental concerns of big business. Which is towards the
end of Higgs book.
Economic Growth Touted as the way out of Poverty
‘Growth, touted as the necessary means of catching up, has made little impression
on the actual numbers. From the perspective of 2013, the gross number of people in
serious trouble (living on less than $2 a day) has fluctuated but not declined
decisively in the past thirty years. Even if the burgeoning global middle class is able
to extract another decade or two of economic growth from the planet, the World
Bank’s figures (60 Higgs Referencing) indicate that billions will remain poor (without
discretionary expenditure), and a billion or more of these will continue to face the
extremes of malnutrition, disease, and early death. At the same time, while growth
continues to be the primary tool of improvement, loss of forests, fish stocks and
species cuts away the safety nets of the rural poor. (61 Higgs referencing)
As Ross Buckley notes, “There are about 195 countries in the world. Fifty years
ago, 27 of those countries were developed. Today 32 are. In fifty years, five
countries out of about 170 have achieved the goal of development.”(62 Higgs
referencing) Buckley’s realism throws the growth solution to poverty into stark relief.
At this rate, world development, even if it turned out to be ecological possible,
would take a further 1,500 years. To the extent that there was any real plan to share
wealth or ameliorate poverty, the evidence suggests a verdict of substantial failure for
the “bigger pie” approach.2
1
2
Collision Course, Higgs page 121 and 122
‘Collision Course’, Higgs, page 124
Page 15 Much of Higgs book is providing the evidence of what the US primarily and other
Western Nations have tried to do. I may be repeating myself here, but. US
businessmen latched on to the newly develop profession of PR (public relations),
they used PR professional backed by big money to promote the ‘Free Market’ to all
American’s as the way to financial security. The business community stated that
business can better serve the community than the government. The business
community told the public that an increase in economic growth was ‘the way’ to get
third world nations out of poverty. That is why I’ve quoted the above out of Higgs
book as the greater economic growth pie has served to make the rich richer and has
not delivered results of getting people out of poverty.
Higgs book lists the amount of money spent on ‘Think Tanks’ / marketing to push
the concept that economic growth will solve all of societies problems. When Yale
started to question such even more money was spent ‘writing economic
curriculums’.
What I too find interesting about the US. Their health care system has not served
‘all’, the most vulnerable are basically not covered. Rightly President Obama tried to
help such people with a new health plan but he met huge resistance from the Right
Wing Neoliberals, republicans. Higgs book is about these neoliberals and the money
they have spent to ram ‘free market’ down peoples throats within the US and
worldwide. The World Bank and the IMF, International Monetary Fund were
developed in the US and they are as much a part of this agenda as anyone else in the
US. I am trying to quote Higgs book to reference such for you there is a chapter
doing this on the IMF and World Bank.
The business community said they better serve the community than government, but
did the business community ensure public health for all? Like Medicare in
Australia??? I also find the US electoral system quite ‘interesting’. Interesting as to
the actual electoral vote casting, the winner takes all votes is my understanding. In
Australia Federal and State elections are held on the weekend. My understanding
that in the US voting takes place on a Tuesday, again, my understanding is that by
having the election on a Tuesday it gives advantage to businesspeople (men) as lay
working class people find it harder to take time off their jobs to vote. I am a fan of
democracy but not how the US has established it! So in Australia the winner of an
electorate does not take ‘all’ votes’ as is my understanding of the US. I’m not going
to explain such fully other than to disagree from my knowledge of the system. Lastly
I want to make a further point about the use of PR in the US (as stated in Higgs
book). When the American people started to question the ‘Free Market’ and the
outcomes it seemed to be lacking. My understanding it that the PR profession
rebranded such as ‘The American Way’. Which became very affective. My best
Page 16 friend grew up in foster care in the US and I understand there is ‘some’ safety net
for the vulnerable but it isn’t much. Rosza my friend believes there are a huge
amount of people really struggling and at the other end of the spectrum there are
these really rich people. So from my knowledge through Rosza is that the neoliberals
/ republicans have really failed society let alone the rest of the world they have
watched over since the end of WWII.
To continue the evidence of what has occurred: ‘The (WCED) World Commission
on Environment and Development warned at length that the debt regime was forcing
third world countries to liquidate their natural resources to pay interest on debts to
the first world while forgoing any boost to the welfare of their people. (3 Higgs
Referencing) In examining the role and power of transnational corporations, the
commission noted that 80 to 90 percent of the trade in each of the world’s key
commodities – tea, coffee, cocoa, cotton, timber, tobacco, jute, copper, iron ore, and
bauxite – was controlled by fewer than six TNC’s. It thought international measures
to regulate them were lacking, and recommended the adoption of codes of conduct
that would include environmental values; it wanted sustainability addressed by all
corporations and relevant international institutions, including the World Bank, IMF
and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, which became the
WTO). It stressed the need for third world countries to retain sovereignty over their
resources in all cases. (4 Higgs referencing) Yet in the new world of the neoliberal
economic orthodoxies, such measures were regarded as unacceptable barriers to
trade or as unwelcome regulation; in this world, prosperity could only be guaranteed
by liberating the “free market” to work its wonders.
The commission was sharply aware of environmental degradation of many kinds and
of necessary limits to expansion in the use of fossil energy. It pointed to the
immense scale of the growth already experienced (a fiftyfold increase in industrial
production in one century, 80 percent of it since 1950) and the unimpressive level of
improvement that had resulted in third world countries. It described the situation as
one of “interlocking crises” and “a threatened future.” It acknowledged that the first
world had “already used much of the planet’s ecological capital” and that population
was growing faster than the capacity to provide for all. Questions of distribution, it
concluded, would need to be tackled, since growth alone was insufficient. Part of the
increases in the income of the rich should be diverted to the very poor, it declared.(5
Higgs referencing) Although the idea was to redirect only part of the increment, not
current wealth and not the entire increase, nothing of the kind has occurred. As
explained in chapter 7, the world’s rich monopolized most of the increased income
and consumption during the 1990s.
Page 17 Growth was accepted as essential, if not sufficient, to address deepening worldwide
poverty. (6 Higgs referencing system)1 The above work featured in 1987 as a report
called ‘Our Common Future’ from WCED also known as the Brundtland
Commission.
Continuing:… A survey conducted by the Indian Health Ministry and UNICEF in
2006 confirmed that malnutrition was widespread among India’s small children, with
some 43 percent of he undernourished (figure 9.1),(19 Higgs referencing)
Commenting on that survey. The London Times Online noted that the average rate
of malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa was about 35 percent, significantly less than
the figure for India, even though India’s economic growth had exceeded 8 percent in
the previous three years, “a shocking illustration of how India’s recent economic
gains, while enriching the social elite and middle classes, have failed to benefit
almost half of its 1.1 billion people.”(20 Higgs Referencing)2
Continuing on the topic of the failures of capitalism and economic growth:
‘In 1895 the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) was founded to lobby
for business – friendly legislation and, under the leadership of David Perry, in 1903
it launched “a crusade against unionism.” (14 Higgs Referencing)3
The NAM campaign for the “American way” was massive. It replicated Creel’s
World War I model in establishing local cells, “Special Committees of Public
Information,” which enlisted local Chambers of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, and
churches, as well as lawyers, teachers, and local dealers of the appliances and cars
made by the corporations. These committees of influential people were responsible
for the regional face of NAM’s multifaceted “publicity program”; they funneled
articles, features and films to newspapers, radio stations, and movie theatres; they
sent speakers to the theatres as Creel had done, as well as to every local group of any
sort (including women’s groups and what were then called “negro groups”); they
distributed pamphlets and weekly bulletins to schools, clubs and libraries. (45 Higgs
referencing) Aware that the adult population was cynical about the corporate claim
to “service,” they aimed specifically at schools where Young America, their weekly
children’s magazine that portrayed capitalism as dedicated to looking after them and
their communities, was sent to thousands of teachers, who used them in classroom
assignments. You and Industry, a series of booklets written in simple language,
linked individual prosperity to unregulated industry, and was distributed every two
1
2
3
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 126 and 127
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 141
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 169
Page 18 weeks by the US Chamber of Commerce, which, along with the giant industrial
corporations, was also involved in the campaign. (47 Higgs Referencing)
The American Way campaign reflected the transformation of PR practice from a
rhetoric of alleged facts, such as Ivy Lee had used in the early years, to a rhetoric of
symbols and images that entertained the viewer (as recommended by Bernays) and ,
as Lippmann described it, “assemble (d) emotions after they have been detached
from their ideas, …. (causing an) intensification of feeling and a degradation of
significance” (48 Higgs Referencing)
Images and symbols were deployed at all levels. Cartoons were distributed to more
than three thousand workers; in one such cartoon, the “forgotten man,” symbolic of
people destroyed by the depression, is portrayed as the fleeced taxpayer, and the “fat
cats” are not corporations but pro-welfare politicians. (49 Higgs Referencing)
Billboards looked down on every town of twenty-five hundred people or more by
1937 (figure 10.1), (50 Higgs referencing) combining happy families with the slogans
“There’s no way like the American Way” and “What’s good for industry is good for
you.” Serials such as The American family Robinson were sent to radio stations
without charge and broadcast across the country through more than two hundred
local stations every week; (51 Higgs Referencing) in this particular serial, a happy
white family provided the setting for engaging stories that pitted their sensible, pro
business father against socialist troublemakers such as the benighted “Friends of the
Downtrodden.” Movie theatres screened feature films and “documentaries”
depicting the upward march of America, “a tale of uninterrupted scientific progress…
a history driven by the genius of American industry.” (52 Higgs referencing) The
proliferating avenues of mass communication were saturated with this message.1
….such goes on…
A number of conservative think tanks, characterizing themselves as nonpartisan,
were founded in the late 1940s. By 1949, four thousand US corporations had set up
dedicated public relations departments, and some five hundred independent PR
firms were in business. (72 Higgs referencing) By Late 1951, business-sponsored
films were drawing one-third of the US movie audience, 20 million people a week.
In factories across the country, employees were given time off to attend sessions on
economics as business saw it and the corporate commitment to workers’ welfare. By
1952, according to the editor of Fortune magazine, corporations were spending $100
million a year to sell “free enterprise,” an outlay that rose tenfold to $1 billion by
1978. (73 Higgs referencing)2
1
2
‘Collision Course’ Higgs pages 175 and 176
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 180
Page 19 This story continues about the manipulation of the community by business, it
continues and continues referenced all the while by Higgs. Continuing to pick out
some of the points I continue to quote:
Before Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, the interaction of corporate
business with the natural world was not much at issue – worries such as those of
Vogt and Osborn (discussed in chapter 3) were marginal. By 1970, however, when
the Cuyahoga River burned in Cleveland, Ohio, there were disturbing signs that the
environment was in trouble. The establishment of environmental watchdogs and
other government institutions to deal with pollution began in both the United States
and the UK in the 1960s and proceeded apace. This process instituted a regime of
oversight and regulation for business and rested on the confident expectation that
the newly visible environmental problems were amenable to technological solutions.
The growth of these institutions and the introduction of the environmental impact
study as a precondition for most new developments drew significant sections of a
critical scientific community into careers within the new structures. (3 Higgs
referencing)
Some scientists, the MIT Limits of Growth researchers included, began to warn that
economic expansion could not go on indefinitely. Around the same time, increasing
numbers of citizens became concerned about pollution and the degradation of the
natural environment. The coordinated apparatus of persuasion outlined in chapter
10 was at hand: spin skills, propaganda ploys, and PR professionalism developed
over sixty-five years stood ready to respond to all perceived threats to corporate
values and corporate control, buttressed from the 1970s by the proliferation of
conservative think tanks.
The promotion of economic growth was largely implicit rather than argued. As a
shared value of mainstream economists, it was a preanalytic assumption for all, and
there was little need to defend it. It was and continues to be presented by media of
almost all persuasions as the indispensable underpinning of all realistic solutions to
social problems big and small. The immediate postwar years saw it embraced as the
answer to every awkward question about distribution. We did not need to consider
how to share the pie since, by making it bigger, the crumbs would also increase.
Economic growth became the principal yardstick for success in economic policy.
While economic growth rarely received explicit endorsement of defense at this time,
warnings about environmental dangers were systematically countered and an entire
machinery of denial was established through the think tank apparatus. The attack
included the demonization not just of environmental activists but of science and
scientists as well – an unthinkable situation just a few decades earlier.1
1
‘Collision Course’ – Higgs pages 188 &189
Page 20 ….. However, as part of a broader reaction to the introduction of regulation and to
criticism of business practices, the 1970s saw the relaunch and concerted extension
of well – rehearsed campaign to sell and resell private enterprise. On August 23,
1971, not long before Limits came out, corporate lawyer Lewis Powell sent a
memorandum to his friend Eugene Sydnor, the director of the US Chamber of
Commerce, urgently recommending such a campaign. (4 Higgs referencing) The
memo was symptomatic of a sense of threat among America’s businessmen, and of a
mood for the renewal and extension of ideological warfare.1
`Where the Money Came/s From: ‘Familiar Tactics: Advertising, PR and
“Economic Education” - Higgs
Family foundations have been a crucial element in the funding of the modern think
tanks. Journalist Lewis Lapham lists the richest conservative US foundations (as of
2001), with assets approaching $2 billion. The “Four Sisters” – Richard Mellon
Scaife’s group of foundations, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Olin
Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation, devoted to free market
scholarship (Hayek was among its beneficiaries).2 The discussion of free market
benefactors continues and there is a table presented by Higgs outlining donors to
free market thinking that of the Hoover Institution, American Enterprise Institute,
Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute. The Source of the table being Beder
2006b, 27. Courtesy of Sharon Beder.
These links are not trumpeted. In the UK, Fisher’s cofounder at the IEA warned
back in 1955 that it was “imperative that we should give no indication in our
literature that we are working to educate the Public along certain lines which might
be interpreted as having a political bias. (32 Higgs referencing) Similarly, in
Australia, political connections were concealed. Greg Lindsay himself, the founder
of the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), told the CIS magazine that his Liberal
Party allies “were very conscious of my unwillingness to be seen as being involved in
party politics and they were careful not to compromise us.” (33 Higgs referencing)
Their supposed independence helped to qualify many think tanks for the tax
exemptions that go with charitable status, as well as giving an appearance of political
neutrality. Almost all the free market think tanks worldwide are tax exempt.
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), dedicated to “individual economic
freedom, private property, limited government and free trade through ‘economic
education,” is with the AEI among the earliest of the free market think tanks and
1
2
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 189 &190
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 192
Page 21 provides another US example of corporate origins of influence. Its seven 1946
creators included senior executives from Goodrich, GM, the New York Times,
ORC and a former top manager with both the Chamber of Commerce and NAM.
Initial funding came from GM, Chrysler, Edison, DuPont, and several oil and steel
companies; forty-six corporations had made million – dollar contributions by the
end of 1949. (34 Higgs referencing)1
US (mainly), Business Reaction to Environmental Issues
The first rush of environmental awareness in the United States and the UK peaked
briefly around 1973 before falling away. The new institutions of regulation,
established in seventy countries by 1976, brought substantial improvements in
environmental quality and may partly explain this decline in concern. (61 Higgs
referencing) Moreover, segments of the environmentalist and scientific communities
were subsumed into the policy apparatus of the new regulatory regimes, blunting the
locally based momentum of environmental activism. (62 Higgs Refencing) In Sharon
Beder’s view, however, the decline in concern for environmental problems from the
mid 1970s is largely attributed to corporate campaigning, an effort more thorough
and multifaceted than ever before. (63 Higgs Referencing) Anti-union sentiment was
a perennial aspect of this activism, but the emergence of consumer and
environmental groups and the regulatory initiatives of the Nixon administration
plunged corporate America into the panic implicit in the Powell Memo. In their
study of US business coalitions in the 1970s, Mark Green and Andrew Buchsbaum
interviewed one corporate lobbyist who told them that “the free enterprise system
was in danger because you have the Ralph Naders of the world and the
environmentalists.” (64 Higgs referencing) In response, by 1978, US business was
spending around $1 billion every year on a variety of propaganda campaigns
intended to persuade Americans that their interests were the same as those of
business. (65 Higgs Referencing) They had some success. Just before Ronald Reagan
was elected president in 1980, the Ad Council’s annual poll, designed to monitor the
effectiveness of the business campaign, found that people who thought there was
“too much government regulation” had risen from 42 percent in 1976 to 60 percent
just four years later. (66 Higgs referencing)
Alongside the advertising blitzes, the massive dissemination of “economic
education,” and the elaborate think tank apparatus outlined in the previous section,
the direct political influence recommended by the Powell Memo was also pursued.
It was thought expedient to intervene directly in the legislative arena to combat the
specific dangers posed by consumer rights and environmental protection. New
1
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 197
Page 22 coalitions were forged, and lobbyists arrived in Washington in unprecedented
numbers. In 1971, only 175 firms had political representation there; by 1982 the
number had risen more than tenfold, to 2,445. In 1980 there were 15,000 business
lobbyists in Washington spending $2 billion each year, a sharp contrast to the
roughly fifty genuine public interest lobbyists, who spent $3 million per year. (67
Higgs referencing)1
‘….there were signs at the end of the 1980s that people in the Western World were
still concerned about the environmental degradation, perhaps even more so than
before. A New York Times / CBS poll in 1989 found that 80 percent of
respondents thought that “protecting the environment is so important that standards
cannot be too high and continuing environmental improvements must be made
regardless of the cost.” In Australia, a 1990 Saulwick poll found that 67 percent of
people thought Australia “should concentrate on protecting the environment even if
it means some reduction in economic growth,” a finding echoed in a Gallup poll the
following year. (76 Higgs referencing) In these years, ordinary people in the first
world valued the environment ahead of the economy – or said they did – and told
pollsters that they were prepared to pay a price for their preference. However, such
views did not accord with the priorities of business, in particular those of
corporations linked to the fossil fuel industries powering the ever – expanding
industrial apparatus.
These changes in public perception were shaped by new sources of concern about
environmental decline. The US climatologist James Hansen addressed the US
Congress in 1988, the same year that the International Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) was set up to review world research into global warming. The IPCC’s first
report was released in 1990, and the UN conference in Rio de Janeiro, known as the
Earth Summit, followed in 1992, attempting to address not only global warming but
the destruction of the diversity of life on earth, the pollution of the oceans, and the
threat from toxic waste. Despite the Earth Summit’s capitulation to market solutions
and its extremely modest results, the first framework agreements on control of
carbon emissions and biodiversity protection were put in place, with ongoing
negotiations scheduled. In achieving these embryonic accords, however, the Rio
summit raised the specter of environmental regulation on an international scale, an
even greater threat to corporate economic expansion.
To appose these trends, business adopted a multiplicity of tactics in its second wave
of opposition to environmental values.2
1
2
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 203
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 205
Page 23 ‘Greenwashing the Front Groups
Public relations companies conducted numerous campaigns on behalf of
corporations, the most novel being the “greenwash” exercise, whereby the public was
to be convinced that polluting companies were “going green.” When British
Petroleum set out to rebrand itself “Beyond Petroleum,” the advertising campaign
cost as much as or more than BP’s actual investment in solar technology. (77 Higgs
referencing) Nonetheless, an impression of green credentials was successfully
created. Sponsorships and “green partnerships” were established, such as one
between the clear-cut logging and paper mill company Georgia – Pacific and an
organization for injured animals, and another between Chevron and National
Geographic. Public relations firms continued their well – established function of
damage control but were also paid to create specialized front groups, auch as the
Global Climate Coalition (GCC), dedicated to minimizing concern about climate
change. The GCC represented NAM and automotive, coal and oil corporations, and
shared personnel with industry association and think tanks, including the American
Petroleum Institute an the George C. Marshall Institute. (78 Higgs referencing)
Seeking to replicate the authenticity of citizen participation, business began to
finance putative grassroots campaigns, forming organizations with innocuous (or
totally misleading) names such as the Environmental Conservation Organization,
Citizens for Effective Environmental Action Now, established by the chemical
industry, and the National Wildlife Institute, These organizations, funded by
cooperate interests and often set up by PR firms, mobilized discontented citizens
(often unwittingly against their own beliefs and interests) in campaigns designed to
ensure corporate access to resources such as forests and minerals. It was industry
insiders who first dubbed the “astroturf” organizations, after the synthetic grass
known as Astro Turf. Although citizens were enlisted in these entities, they did not
arise as grass roots groups but were instigated from above by corporate interests for
propaganda purposes. The ‘wise use’ umbrella organization, founded in the United
States in 1988, was one of the most successful of innumerable such groups and had
links to many corporate bodies, including the Heritage Foundation, logging
companies, resource trade organizations, and off- road vehicle manufacturers; the
CEI sponsored their first conference. (79 Higgs referencing) Ron Arnold, who
helped organize the gathering, acknowledged the underlying agenda: “we don’t even
care what version of Wise Use people believe in, as long as it protects private
property, free markets, and limits government.” (80 Higgs referencing)1 In goes on
listing dubious environmental organizations run by free market business.
1
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 206 and 207
Page 24 Business Undermining Science to instill the Business Agenda
In 1998, as corporations faced the prospect of the Clinton administration signing on
to the Kyoto Protocol, adopted on December 11, 1997, John Cushman of the New
York Times revealed that “an informal group of people for big oil companies, trade
associations and conservative policy research organizations …. have been meeting
recently at the Washington office of the American Petroleum Institute.” Their plans
encompassed a media program, with $600,000 in funding, to recruit, train, and
finance a team of credible scientists who would question and undercut the
“prevailing scientific wisdom” on radio talk shows and in opinion pieces in
newspapers. They also planned Global Climate Science Data Center with a budget
of $5 million over two years, which would again recruit credible scientists and act as
a “one-stop resource” for members of Congress, the media and industry. (85 Higgs
referencing) The document Cushman obtained stated “victory will be achieved when
…. recognition of uncertainties become part of ‘conventional wisdom.’” (86 Higgs
referencing)
Industry sources claimed that the Times publicity had forced them to abandon that
particular plan, but people involved in the meeting have been prominent in climate
change denial work ever since – including ExxonMobil lobbyist Randy Randol,
“junk science” proponent Steve Milloy, Myron Ebell from Frontiers of Freedom,
now with the CEI, and representatives from the American Petroleum Institute,
Chevron, the Marshall Institute, the Science and Environmental Policy Project, and
the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow. (87 Higgs referencing) As negotiations
for a treaty beyond Kyoto drew closer, the AEI offered $10,000 to any scientist who
would write articles emphasizing shortcomings in he IPCC’s 2007 draft assessment
report. (88 Higgs referencing)
In these documented cases, vested interests planned to pay individual scientists to
present and industry-friendly opinion in the public sphere as if they were
unconnected to industry. Though it is often difficult to link specific individuals to
precise corporate donations, some evidence does exist: in the early 1990s the coal
conglomerate Western Fuels revealed in an annual report that it was enlisting
prominent scientists Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling and Fred Singer as
spokesmen. The coal industry paid these and a handful of other self-styled skeptics
$1 million over a three-year period; (89 Higgs referencing) Michaels admitted at a
1995 hearing in Minnesota that he had received more than $165,000. (90 Higgs
refencing) Evidence that the Heartland Institute has spent over $20 million since
2007 funding scientists and “skeptical” bloggers was leaked in early 2012. (91 Higgs
referencing) Among the recipients were the Australian geologist Bob Carter and the
US weatherman Anthony Watts. Even where proof of direct funding is lacking, there
is ample evidence of corporate donations to think tanks and corporate involvement
Page 25 in their boards, while think tank relationships with self- styled contrarians are openly
disclosed. Think tanks constitute a go-between that sanitizes industry propaganda
and turns it into “independent research.”
Mother Jones journalist Chris Mooney has documented connections between
ExxonMobil and various think tanks and front groups. He found forty organizations
with close ties to climate change denialists that were funded by the petroleum giant,
which spent more than $8 million on them between 2000 and 2003. The AEI
received nearly $1 million while ExxonMobil chairman Lee Raymond served as vice
president of its board of trustees. The CEI got $1.38 million, Frontiers of Freedom
$612,000, and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow $252,000. Smaller
sums were disbursed to many other entities, including the Cato Institute, the Centre
for the Defense of Free Enterprise, where Ron Arnold is based (discussed in chapter
12), and the Advancement of Sound Science Center, registered at Steve Milloy’s
address. (92 Higgs referencing) Mother Jones has compiled a table of think tank
funding by ExxonMobil, (93 Higgs referencing) and the Greenpeace investigative
website exxonsecrets.org provides extensive information on the connections between
dozens of think tanks and their funding sources. (94 Higgs referencing) In their open
letter to ExxonMobil in 2006, Republican senator Olympia Snowe and Democrat
senator Jay Rockefeller pointed out that “since the late 1990s, ExxonMobil (alone)
has spent more than $19 million on a strategy of ‘information laundering,’ enabling a
small number of professional skeptics, working through so-called scientific
organizations, to funnel their viewpoints through non-peer reviewed websites.” (95
Higgs referencing)1
‘The environmental policies of the most powerful and gluttonous nation on the
planet are being written by the world’s most powerful oil company. – Mark Morford,
2005
Climate change policy in Canberra has for years been determined by a small group
of lobbyists who happily describe themselves as the ‘greenhouse mafia.”….. This
cabal consist of the executive directors of a handful of industry associations in the
coal, oil, cement, aluminium, mining and electricity industries. Almost all of these
industry lobbyists have been plucked from senior ranks of the Australian Public
Service…. The revolving door between the bureaucracy and industry lobby groups
has given the fossil fuel industries unparalleled insights into the policy process and
networks throughout government. – Clive Hamilton 2007’2
1
2
‘Collision Course’ – Higgs pages 208 & 209
‘Collision Course’ – Higgs page 211
Page 26 ‘In chapters 10 and 11, I traced the step – by – step creation of channels of
propaganda and direct influence by corporate America, and their spread to other
countries. I have also indicated the process whereby pro-corporate ideology was
internalized in popular belief and became the commonsense way to see the world.
Economic growth is intrinsic to the corporate system so that, even when growth itself
is not the overt topic of propaganda, it remains an underlying objective. This is
particularly true of the battle to continue burning the fossil fuels on which the entire
productive apparatus currently depends.
The core rhetorical task for nearly a century was to persuade ordinary Americans –
and then others around the world – that their interests were identical to those of big
business and best served by keeping the government out of economic decision
making.’1
Corporations Creating Law Firms to Protect the Business Agenda
‘Intimidating Citizens with Lawsuits
In a 1971 speech to the US Chamber of Commerce, Lewis Powell, of Powell Memo
fame, recommended that business set up its own law firms, call them “public
interest” firms, and prepare to fight for the business agenda in the courtroom. The
Chamber of Commerce established its own litigation center, one of many such
corporate interest law firms. (96 Higgs referencing) These provided a weapon later
used widely to threaten individuals involved in protest of activism against polluters
and developers; this sort of intimidating litigation was dubbed “strategic lawsuits
against public participation” (or SLAPPs) by the University of Denver academics
Penelope Canan and George Pring. Canan and Pring had observed an upsurge in
civil damages suits mounted against citizens. (97 Higgs referencing) In court, the
pockets of the corporations were too deep for ordinary citizens to oppose. In the
United States, many activists were scared off and silenced. The Melbourne barrister
Brian Walters has documented a number of cases in which Australian businesses –
often developers – used the defamation or trade practices laws to sue citizens who
expressed concerns about environmental and community issues, sometimes by
merely writing to the paper. (98 Higgs referencing) Many of these suits succeeded in
silencing the dissent and, even when people chose to fight, the risk of losing
everything was high and led others to fear the consequences of public participation.
(99 Higgs referencing)
1
‘Collision Course’ Higgs – page 211
Page 27 As well as discrediting, bankrupting, and scaring off private individuals, the
neoliberal Right and its think tank infrastructure went on to accuse scientists of
distortion and bias while fostering the denial of environmental problems with its own
distortion and bias.’1
More Business infiltration in the US
The Roundtable CEO’s, drawn from the upper echelons of the Fortune 500, came
personally to Washington to court senators, congressmen, administration officials,
and presidents. Members of the Policy Committee had close personal ties to
president Ford, for example, and though access to President Carter was less
automatic, several Roundtable CEO’s were well connected to his top officials. (69
Higgs referencing) Key congressmen and top officials were personal colleagues or ex
–members of the dominant Roundtable clique or conspicuous members of antienvironmental pressure groups. In the late 1970s, more than a quarter of the
Roundtable’s governing Policy Committee were members of the Federal Reserve.
(70 Higgs referencing)
….. After numerous close calls, the US Congress abandoned the formation of a
consumer protection agency in 1978, a “signal victory” for the Roundtable,
according to Fortune magazine. (73 Higgs referencing) Among other congressional
retreats on environmental regulation were reductions in vehicle fuel economy
standards, delays in the implementation of emissions standards for US motor cars,
and relaxation of the nitrogen oxide standard. By 1978, business had “defeated
much of the legislative program of both the public interest movement and organized
labor.” (74 Higgs referencing)
In Australia, too, new business coalitions were formed. The Confederation of
Australian Industry was founded in 1970, the National Farmers Federation in 1977,
and the Australian Business Roundtable, modeled on the US version, in 1980. The
Business Council of Australia, founded in 1983 with a larger representation of the
biggest corporations, now represents big business. (75 Higgs referencing)2
How to Rein in Multinational Corporations that Seem to be a Law Unto
Themselves
This is not an easy topic to address I think it’s got many people left thinking how to
do it. I’m thinking if the answer were easy Kerryn Higgs herself would have written it
1
2
‘Collision Course’ Higgs pages 209 & 210
‘Collision Course’ Higgs page 204
Page 28 rather than just stating the problems. I will try to quote Higgs in terms of the
evidence in her book, again well referenced, in terms of how multinationals have
been manipulating the world with disregards to fair labor wages, fair working
conditions and of course the general multinational disregard for the environment
that has been seen around the world.
So how do you enforce multinational companies to act ethically??? When there are
as Higgs states free trade agreements which let them basically do what ever they
want.
How do you rein in companies to act ethically when CEO’s get huge bonuses for
increasing share prices and the like. It would seem that the CEO’s insentment is to
chase after shareholder profit at whatever environmental and social cost it takes. I
think this is a huge question of our time.
I think it would be hard to make shareholders responsible for the actions of the
company they have invested in as many people have multiple company shares. So
that means I feel is that the board and the CEO has to be the responsible party.
Aid Budgets – Sustainable Development after Rio, Oil & Paper Stats
In chapter 8 of Higgs book she discusses aid budgets in particular in box 8.1. She
doesn’t just focus on the United States but also Australia. It would not, I think,
come as a surprise to people that aid budgets are political. However, Higgs doesn’t
just discuss the politics of aid, which I don’t quote, so if your interested in that you
need to read the book. So she doesn’t just discuss politics of aid but also the
percentage of GDP from rich first world countries.
I find the topic of the aid budget very interesting. The reason being is that I
presently live of the disability pension, I am aided by my parents in terms of day to
day living so I understand that without my parents, living off purely the pension
would be a extremely hard task. Now the Australian coalition government is
putting forward legislation to reduce the pension increment. ‘Technically’ they
have not broken an election promise to cut the pension, well they are trying, so
have they lied?’ Anyway the point here is the people who are targeted at least by
the present Australian Abbott government and I think you’d find in history you’d
find it repeated, is that to juggle the books comes at the expense generally of the
poor and not the rich. So I find it a bit difficult to agree with Higgs on this one. Yes
by international standards the pensioners of the first world are better off, but the
CEO”s the actual Rich people are hardly touched financially and in the first world
Page 29 the people paying for the aid budget are the poor pensioners themselves. That’s
how I see the picture. If CEO’s did a half decent job I’d support a medium to
pretty good salary, but as this book points out their disregard for fair pay of workers
and the conditions in which they work are pretty much ignored as too are
environmental issues. They shove a consumer society down peoples throats when
we have limited resources. So to say that the first world doesn’t pay enough aid
budget is partially correct the real truth is the rich don’t pass on enough money to
the poor whether that be in salary or in aid. It is the poor people having their
pensions cut that are paying for the aid budget not the rich!! As this book details
over and over the rich manipulate their situation to stay rich using PR and also
whispering with money to politicians.
This comes from Higgs a snippet of her commentary on aid:
‘The Sydney Morning Herald, reporting on the Australian aid budget of
approximately $3 billion in the 2007 tax year, found that “much of the money has
never left Australia, and that 10 private companies held almost $1.8 billion in
contracts let by the Government’s official aid delivery agency – AusAID.” (f Higgs
referencing Jopson 2007). While Rio recommended that aid be boosted to 0.7
percent of GDP, as originally promised in 1970 and repeated many times since, the
volume of aid from the rich to the poor world, as a proportion of their GDP, has
actually declined in the past forty years, from 0.51 percent in the late 1960’s to
approximately 0.3 percent in 2009. (g referencing by Higgs, Riddell 2009)1
So I grant the aid budget has declined but those presently forking out for aid I
don’t believe are the tax avoidance upper class. Presently the coalition government
in Australia is trying to rip away penalty wages taking more money of the poorer
lower class to feed the greed of business.
‘Soon after Rio, in 1993, the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations was
dissolved and its work on a corporate Code of Conduct was abandoned.’2
….. ‘Sustainable Development: A Dubious Proposition
The kind of development that has transpired since Rio has not reflected principles
of sustainability, in the sense of being able to continue a course of action
indefinitely without jeopardizing the ecological ground of the enterprise. It is more
likely, as some have argued, that the notion is an oxymoron. Herman Daly makes a
sharp distinction between sustainable development (qualitative) and sustainable
growth (quantitative), which is, in his view, the oxymoron. If development is to be
1
2
‘Collision Course’ Higgs, bocx 8.1 page 131
‘Collision Course’ – Higgs page 132
Page 30 sustainable, Daly believes, it must be ‘development without growth.”(17 Higgs
referencing) Certainly, the idea that the habits of the affluent can be extended to all
of the earth’s seven billion people and rising is fantasy (as exemplified in the
discussion of cars and paper in chapter 6), 1
This is from chapter 6:
‘The cornucopian promise of global prosperity needs to be considered in the light
of these figures. The US o Australian rate of consumption is not a realistic goal for
everyone, suggesting that American and Australian consumption will need to
contract. If China alone were to use oil at the rate per capita rate of the United
States, for example, it would require some 82 million barrels a day - only
marginally less than the whole world currently uses. (67 Higgs Referencing) In the
case of paper, Chinese consumption per person at US levels would take more
paper than the world produces. (68 Higgs Referencing) Even consumption at the
more moderate European rate, about half that of the US or Australian rate, is
unlikely to be viable for China, let alone for everyone. When large increases in
population are factored in, the idea of generating prosperity for all through
accelerating economic growth would seem laughable if it were not the apparent
intent of governments and businesses worldwide.
The Garrett Hardin approach, where the rest of humanity is abandoned to starve,
is obviously unacceptable. But the consumer route to plenty is also fatally flawed.
Strategies other than growth are thus clearly required to address poverty that still
prevails for almost half the world’s people……’2
China’s power generation
‘The Berkeley economist Richard Carson, co-author of a detailed assessment of
China’s CO2 emissions, (62 – Higgs Referencing) told the Environment News
Service that from about 2000, Chinese “government officials turned away from
energy efficiency as an objective, to expanding power generation as quickly as they
can, and as cheaply as they can… Many of the poorer interior provinces replicated
Soviet technology.” Thus China has been building power plants that are dirty,
inefficient, and outdated at the outset and are intended to operate for another forty
to seventy – five years. (63 Higgs Referencing)
The transfer of heavy industry to China, with the concomitant rush to build the
cheapest coal- burning power plants to service it, constituted a big step backward
for the world as a whole as far as industrial efficiency, environmental protection,
and climate safety are concerned. The manufacture of vast quantities of the
1
2
‘Collision Course’ – Higgs page 132
‘Collision Course’ – Higgs page 103
Page 31 Western consumer’s gewgaws in these conditions has added immense
environmental penalties to our consumption. Through the emissions are reckoned
as China’s, it is we who are the end consumers. Viewed through the corporate lens
of price, profit and growth, however, it rates as a grand success.1
Conclusion In regards to ‘Collision Course’ – Kerryn Higgs Book
I have quoted a fair amount of ‘Collision Course’ in this book. I feel I have
hopefully given the readers of this book an understanding of what has gone before.
That Americans have been manipulated to think that economic growth and the
business agenda is the be all and end all.
That the business community has been unconscionable in developing
environmental fronts when they clearly have no respect for the environment at all.
I have quoted a fair amount of such activities from environmental front
organizations to the manipulation of the legal system. In which they have
developed bottomless pockets to fight citizens apposed to the business agenda
which has apparently led to the bankruptcy of private citizens. Private citizens
trying to fight large corporations over what seems to be unethical behavior by
business (please read Higgs book for the well referenced detail of such). The fact
that business developed their own law firms says much.
Kerryn Higgs book is just littered with references here there and everywhere of the
unethical business community. The part that I haven’t referenced in this book
(quoting), is that present free trade agreements could see litigation to governments
if they stipulate environmental standards are to be met by business, I presume
predominantly multinational companies. I did read just today that a business wants
to sue a government if the government raises the minimum wage.
I really put forward ‘Collision Course’ Higgs as an excellent read. A read that well
references everything that has taken place. I have quoted some of this but I put
forward that the whole book is an excellent read.
1
‘Collision Course’ – Higgs page 157
Page 32 Conversations with the Archbishop - Economics
For A Sustainable Future
I note I tend not to take notes at speeches something I have to change. I have in the
past gone off memory. Rosza, however, took notes and I asked if she didn’t mind
me having a look, and she gave her notes to me (thanks!!). So the below is Rosza’s
notes, my memory and parts of the actual write up in The Melbourne Anglican.
I saw an article in the Melbourne Anglican that there was to be a conversation with
Archbishop Freier and MP’s Adam Bandt and Kelly O’Dwyer. I organized for
Rosza and I to attend on Wednesday 11 March at Deakin Edge Federation Square,
7:30 am. Both Rosza and I were quite sick with the flu on attending and thus I
greatly appreciate that Rosza made it with me. The talk came in the early midst of
my sustainable economic reading and I was keen to know what the discussion would
include.
The discussion really didn’t address the issues that I feel are important, that of
perpetual economic growth in a finite world. Rather the conversation turned to the
amount we are spending on research and development. Such as we are spending the
lowest amount on R&D in 30 years at 2.2% of GDP. ‘Mr Bandt said that at 2.2 per
cent of GDP (combined public and private) Australia’s spending on research and
development was behind the expenditures of Australia’s key trading partners like the
United States, which has committed itself to spending 3 per cent of its GDP on
research and development.’1
There was some discussion about the intergenerational report that had just been
submitted to parliament.
Adam bandt talked about the diesel subsidy to big miners, feeding the profits to
people like Gina Rinehart, he did specifically mention Gina but the Melbourne
Anglican doesn’t write it up that way. “We give about 3- 4 billion a year to fossil fuel
companies (to do what they would have done anyway)…. $4 billion that can’t go into
universities”2
I have forgotten which particular sector Kelly was talking about but she made the
point that throwing money at a sector doesn’t always mean better outcomes. “This
idea that spending directly equates to better outcomes is not one that I would agree
1
2
Education, research vital for sustainable future, The Melbourne Anglican
The Melbourne Anglican, Page 4, April 2015
Page 33 with.”1The Melbourne Anglican isn’t specific about what she particularly was
referring to other than she said it.
Rosza felt that Kelly hedged her way around the important topics not directly
answering the question posed by the archbishop.
The last point I’d like to highlight from the conversation was written up in the
Melbourne Anglican’s write up of such. ‘Mr Bandt said he wasn’t happy with current
discourse in Australia. “The National conversation at the moment is dominated by
debt for future generations, but when it comes to climate change we find it a bit
harder to talk about.”2
So that was really the extent of the ‘sustainable’ discussion – alternatives to perpetual
economic growth did not come up.
1
2
The Melbourne Anglican, Page 4, April 2015
The Melbourne Anglican, Page 4, April 2015
Page 34 Population Debates Which Include Economics
‘Collision Course’ Higgs on population
‘The sixties saw the start of a legislative transformation in the United States, away
from an existing emphasis on resource extraction and privatization to national
resources and toward a stewardship approach to public lands that would limit
economic development in selected areas: 4 this shift in values was reflected in
innovative laws to conserve land, water, rivers, and wilderness. On January 1, 1970,
President Nixon signed into law the National Environmental Policy Act, which
declared that “Congress recognizes the profound impact of man’s activity on the
interrelations of all components of the environment, particularly the profound
influences of population growth.”5
During the mid 1960s, the US Congress had also instigated a population policy
designed to help finance family planning in the third world. Since population is one
of the multipliers contributing to environmental impact (box 3.1), some sort of
population policy is necessary. This does not, of course, justify coercive sterilization
such as occurred in several countries at this time (including Bangladesh, India, and
Indonesia) and which has even been criticized in the World Bank’s own history of
family planning.6 The US initiatives of this period contrast with those of the Reagan
and George W. Bush administrations, which pursued natalist policies that militated
against population control of any kind. Marxist commentators 7 also dispute the
need for population policies, arguing that birth control in the global south was
merely a diversion intend to avoid solutions involving the redistribution of wealth,
and especially land reform.
…….. From box 3.1 in Higgs book… Numerous forces worked against population
control remaining the key agenda item it had been until the late seventies, a
“coalition of the unwilling” in the words of the UK’s then chief scientist, Lord
Robert May. B The Vatican, which had always opposed contraception, launched a
vigorous counterattack against oral contraceptions, exerting substantial influence not
only in the Untied States but also at the UN population conferences that took place
in Mexico City (1984) and Cairo (1994). Evangelical Christians, influential in the
Reagan and George H. W Bush administrations, joined forces to push US policy at
home and abroad in the same natalist direction, a trend that intensified under
George W. Bush. The Saudi Arabians also supported this approach. In Mexico, the
United States withdrew its funding for the UN population program, declared that the
advance of free market economics was “the natural mechanism for slowing
population growth”, and announced the sharpening of a “family values” focus.’
Page 35 Though a tricky area, population is one key driver of environmental impact and
cannot be excluded from an examination of the dynamics of unfettered growth.
Clearly, the rate of consumption, or “affluence,” is an equally significant determinant
of impact, and it is often argued that the level of technological sophistication is a
third key factor that can reduce impact by minimizing the amount of pollution
generated per product made. Ehrlich and Holdren expressed the relationship
mathematically in their famous I = PAT formula (Impact = Population * Affluence*
Technology). Rather than argue that population itself is not the main issue, it is
prefereable to acknowledge all aspects of the human impact. Australians and
Americans, for example, have per capita impact many times greater than the world
average and as much as seventy of eighty times of a Bangladeshi; each extra
Australian or US birth should be seen in that light.1 G
Professor Ian Lowe’s book on mainly Australia’s Population Issues
‘Bigger or Better’ – Australia’s population debate by Professor Ian Lowe is an
insightful read. Here is a snippet quote of which I will go through the evidence
presented in the entire book.
‘There is widespread concern in our cities that population growth is eroding
traditional lifestyles and stretching infrastructure. The debate, however, has been
confused by serious misconceptions. In this book I have tried to clarify the subject. I
begin by summarizing the historical context of our population growth last century,
and I follow this with an analysis of the many components of population change. I
look at alternative future patterns of growth to demonstrate the complex implications
of changing population – economically, socially and environmentally – showing that
in all areas there are strong disagreements about the effects, good and bad, of
growth. Chapter 5 of the book analyses the variety of interest groups involved in
either promoting population growth or arguing against it, showing that on each side
of the debate there are incompatible motivations.’1
….. ‘I am a patron of Sustainable Population Australia, a group that believes we
should stabilize our numbers at a level that can be sustainably supported. I was also
(at the time of writing) President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, which
believes decisions about population levels should take into account the impacts of
human demands on natural systems. Those viewpoints inform my approach to the
complex questions of population growth. I should add that there is also a direct
1 Collision
2 ‘Bigger
Course -parts of pages 34,35,36 and 37
or Better?’ – Ian Lowe page 2 & 3
Page 36 causal relation between my views and those appointments. I have been asked to
assume those positions because of my well-known opinions.’
Some of the arguments in this book were canvassed in a preliminary form in a 1996
report for the Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research,
published by the Australian Government Publishing Service as Understanding
Australia’s Population Debate. Here I have taken the complex and controversial
issues around population and made them accessible. My aim is to stimulate public
debate about this important topic and contribute constructively to that process. The
decisions we make now on this topic are literally shaping our future. They should be
considered and informed decisions as the future stability of our nation is at stake.1
….. ‘There was nothing inevitable about the population growth in my lifetime. It was
the result of conscious political decisions. In 1945, Australia and Sweden both had
the populations of about 7 million. Today the Australian population is about 22
million, while that of Sweden is about 9 million. Between 1980 and 2000, the
population was growing at about 200,000 a year. That is an extra Australian every
two minutes!
The growth has traditionally had two components. Each year the number of babies
born is much higher than the number of deaths. This so-called ‘natural increase’
averaged about 120,000 a year between 1960 and 2000, with only small variations
from year to year. The second main contributor to our increasing population is
migration. Every year some Australians and temporary visitors leave the country to
live somewhere else. At the same time, people are arriving in this country from
overseas, some to study or to have working holidays, others with the intention of
moving permanently to Australia. These factors are totally independent and their
interaction compounds the numbers. As the most obvious example, migrants often
come to Australia when they are young enough to have children of their own and
those children grow up in this country and raise families of their own.
Migration rates have changed dramatically during the 50 years I have been studying
this question. The significant figure here is called the ‘net migration’, the difference
between the number who arrive and the number who leave. Between 1960 and
2000, the net migration varied from year to year between 20,000 and about 150,000.
The average over that 40 –year period was about 100,000 a year, about the same as
the natural increase. In other words, between 1960 and 2000 these two components
of population increase were roughly equal. But the constant flow of migrants has
changed Australia significantly. In fact, more than a quarter of the Australian
population at the time of writing was born overseas, while an astounding 44 percent
1
‘Bigger or Better?’ Professor Ian Lowe pages
Page 37 – not much less than half the total population – were either born overseas or have at
least one parent born overseas. Very few countries have such a high fraction of
relatively recent arrivals.1
Population in Relation to National Defence
…… ‘The enthusiasm for growth has gradually abated over the years, in some cases
because of reflection on the logic. The argument that we need a larger population to
defend Australia from possible invaders made sense in the first half of last century,
when wars were fought between serried ranks of soldiers facing each other. But since
World War II, technology has been more important for defence than military
numbers. So there is now no simple link between population and capacity to defend
territory. Wealth may influence our capacity to buy military hardware to defend our
borders, but the number of Australians prepared to don uniform and stand on the
shoreline is hardly a factor.
The argument that we had to ‘populate our empty north’ raised the spectre of mass
migration from the crowded Asian countries to our north, suggesting the Northern
Territory would be overrun by teeming hordes of Indonesians if we didn’t fill it up
with ‘Australians’. But, as the late Cyril Pearl pointed out 50 years ago, Java was
crowded and Arnhem Land lightly populated for thousands of years before
Europeans set foot in this part of the world for good geographical reasons: Java has
rich, deep volcanic soils that support a large population, while the north of Australia
has old, thin and nutrient –poor soils. Pearl argued that fearing an invasion of
northern Australia was like Algerians being worried about the Sahara being overrun.
While those furphies have been exposed, there remains an enduring belief that we
need population growth, and hence high levels of migration, for economic reasons.
Around 1970, a new mood of concern about population growth emerged, linked to
discussion overseas about the increasing impacts of human consumption on the
natural world. A group of senior European business leaders, academics and
politicians formed a think-tank called the Club of Rome. The first report to the
group was prepared by systems modellers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in the United States. It was the first simple attempt to construct a global model and
examine alternative futures. The report, Limits to Growth, was widely attacked by
economists who don’t believe in the idea of limits, but it sparked some questioning
of the simplistic view that growth can continue forever at a constant or increasing
rate. An unrelated local event was the decision by the Australian Government to set
up a National Population Inquiry in 1970. Its report largely dismissed concerns
1
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe page 6
Page 38 about ecological constraints on the human population, but it did acknowledge the
vulnerability of the natural systems of Australia by suggesting we adopt such
measures as making family planning information more widely available. It was, at the
time, a brave recommendation since sex was rarely discussed in either polite or
public company. It is true that since the availability of reliable contraception the
average number of children per adult woman has declined dramatically. But there
are also other factors that contribute to the lower birthrate, such as women’s greater
access to education and subsequent higher levels of participation in the workforce –
women with professional careers are noticeably more likely to postpone or avoid
motherhood.
Much later, the National Population Council was established. It reported in 1992 on
the links between population, economic development and the environment. It said
that the government should seek to influence population change ‘so as to advance
economic progress, ecological integrity, social justice and responsible international
involvement’. Perhaps mystified about how those four factors might be brought
together, the government of the day did not accept the recommendation. Australia
still does not have a formal population policy. There is no official government target
for what the population should be at any future time. A submission to the United
Nations International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo in
1994, said ‘there is no clear formula for a workable population policy in a developed
country with low fertility’. The clear implication was that Australia is ‘a developed
country with low fertility’ even though a ‘natural increase’ of about 120,000 a year is
a high rate of growth for a developed country. In fact, it is one of the highest of all
the nations that are usually grouped in that category.1
..getting to Economic Issues around Population
Continuing on from page 9 of Bigger or Better? ‘In the same year, the House of
Representatives Standing Committee for Long – Term Issues, chaired by former
Science Minister Barry Jones, held a public inquiry into population. It attracted
nearly 300 submissions from a wide range of viewpoints. This reflected the
increasing level of public concern about the impact of our growing population.
While it had been almost universally accepted in the 1950s and 1960s that growth
was good for the economy and made the country stronger, by the 1990s it was
becoming apparent that the issue is more complicated.
More people means proportionately greater demand for housing, clothes, food,
transport and other services. In the short term that undoubtedly contributes to a
1
‘Bigger or Better?’ Lowe page 8 & 9
Page 39 larger economy. On the other hand, more people looking for work can either
increase unemployment levels or drive down wages. Some economists think that
rapid population growth makes it difficult or even impossible to keep pace with the
increasing demand for such services as water and transport systems. As discussed in
later sections, the question of the economic benefits and costs of an increasing
population is widely recognized as much more complex than previously assumed.
This realization is, however, far from universal; as an extreme example, the
Murdoch press still espouses the old simplistic view that population growth is self –
evidently good for the economy and therefore we will all benefit from increasing
number of people.
There are also broader issues at play, such as the concern about the growing human
impact on natural systems. Four national reports on the state of the environment
have documented serious problems in this area that are getting worse every year. In
our cities, the failure of infrastructure to keep pace with the growing population has
led to a widespread perception that the quality of urban life is deteriorating.1
The Jones Report set out the issues that should be considered when discussing the
implication of population growth, but it did not make a clear recommendation for a
population policy. CSIRO scientist Dr Doug Cocks, who worked on the Jones
inquiry, was so disappointed that he subsequently wrote a book setting out the case
for a definite policy, People Policy, Australia’s Population Choices, which was
published in 1996. More recently, other voices have stimulated the debate, notably
poet Mark O’Connor who has argued passionately for a policy of stabilizing the
population in two books, This Tired Brown Land and (with William Lines)
Overloading Australia. The second book has been so popular that it has been
reprinted. In 2011, entrepreneur Dick Smith made a television documentary and
published a book, unusually called Dick Smith’s Population Crisis, as if he had
personally created the problem. Population Crisis is a trenchant polemic, arguing
strongly for a policy of stabilizing our population. It has undoubtedly stimulated
debate about the issue. The lobby group Sustainable Population Australia, formerly
Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population, has worked tirelessly to keep
the topic in the public eye.
As I noted in the introduction, Rudd’s statement of support for ‘a big Australia’
sparked vigorous debate and a re-examination of the assumptions that have
underpinned the implicit policy of continuing rapid growth. The background leading
up to this debate was an unprecedented increase in immigration levels during the
final years of the Howard Government, driven partly by calls from the commercial
sector for more workers and partly by educational institutions recruiting overseas
1
‘Bigger or Better?’ Lowe page 10
Page 40 students, often with an implied promise of permanent residency as a prize for
completing formal qualifications. So the net inward migration level, which had varied
between about 20,000 and about 150,000 a year, surged to over 300,000.
At the same time, the government decided to encourage women to have children by
offering a baby bonus of $3000 per child. This enticement was famously announced
by then Treasurer Peter Costello, who said women should consider having three
children rather than two: one for the husband, one for the wife and one for the
country. Whether it was affected by the financial inducement of the government’s
slogan is uncertain, but the birthrate has increased significantly since the
announcement.
The overall result of these strategies was a much higher rate of population increase,
reaching almost half a million a year, and a public perception that the costs were at
least comparable with the benefits. Net migration has since declined from its peak of
320,000 in the year to March 2009. Although statistics were not available as I write
this, net migration was probably about 240,000 in 2010. While less than the peak,
this is still about a quarter of a million people a year, or about 1 per cent increase
just from net migration. Very few countries accept that scale of inward movement.1
Lowe then in ‘Bigger or Better?’ goes into half a chapter of going through the
definitions of different terms like ‘optimum population’ and ‘sustainable
development’. I am not going to quote them all, only those I think require to be
quoted as to understand the debate about such terms.
‘When people talk about ‘optimum population’ they mean the number of people
that provides the best overall outcome, taking into account food, water, minerals,
energy and so on (more on these studies in the section dealing with resources).
When people talk about ‘optimum population’ they mean the number of people
that provides the best overall outcome, taking into account various factors such as
economic, social and environmental. The problem with this idea is that there are
different legitimate views about the weighting we give to those aspects of life. Collins
Dictionary of Environmental Science says ‘an optimum population may be one
which permits individuals to reach their full potential and to secure a reasonable
standard of living, or one in which the population is adequate to exploit to the best
advantage all the resources of an area….. in strictly economic terms, the optimum
population is reached when total production or real per capita income is greatest’.
Even by this narrow economic definition, it is not easy to calculate the optimum
population.
1
‘Bigger or Better?’ Lowe pages 11 &12
Page 41 Is total production increased if the land is used to grow grapes rather than olives, or
olives rather than almonds, or almonds rather than pumpkins? Calculating that by
comparing the revenue is difficult because market prices for those commodities are
determined by supply and demand. It might look sensible to replace your olive
grove with grapes at current prices, but if a number of people make the same
assessment the price of grapes will probably decline. Even if you could decide the
best crop and could work out how much production would increase with extra
people, you would still have a problem. The definition says the optimum is achieved
‘when total production or real capita income is greatest’. What if increasing the
population results in greater total production but reduced per capita income? There
is a vigorous debate about this issue in Australia today. Every assessment finds that a
growing population leads to a larger total economy, but some conclude that the
economy doesn’t grow as fast as the population, so per capita wealth declines. From
the point of view of the individual, the total size of the economy doesn’t mean very
much. If you are worse off, and everyone else on average is worse off, you won’t feel
pleased that an increasing number of people are in that situation and the overall
economy has grown.
‘Zero population growth’ (ZPG) is more straightforward. It occurs when the birth
rate equals the death rate, so the size of the population is stable. Calculating the
birthrate to achieve ZPG, though, is not a simple matter. It seems obvious that the
population would be stable if each couple produced two children to replace
themselves. Since some people don’t have children, couples that do reproduce will
need to have about 2.1 on average to replace their generation. Or do they? The
birthrate for a stable population is a complex and constantly changing statistic
depending on what has gone before. Right now in Australia adult women are having
on average 1.9 children, but the number of births each year exceeds the number of
deaths by over 150,000. The reason is that the number of women reaching childbirthing age is increasing each year and new little Aussies are arriving faster than
older once are dying.
‘Sustainable development’ is used widely in the population debate, but it is probably
the least well – defined term. British economist David Pearce has suggested that
there are so many different definitions that it is hard to apply it in a sensible
discussion. It needs to be considered if only because the Council of Australia
Governments adopted a National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development
in 1992. CoAG is made up of the federal and all state and territory governments, so
its decisions should represent a sort of national consensus. It uses the definition
developed by the World Commission on Environment and Development in its
1987 report, Our Common Future, usually known as the Brundtland Report after
Page 42 the former prime minister of Norway, who chaired the commission. The meaning it
applies is that ‘sustainable development is a pattern of activity which meets the needs
of this generation without reducing the opportunities available to future generations’.
This is a good working definition and it makes sense that we should not be depriving
future generations, our own descendants, of the sort of opportunities we enjoy. It is
easy to apply to resources that are potentially renewable. For instance, we should not
be catching fish or logging forests faster than they can replenish themselves. We
should also not be overusing groundwater resources so they are depleted. But the
term does have some serious problems when you think about it in relation to
mineral resources.
Using any mineral resource in a way that sees it dissipated makes it unavailable to
future generations. So the Brundtland definition would lead to the conclusion that it
is acceptable to mine lead and use it for the plates of car batteries because the lead is
not consumed in the process of storing electricity and still available for reuse.
Turning it into paint or fuel additives is dissipating the lead and therefore deprives
future generations of its use. What about the fossil fuels, gas, oil and coal? Since the
whole purpose of extracting them is to burn them, that process must deprive future
generations of the possibility of using them.
A practical approach here might take into account of the scale of the resource,
making it easier to justify using a resource that is plentiful. Since the known coal
deposits of Australia are hundreds of times the current annual rate of use, while our
oil resources are meager compared with our consumption, that approach would
recommend we use the coal rather than the oil (if we weren’t constrained by other
considerations, like the urgent need to phase out coal because of its impact on the
global climate). But it would not make sense to avoid using oil completely because
this would lead to a logical absurdity. If we were saving the oil for our children, they
in turn should feel obliged to save it for their children, and so on. Nobody would
ever use the resource, so it would not be effectively a resource!
A reasonable compromise might be to say we should only draw on natural resources
at a rate that can be continued or allows replacements to be found. That still poses
serious questions about the current rate of our use of water, oil, fisheries, forests and
productive land. We are not consuming any of those resources sustainably, even by
the most generous definition (as will be discussed later).1
… Going on…
1
‘Bigger or Better? Lowe page 14 &15
Page 43 ‘Counting heads
Studies of future population levels are conducted by demographers. These
calculations are not just academic exercises. Governments need the information for
planning their investments. The number of children of school age determines how
many schools we need. The size of a city’s population affects the demand for water,
electricity, gas, waste management services and transport – buses, trains, trams,
ferries, footpaths cycleways and road space for cars. Retailers are also keen to know
the size and distribution of the future population so they can plan when and where
to open new shops. The approach is straightforward, at least in principal.
We know the size of the population this year. If we add this year’s births, deduct this
year’s deaths and add the net overseas migration, we can calculate what the
population will be next year. In the real world, it isn’t that simple. Financial
inducements might stimulate more births, or difficult economic times might cause
parents to postpone having children. A medical advance could slow down the rate at
which we succumb to a common disease, or a new epidemic might strike without
warning. People who had gone overseas might decide to return because of an
unforeseen event in the country they moved to – as happened in 2011 when some of
those working in Christchurch or northern Japan returned to Australia because of
the earthquakes. Equally, some who had intended only to be away for a short stay
fall in love, find good jobs, or are entranced by the lifestyle in another country. So
we can’t predict with any confidence what will be the exact changes in the population
even this year, let alone for 2020 or 2030.
To come to terms with this uncertainty, the only sensible approach is to recognize
that we cannot predict the future. At any time, there are a variety of possible futures,
depending on our decisions. So demographers usually do a range of projections
based on different assumptions. In 2008 the Australian Bureau of Statistics released
projections of the future population based on 2006 census data. The intermediate
future in this ABS model, Series B, reflects the trends found in the figures for
birthrate, life expectancy and net migration. That calculation led to the famous
conclusion that the population might be 36 million in 2050 (and 45 million by the
end of the year 2100, a figure which assumes very much slower growth toward the
end of the century). This is just extending the present trends into the future.
If that concerns you, you would be shocked by Series A, a model that assumes a
higher migration rate than in 2006, although at 220,000 a year it is actually lower
than the figures for the last few years. It also assumes an increase in the birthrate
from 1.9 children per adult woman to 2.0, and greater life expectancy. These are not
extreme assumptions by any means, since the previous government tried to
Page 44 encourage women to have more children and the constant aim of the health
professions is to increase our average lifespan. That calculation came to a population
of over 40 million in 2050 and more than 60 million in 2100. In the third model,
Series C, the birthrate assumes a decline so that deaths outnumber births by 2050,
when the population would be about 30 million, but the net migration would cause
the total to keep growing, so it would be about 33 million by 2100.
Depending on the starting assumptions, you can estimate the 2100 population
anywhere in the range from 33 million to almost double that. Two years after those
were released, we are closer to the Series A projection than either of the others.
How have these sorts of projections fared in the past? I have gone back and
reviewed the ones I used when I wrote a booklet on the population debate in 1996.
In 1991, when there were 17.3 million people in Australia, the National Population
Council published four projections, each one based on different assumptions about
fertility and life expectancy, all assuming that net migration stayed constant at about
125,000 a year. The estimates of the 2011 population for the four models were 21.7,
21.8, 22.1 and 22.7 million. As I was writing, the ABS gave the population as 22.6
million, with an expectation it would be about 22.9 by the end of the year. So the
actual increase was even greater than the highest of the four projections.
The assumptions about the birthrate and lifespan were about right, but the migration
rate increased dramatically during the term of the Howard Government. As stated
earlier, the rate of population increase from 1980 to 2000 averaged one extra
Australian every two minutes. By 2011, the ABS was estimating the population to
increase by 350,000 a year, or one every ninety seconds.
What birthrate would result in the population stabilizing? The answer is the present
one would in time, as long as net migration is kept under about 70,000 a year.
Cutting migration as a strategy for stabilizing the population rather than trying to curb
birthrate is suggested for two practical reasons. The first is that migration rates are
determined each year by political decisions, so it is possible to reduce the migration
rate almost immediately if we want to. There is no equivalent capacity to cut the
birthrate rapidly. We could phase out the financial incentives to have children, but
any resulting reduction would be slow and uncertain. The second practical reason is
the scale of change that would be needed to stabilize the population. If migration
levels continue as high as they are now, even a policy as draconian as the Chinese
one –child rule would only slow the growth of our population, not achieve the goal
of stabilization.
Page 45 The demographic studies done by Dr Christabel Young in 1990 found that the
population would stabilize by about 2030 if the average annual net migration were
zero. For migration intakes in the range from zero to about 70,000 a year, it
stabilizes later and at a higher level. For net migrant intakes about 70,000 a year the
total population keeps increasing for the foreseeable future.
There is a graph in the book here.
This calculation leads to a clear conclusion. If we want to stabilize our population at
some point in the future, we need to keep the net migrant intake below 70,000 a
year. Accepting a migrant intake higher than 70,000 a year is effectively deciding that
we are happy to see the population continue increasing for several decades. In
recent times, about 80,000 people left Australia on average a year, so a net migrant
intake below 70,000 means a total intake of less than 150,000 a year. That is still a
very considerable inflow. As the calculation on the previous page shows, current
policies will keep our population increasing at least until 2100, when it will be
somewhere between 33 million and 60 million. If you are worried about the impacts
of the present population, as I am, that is an alarming conclusion. I believe it
demands revision of our approach to population issues, although, as will be
discussed in later sections, there are some voices calling for at least this great increase
in our future population.1
The book then goes onto discuss the maths behind exponential growth in relation to
population, CPI / wages.
… While there are some naïve economists and business leaders who actually support
that sort of growth to ‘a big Australia’, most people are understandably alarmed at
the prospect of trying to accommodate five times the current population. Most
people see it as raising issues about, water, food, infrastructure and social cohesion.’2
‘Population Dynamics
While we tend to behave as if humans are in some way privileged and not subject to
the same constraints as other species, quite general observations can be made about
the dynamics of all populations. There is no reason to believe that humans are
immune to these broad rules. Like other species, we depend on natural systems for
resources, especially food and water. We also need natural systems to process our
wastes. So we can learn quite a lot about ourselves from the body of knowledge we
have on the populations of other species.
1
2
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe pages 15 to 19
“Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe page 21
Page 46 There are three models for population growth or reduction that occur. The first is
that the population of a species increases until it comes into equilibrium with the
environment, and then stabilizes at that level. This is the most common model for a
species in a limited ecological niche: the population increases until it is in balance
with the available food and water or the rate of predation by other species, at which
point the numbers become stable. In poor seasons, animals tend to have fewer
young or are less successful in rearing their offspring, so the population is kept in
balance with the food supply.
This pattern was also typical of human populations in hunter – gatherer societies,
such as Australia before 1788. Since the humans had no serious predators, the
availability of food and water determined the carrying capacity of the country. Social
customs and tribal law conserved food stocks and managed birthrates to maintain
the balance. Analysis of language groups has made clear that the population density
was much higher in parts of Australia where food was plentiful, such as the coastal
plain of the north-east, than in central Australia. This is exactly what we would
expect from the ecological model.
There is a graph in the book here.
This pattern of a stable population is not the only one observed in nature. The
second model is where some species increase in number beyond the level that can
be sustainably supported, leading to a population collapse. The smaller population is
then able to increase until it again reaches a point which collapse is inevitable, so the
population oscillates above and below the level that could be maintained. Some
primitive organisms behave in this way. So do some mammals, for the reasons that
aren’t completely understood. The population of the Snowshoe Hare in northern
Canada has been observed to increase steadily for about ten years, then collapse to
about 20 per cent of the peak number.
This population ebb and flow has consequences for its predators, like the lynx and
the goshawk. Their populations have also been observed to fluctuate in tune with
their food supply, the hare population. Another well-known example of the wide
variations is the lemming population of Norway. As the lemming population builds,
it supports greater numbers of Artic foxes and Snowy owls. When the lemming
population collapse, so do the populations of these predators.
There is a graph of this type of population growth here.
Page 47 The third model is the extreme case: the population greatly exceeds the level that
can be sustained and the collapse leads to the local extinction of the species. This is
extremely rare in natural systems, because of the natural feedback – as the species
declines, food becomes relatively abundant and those individuals who survived the
collapse are in good shape to reproduce and ensure the survival of the species. Most
analysts think that total collapse and local extinction was the fate of the people of
Easter Island. The population grew and exceeded the capacity of the resources on
the island. The civilization fell apart and its last desperate members resorted to
cannibalism to stay alive, but they were unable to survive long enough for the natural
food supply to replenish. European explorers found were famous statues, evidence
that there had once been a thriving society on the deserted island.
There is a graph here:
As a species capable of analyzing our situation and thinking about the consequences
of our actions, we should be able to decide which of the three models we would like
the human population to follow. I have yet to meet anyone who thinks that the
second or third model is preferable to the first! Any rational person can see that it
would be much better for the population to stabilize at a level that can be sustainably
supported, rather than exceeding that level and collapsing to much smaller numbers.
The human misery when that happens is particular societies usually provokes an
international outcry and a determination to marshal food, water and other support to
relieve the crisis.
It would obviously be preferable to work out in advance what level of population can
be supported indefinitely, rather than have calamitous situations of mass starvation.
The introduction by the Chinese government of its one-child policy is the classic
example of this logic. The government argued that the short –term social pain and
political risk of restraining the desires of families for two or more children was
justified, because their demographic projections showed that failing to act would
have led to mass starvation the 2020s and 2030s. I can’t imagine that anyone would
favour the third model of catastrophic collapse and local extinction.
As a thoughtful species, we should be able to work out the level of population that
can be supported. The problem is that there is no one correct answer since lifestyle
choices determine how many people can be supported. As discussed earlier, it takes
much more land and water to support a diet with large amounts of meat than to
supply the needs of vegetarians. A kilogram of grain, for example, is fed to animals
that produce much less than a kilogram of meat, so several kilograms of grain are
needed to produce on kilogram of meat. A meat diet also raises humanitarian issues
Page 48 about the treatment of animals. Dietary choices, therefore influence how many
people can be supported by a given land area and its available water.
The way water is used impacts on how much food can be produced from the land.
Irrigated fields usually produce more than can be obtained using rainwater. Drip –
irrigation, which uses water efficiently, leads to better productivity than spraying the
water into the air in the hope that some will soak into the soil and reach the root
systems of plants. Intensive food production using modern agricultural machinery
has dramatically increased the yield from an essentially fixed land area, but the
continuation of that productivity is dependent on the continued availability of cheap
fuel and artificial nutrients in the form of chemical fertilizers.
While there is room for disagreement about the level that can be sustainably
supported, since that depends on assumptions about lifestyle, there is every reason
to be concerned about the global situation in the early twenty-first century. All the
significant indicators of food per person – grain per person, fish per person, meat
per person, pulses per person – peaked late last century. It was an extraordinary
achievement to treble food production in the twentieth century to keep pace with the
trebling of the human population. But there is real doubt about the possibility of
increasing food supply to keep pace with the still increasing global population. While
Australia is a net food exporter, and therefore in a better position that most
countries, The Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council in
early 2011 called for the establishment of a food security agency to consider the
long-term problems associated with providing for the needs of our growing
population.
At one level, the current problem is distribution. The level of global food
production in 2010 was equivalent to about 2 kilograms of food per day for every
person in the world, if it were uniformly allocated. We could each have every day
about half a kilogram of protein in the form of eggs, fish or meat, about half a
kilogram of cereals and pulses, plus about a kilogram of fruit and vegetables. That is
more than enough. But the distribution of food is so unequal that about 800 million
don’t get enough to eat, while at the other end of the spectrum a similar number is
seriously overweight. In the rich countries, large amounts of food are fed to cats and
dogs, which enjoy a better diet than people in the world’s poorest countries. In the
absence of socially acceptable mechanisms for changing distribution system, it is
doubtful that problem can be solved. That means the continuing growth in the
human population is likely to lead to larger numbers without adequate food.
In 2011 there was great instability in the region we call the Middle East. While some
of this upheaval was related to a desire for political freedom, serious analysts have
Page 49 suggested that the direct cause of riots at this time was spiraling food prices, since the
lack of freedom has been an issue for decades without causing mass demonstrations.
This line of argument suggests that people are prepared to put up with limited
freedom as long as their basic needs are met, but are prepared to brave
government’s guns if they are finding it difficult to put food on the table. If that
analysis is correct, there is likely to be increasing unrest in the decades ahead as the
problem of supplying food is compounded by higher prices or limited availability of
fuel and chemical fertilizers.1
I note the book ‘The Coming Famine’ by Julian Cribb, a CSIRO book, reads exactly
the same as the above. The same in relation to the choices of different foods,
vegetarian foods being more sustainable. Also the same in regards to predictions of
civil unrest and wars over food security if population issues and the like are not
addressed.
The Pressing Issues for Australia as written by Professor Lowe
…….’In the medium term, that is not an issue for Australia, as we are a net exporter
of food. There may well be questions about the inefficient use of irrigation water, or
the production of cotton or bio-fuel on land that could produce food. There
certainly should be questions about allowing expansion of urban housing onto
productive land, or planting unproductive concrete slabs on flood plains that have
highly fertile soil, or allowing food – producing land to be ruined forever by shortsighted coal-seam-gas projects. So the limiting issue for the Australian population in
the near term should not be food, if we use our productive land efficiently.’2
He then goes onto how society uses water…..
Too many migrants not enough planning, Lowe
‘The recent growth in the Australian population has continued to be concentrated in
the capital cities, which are now all showing signs of stress. It is not possible to
provide the physical infrastructure of transport systems, water, gas, electricity and
sewerage as fast as the population has expanded, so there is a tangible decline in the
physical quality of life as you move from inner suburb to outer suburbs.’3
1
2
3
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe pages 21 to 26
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe pages 26 & 27
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe Page 27
Page 50 Our Legacy for Future Generations
‘Sustainable development, as mentioned earlier, was defined in 1987 by the
Brundtland Commisson as meeting our needs in ways that don’t reduce
opportunities for future generations. That couches it in terms of inter-generational
equity. If we consciously adopt approaches that cannot be sustained, we are
effectively stealing from our own children by depriving them of opportunities. That
implies at least four conditions”
• there should not be unreasonable depletion of any resource
• there should not be significant damage to natural systems
• there should not be significant decline in social stability
• the sustainability of other societies should not be harmed.
These conditions are probably not contentious in principal, but they are not easy to
implement in practice because there is no consensus on what level of resource
depletion is reasonable, or what degree of damage to natural systems would be
unacceptable. These are value judgments about which people can legitimately
disagree.
Most people who have looked at the issue of oil production agree that the present
rate of depletion of the reserves is unreasonable from the viewpoint of future
generations, who will probably be quite angry about the way we are frittering away
this precious resource by our pattern of wasteful use.’1
Lowe then goes into a range of ways we are frittering away oil not aided by
government to address the issue.
Australia has to change Resource per Head
…‘One factor that must be considered in examining sustainability is the Australian
lifestyle, which uses much more resources that the way of life in India or Vanuatu; in
fact, we use about twice as much resources per head as our friends across the
Tasman in New Zealand. The traditional equation for the impact of a population is:
Impact = Population × Resource use per head × Impact per unit of resource’2
Lowe goes into examples of resource depletion and with rising populations comes
more waste.
1
2
‘Bigger or Better?’ - Lowe page 29 & 30
‘Bigger or Better? – Lowe page 32
Page 51 How we make our Money – Our economic Activity – Professor Lowe
‘As well as how we live at home, we also need to consider our economic activity,
how we earn our living. The impact of our economic activity is a function of the type
of production and the technology used. A miner working a dragline has much more
impact than a miner swinging a pick, while any sort of miner has more impact on
natural systems than a writer of computer software or paperback books. At one level,
the Australian economy is now overwhelmingly orientated towards services, which
use comparatively few resources per unit of economic output. Traditional productive
sectors of agriculture, mining and manufacturing now account for less than a quarter
of our economic output. However, the 10 per cent of the economy that is mining
has disproportionate impacts on natural systems. There is also an important
qualitative distinction between mining and other economic activities. Some
industries can be completely sustainable if well managed. The obvious examples are
agriculture, forestry and tourism.
It is possible to manage agricultural land or forests to produce a steady flow of goods
without degrading the resource. It is also possible, at least in principle, to
accommodate a steady flow of tourists without degrading the sites they visit. Some
Australian tourist activities are seen internationally as models of best practice. While
most of the world’s major fisheries have been degraded by exploitation, some of
Australia’s marine resources are now well managed to allow sustainable production
of seafood. Similarly, the Queensland timber industry has been transformed in
recent decades. It no longer logs old –growth forest as the plantation estate has been
expanded to provide for the state’s timber needs. There is now hope that the
Tasmanian timber industry might be similarly transformed, but the industry in New
South Wales and Victoria is continuing to log old-growth forests.1
How we make our Money – My thoughts
Robotics and STEM industries
So future industries in Australia from my point of view. I try to do the best I can in
aiding Australia. The best means watching the National Press Club, Landline and
the list of doc programs goes on each week.
The date is 30.4.15 and yesterday’s National Press Club was Catherine Livingstone
president of the Business Council of Australia.
1
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe page 34 &35
Page 52 I agree with a statement she made, I hope I have such correct. ‘We’ see jobs of the
future in robotic, IT and STEM (Science Technology Engineering and
Mathematics).
I also agree with Professor Lowe that we have to think about our economic activity
in relation to impacts on the environment. However, I do believe in shouldering our
fair share of ‘dirty’ but necessary industries. Australia’s per capita consumption is
one of the highest in the world, this is a great concern and needs to be addressed. So
Professor Lowe correctly analyised that Australia has become a services country
which has little impact on ecosystems.
If Australia becomes the know how in terms of robotics and engineering and the
like. I think that Australia should not rely on other countries to mine the resources
needed for the robotics, I think the world should look upon spreading industries
which have impacts on the environment. Also, that countries do genuinely try and
change from a throw away culture in first world nations to a global community of
people who buy what is needed and that’s basically it.
Recycling:
The world is finite – thus we do not have an endless supply of resources. This has
been covered previously in this book, quotes so far from Professor Lowe’s book,
Bigger or Better? And also Collision Course - Kerryn Higgs. So given our finite
world I believe we need to be advancing how we depose of our rubbish and placing
more money in R&D to recycle as much of our rubbish as we can. I don’t think
recycling has to be a cost burden to households I do think in the future recycling is
going to be a growth industry where serious money is made, possibly not for awhile
but that’s my prediction. The subject of recycling being a future important industry
has been discussed in another part of this book as well.
I became somewhat frustrated. I took my electric tooth brush to the recycling depot
thinking there would be a section set aside for electronical goods. However the man
on the gate of the depot laughed at me and told me to go home and put it in the
general rubbish. This process has to change. I don’t want people in the future sifting
through rubbish in order to recycle the metals and like, especially found in
electronical goods. We should be separating elecronical goods now even if we aren’t
presently recycling all we can. So there is gold and other metals in electronic
equipment that ‘should’ be recycled.
I note further I would invest taxpayer money in the advancement of recycling, again
I do think it’s going to be a big future industry.
Page 53 Pharmaceuticals / Medical Research:
Suzanne Cory addressed the National Press Club some time ago. I have her lectures
to read at home. She stated at the National Press Club the worth of investment in
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). For every one dollar we
invest in STEM the returns are great (I don’t have exact figures but I remember
Cory saying it was substantial for society). Given the government debt in the USA
and UK these governments realize the investment and return and it’s some of the
only budgets such countries haven’t cut, whilst Australia hasn’t had even got a
Science Minister under the Abbott government.
Off the top of my head Cory indicated that Pharmaceuticals is a big export industry
for Australia. The Abbott government wanted to invest in medical research but I
believe how that was meant to come about was wrong, people paying on top of the
Medicare levy etc to see the GP each time.
I think it is wise to strategically invest in science. I am not sure whether it was chief
scientist Ian Chubb or a head of Pharmaceuticals Australia etc, but a scientist did
recommend strategic science investment as for our population size to try and cover
all science areas is not such a great idea. I am not sold on this point, however, I’m
open to further debate. I can understand investment in Pharmaceuticals given the
return.
There is one area of science I’m really interested in. I wonder if ever that the brain
can be transplanted into a robot, so in affect the person never dies, well the main
body would, but! This would be dependent on the brain not dying though.
Blue Sky Science Research
For those that don’t know what Blue Sky research is, I hope I get this right. Blue Sky
research is research that is undertaken where society may not receive a financial
return. Blue Sky research is investing money in unknown areas of science. My
further understanding is that much Blue Sky research has had financial return and
benefit to ecology, science and humanity. I think all governments around the world
should be spending a certain percentage of budgets on Blue Sky research.
Electronic Books a new big industry???
I am frustrated about E Books. ECOS is a CSIRO general science magazine
publication. ECOS went to not printing and selling the magazines in newsagencies ro
be only available online. However, my knowledge is nearly all CSIRO books are
Page 54 paperbooks not e books. I really hope there is a quick sift to e books saving huge
amounts of paper. I do think e books will increasingly be the future I just hope for
the environment sooner than later.
Problems with Australia’s Sustainable Fisheries and a Future Industry
Lowe in his book Bigger or Better does mention and is quoted in this book as saying
Australia has now developed many sustainable fisheries. It is fantastic that such has
occurred but the problem has not gone away as Australia imports most of its
seafood. From the top of my head we import 60 -70% of our seafood. So whilst our
fisheries maybe largely sustainable here, we are putting pressure on other countries
fisheries and I don’t think that’s fair.
I watch Landline each week without fail, generally I watch it on the cross-trainer at
the gym, then following compass. I have been watching religiously Landline for years
now about six or so years, presently we are in 2015. The idea of watching it is to
know and understand Australian issues as much as possible. This is complemented
by watching the National Press Club religiously too. So having read The Coming
Famine by Julian Cribb a CSIRO publication which I read three to four years ago. I
understand from that book and Lowes book also that the world is going to have its
back against the wall in terms of trying to feed everyone. I believe there is future is
mass food production. Some things I have picked up. I am a fan of fish farms to
feed the masses but like caged chickens I see it as a short term business. I am only in
favor of fish farms to feed the mass world population but for such to be phased out
due to animal / life welfare when population is fixed.
I do believe the CSIRO developed a prawn food which sees the growth of prawns
greatly develop with ‘little’ but developed food. That was a part of a Landline
episode. I believe there are many prawn farms struggling in Bangladesh I think the
new food would / could save their industry.
So I see agriculture as a huge industry in the future, due to demand by a rapidly
populating world. I do watch again Landline for any stand out developments which
can help other countries. Hydroponics could also be such an industry to help feed
the masses. Lowe talks about Australia now being a services industry. I would love it
if Australia’s departments of agriculture were in demand around the world to look at
famine issues. As quoted in this book and again brought up in Cribbs book wars are
starting to occur over food resources. I would much prefer the world to be able to
look to Australia’s agriculturalists for answers than to join an army. Whether it’s
Australia or the USA etc I would like to think we can problem solve issues than
again to join an army.
Page 55 I understand there have been issues with GM (genetically modified food) in
particular a company called Monsanto. I think it is reasonably fair to charge for
service and advice when it comes to feeding the world but there is a point of greed
that can be crossed, from my reading of From Naked Ape To Super Species –
David Suzuki Monsanto seemed to be like many companies greedy. Suzuki did in
that book have a problem with GM food, which I largely don’t share. I am against
people being dependent on Monsanto’s products if they turn to GM. Anyway, I am
not cut and dried on my stance on GM, but given world population I think it’s better
than war.
More from Lowe’s Population Book
Lowe on Sustainable Industries
… ‘Practices that previously degraded agricultural land have been gradually phased
out, although there is still absurdly wasteful use of irrigation water in the Murray –
Darling Basin. I was shocked when I recently travelled down the Murrumbidgee
Valley to see irrigation water still flowing through open channels, with inevitable
huge evaporation losses, as well as being sprayed into the air rather than directed
efficiently to crops. The overall conclusion is that agriculture, forestry, tourism and
fishing can be completely sustainable if well managed. Mining, on the other hand,
consists of extracting a resource and taking it away, so it is the ultimate unsustainable
activity. We cannot, even in principle, mine the same minerals over and over again;
it is a one-off conversion of a natural resource into money.
If you consider Australia as a trading entity, the policy of trade liberalization has
steadily transferred manufacturing jobs from this country to low-wage economies in
the region, especially China. So we don’t just export minerals and farm produce to
pay for things we have decided we aren’t clever enough to make for ourselves, like
laptop computers and digital cameras. (I’m not sure about that point) We also
export minerals and farm produce to pay for our imports of uncomplicated goods
like shoes, socks, shirts. In the short term, this is seen as a good deal by most
economists, because we are turning our geological endowment of mineral resources
into consumer goods more cheaply than we could if we made them ourselves. But it
clearly isn’t an approach that can work in the long term.
If transport fuels were to continue to be cheap and workers in China were prepared
to continue working long hours for much less than Australian workers expect to be
paid, it might make economic sense in the short term to continue exporting large
Page 56 amounts of low value commodities to pay for our imports. But our minerals are a
limited resource. Once exported, they can’t be sold again. At the end of the life of a
mine, we are left with a hole in the ground and no prospect of generating wealth
from it. As the number of Australians importing clothes and shoes from overseas
increases, so does the need to export commodities to pay the import bill. So an
increasing population doesn’t just put growing pressure on urban land and food
production systems to supply our own needs; it also puts growing pressure on the
minerals sector to pay for increasing imports, hastening the depletion of those
mineral resources.
An important social issue is the distribution of the population. The historic pattern
has been for about 70 per cent of Australians to live in the major cities, the eight
capitals of the states and territories. In all of those cities, there is increasing concern
that the growing population is leading to a lowering of the quality of life. More
people are trying to get access to the same number of beaches, the same number of
parks, the same amount of bushland, the same recreational facilities. When Gillard
changed the title of the relevant portfolio to Sustainable Population, it was a clear
sign it would include distribution of the population as well as its size.
While cities like Sydney and Brisbane are having difficulty coping with their rate of
population increase, some South Australian decision-makers express concern that
Adelaide is not growing as fast as they would like. When the Queensland
government responded to community concern by holding a Growth Management
Summit, they found that some local government areas like the Sunshine Coast want
to restrain growth to maintain their quality of life, while areas such as Logan and
Ipswich sent representatives eager to encourage higher rates of growth in their
districts. The motivation is short-term economics; more people mean more
ratepayers and an increased rate base. But the gains are illusory. A rapidly growing
population almost inevitably means that the demand for services increases faster
than financial resources, so the end result is declining quality of services.1
I debated with myself whether to keep quoting Lowe’s book at this point. I will for
the purpose of establishing that some areas of Australia in this case parts of
Queensland are thinking about population and lifestyle issues:
‘I have written before about the wish of some communities to stabilize their local
populations. The two local authorities which had elected councils and mayors with
this agenda, Douglas Shire in far north Queensland and Noosa Shire on the
Sunshine Coast, were both targeted for amalgamation when the state re-organised
local government. Both were lumped in with much larger shires that were seen as
1
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe pages 35 & 36
Page 57 pro-growth. If the goal was to stop the anti-growth movement, it failed spectacularly.
Douglas was combined with Cairns to form a new larger authority, which promptly
elected a Green Mayor! When Noosa was combined with Caloundra and
Maroochydore to form the Sunshine Coast Regional Council, the Noosa mayor
stood for election against the Maroochydore mayor in what was effectively a
referendum on the future of the region. Noosa’s Bob Abbott romped in with well
over 60 per cent of the vote and a majority in every polling booth, giving him an
overwhelming mandate for the program of controlling growth and keeping the
character of the coast.
As a Sunshine Coast resident, attracted to the region for its lifestyle when I
relinquished my full-time job in Brisbane, I am delighted to see the contrast. The
natural environment of the Sunshine Coast is being protected by a progressive
council, while Brisbane is being concreted over in an orgy of building roads, tunnels
and bridges to allow the increasing population to continue to drive one to a car. The
Sunshine Coast Council has even adopted an Energy Transition Plan, meaning it is
actually considering the implications of oil depletion and climate change in planning
for the future, in stark contrast to the rest of south-east Queensland, where decisionmakers are still behaving as if oil was unlimited and climate change a problem for
others.
As that example illustrates, lifestyle is as important as the size of the population in
determining their impact. It takes much more resources and land area to allow a
workforce to commute by car than to move the same number of people by train,
bus, tram or ferry. But the population growth of recent years has created a vicious
circle in the major cities. Because growth was accommodated by allowing new
housing to sprawl over greater distances, it has not been possible to provide
adequate public transport for the new areas.’1
‘….London broke out of this vicious circle by implementing a congestion charge on
drivers bringing cars into the central area of the city and using the funds to improve
its public transport. While there were predictions of dire consequences before the
change was introduced, it was so successful that there was public demand to increase
the charge and speed up the rate of improving the public transport system.’2
The book then goes into another example of congestion tax in Singapore, then states
that building new roads and extending old ones has never solved the problem, a
mistake Australian cities are making over and over. The other point on this that
1
2
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe pages 36 - 37
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe page 38
Page 58 Lowe points out is basing the transport network on cars also makes the system
reliant on oil.
‘So the city vehicle fleet is perilously dependent on imported petroleum fuels. At the
same time, the spread of cities over nearby agricultural land has meant that fruit and
vegetables are being transported from further away. So there are real questions about
the sustainability of the urban structure as petroleum fuels become scarcer and more
expensive. Further growth exacerbates this problem.’1
Lowe goes back to discuss ‘sustainability’
Lowe writes about the sustainability of resources, and again questions our legacy to
future generations. He also points out that if our population is growing so to is the
need for resources like oil. Another issues is how we are going to afford to pay for
increasing oil prices. He writes that most governments are in denial about coming
fuel shortages. Lowe then goes on to discuss gas, which we have more of. He is
saying that Governments are allowing it to be presently sold overseas, however,
much better prices could be sort into the future than selling it off now.
The book turns to discuss other resources such as coal and uranium. The discussion
is in regards to energy. I find he following quite scary… ‘In South Australia, BHP
Billiton is seeking permission to expand the underground operations at Roxby
Downs by turning it into an open-cut mine. This would produce volumes of waste
that I find almost impossible to imagine. A hole 4 kilometres wide and a kilometer
deep would have to be excavated just to reach the ore body, so more than 10 cubic
kilometres of rubble will be produced before there is any commercial return at all. If
the mine then processes the ore body as proposed, radioactive tailings will stretch for
about 50 kilometers from the mine, creating the largest area of environmental
devastation in human history. That would be an appalling legacy for future
generations, but the state government is so besotted by the prospect of a massive
economic boost that the environmental assessment was seen as a mere formality.2
Other non – energy minerals – where do we stand? / general consumption
Australia
‘As far as non – energy minerals are concerned, Australia is fortunate to have been
richly endowed. We have large quantities of ores bearing metals like iron, lead,
copper, zinc, silver and gold, and have been major exporters of these elements. In
1
2
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe, page 38
‘Bigger or Better – Lowe, page 42 & 43
Page 59 most cases, the depletion rate of these ores is only indirectly related to population,
since most production has been for export. The indirect link is again the enormous
pressure to export minerals to pay the steadily growing bill for the imports used by
our growing population. So population is only part of the equation, and
consumption is another factor, but the proportionality has to be qualified by saying,
‘all other things being equal’.
If our lifestyle choices remain the same, the total consumption and therefore the
total sum needed to pay for it will be proportional to the population. The other way
of putting this is to say that the country’s import bill will keep increasing unless
consumption per person is reduced at least as fast as the population grows. If the
number of people increases by 2 per cent, consumption per person has to be
reduced by 2 per cent for the total to remain the same. Some observers do say we
don’t need to worry about increasing population because we can achieve savings by
reducing consumption. The problem is that most people want their standard of
living to improve, and most politicians feel obliged to assure people their material
consumption can continue increasing. Given that constraint, consumption will keep
increasing at least as fast as the population grows, putting pressure on our natural
resources.
Since it makes sense to mine the richest deposits or those that are most accessible
first, those supplies have been steadily depleted. Because of this, mineral production
is now coming at increasing economic and environmental cost per unit. If the
volume of minerals produced keeps growing, there will be a compounding effect:
more tonnes of ore multiplied by higher costs per tonne means a rapidly escalating
economic and environmental burden from minerals production. The rate at which
we consume non-renewable resources is further increased by a growing population.
In some cases, most obviously petroleum, we are rapidly using up our known
reserves and becoming increasingly dependent on imports, posing a serious
economic problem in the future. In others, while we are depleting resources at a rate
that will not pose serious short –term problems, in every case our profligate
exploitation of mineral deposits will force future generations to pay greater economic
and environmental costs.
The rate of resource use is influenced by our lifestyle choices. Our rate of use of
most non-renewable resources is high by any standards, so we are depleting
resources needlessly by failing to pay attention to opportunities for more effective
use. As one extreme example, South Australia introduced several years ago beverage
container deposit legislation, which has significantly increased the probability of
bottles and metal cans being recycled, thus reducing the demand for raw materials.
The packaging industry, apparently keen to maintain its profits by perpetuating the
Page 60 more wasteful use of materials in other states, has so far successfully campaigned to
prevent the spread of these laws. So bottles and cans that would be recycled are
needlessly going to landfill (or just thrown away). Future generations will probably
find it difficult to believe how wasteful we have been as they mine our landfill sites
for minerals.1 (I note I had read this book through before concluding to myself that
future generations are going to be mining landfill, however, when I wrote about such
I genuinely had forgotten this point in Lowe’s book).
Our Use of Water, Lowe
Lowe then moves into renewable resources such as water. The number of water
related issues our country and most others face are huge. The demand for water is
huge and it’s not reducing. Although it is renewable it can be depleted that future
generations for instance will have reduced water for crops. Lowe goes into water
catchment issues, it’s a good read. Since we are talking about population issues
obviously a larger population unless demand reduces is going to want more water.
Then as has been stated about new sprawling populations there is less water for food
crops, as the land has been taken for houses. So it’s a double wammy, more demand
for water due to the growing population and then less agricultural land to irrigate due
to the urban sprawl. So less food output with a growing population is that smart???
Lowe talks about the amount of water required by certain industries such as 1,000
litres to produce a kilo of steel and 400,000 litres to produce the average car.
Another issue is the demand for water from a growing population poses an issue of
where to store the water as well. He gives an example of Sydney’s water storage, as
there is no suitable location for another dam. Then climate change is discussed in
relation to different weather patterns bringing some Australian cities less water also.
Lowe then presents the figures on water run off into WA (Western Australia) water
catchments, clearly backing up the much reduced run off. Then the discussion
rightly turns to the fact that we use drinking water which Lowe points out is quite
expensive to treat and also requires pumping to houses (electricity) to flush human
waste, a huge waste of such water. He does plug the use of grey waste. The
discussion then turns to agricultural water and in particular the Murray – Darling
Basin. The use of such water went from 20% of the Basin to 80%. ‘This over
allocation meant there was essentially no water flowing down the lower reaches of
the Murray in relatively dry years. The drought of 2006-07 caused a real crisis, with
the lower lakes and the mouth of the Murray acutely saline. Successive coalition
governments failed to tackle the issue. When the Rudd-Gillard Government finally
produced a timid plan to return some water to the river system, a series of protests
1
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe pages 43 & 44
Page 61 provoked a backdown. The Basin Authority was replaced by a more compliant
group, whose new proposal was so inadequate that the Wentworth Group of
Concerned Scientists condemned the plan and withdrew their support. A group
from the Academy of Science echoed the condemnation, but the Gillard
Government appeared to have no heart for fighting the farming communities and
looked likely to approve the grossly inadequate scheme. The problem is
compounded by inefficient use.
1
In the Murrumbidgee Valley and even in the far west of New South Wales at
Bourke, river water flows through shallow open channels to farms. This means that
much of the precious water is lost through evaporation before it even reaches the
farms. There is an advanced modern technology called the pipe, developed by the
Romans so it has had a fair field trial. Using a pipe to distribute water reduces
evaporation losses dramatically. A rational approach would be to say that water can
only be taken from rivers for irrigation if it is transferred efficiently to farms. But
once the water reaches the farm it is often distributed by spraying it into the air. Drip
irrigation schemes deliver water much more efficiently to the crops and produce
much more plant growth for each unit of irrigation water. These systems are
routinely used in South Australia, where the Murray water is regarded with suitable
respect as a limited resource. If that sort of careful approach were used quite
generally, there would be plenty of water for the river without needing to curb
agriculture.
That being said, there should be a debate about the effectiveness of using irrigation
water. Growing crops like cotton and rice in arid zones only makes sense by the
criterion of crude short –term economics. It is only because of large subsidies of
irrigation water that it is profitable to use the water to grow cotton and rice even if the
water isn’t used efficiently. Rice is a crop suited to wet tropical and sub-tropical
regions, so it should probably be grown on the coastal plain where water is plentiful
rather than the arid inland. The other use that is ecologically indefensible is flood –
irrigation of pasture for grazing cattle.
Figures produced for the Murray-Darling Authority show that this application yields
much less economic benefit than any other use; as the extreme example,
horticulture produces about ten times as much revenue per litre of water as growing
feed for cattle. Almost half the river water extracted from the Murray –Darling
system is used for this low-value application. A more rational allocation of water
would allow export of excess agricultural produce from the Basin to pay the
increasing import bills of a growing population rather than grow feed for cattle. In
the absence of such a rational allocation, increasing our population will demand
1
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe page 49
Page 62 more and more irrigation water to sustain current practices, but no market can
distribute water availability that does not exist.
There has long been a belief that water availability is the fundamental issue limiting
the future growth of Australia’s human population. In the absence of basic changes
in economic policy or social organization, it is a valid point. As discussed earlier,
water is also used for industrial production. All other things being equal, as the
population grows there is a proportionate increase in the demand for concrete, steel,
cars, refrigerators and so on, causing in turn a proportionate increase in the need for
water to produce those items. As before, this demand could in principle be curbed
by reducing consumption per person, but there is no sign of the political will to drive
that sort of transition, so the demand will continue to grow. If the population grows
from the current 22 million to the projected 33 million, we will need 50 per cent
more water. If it were to increase to the almost inconceivable level of 60 million, we
would need nearly three times as much water. I have seen no realistic proposal for
obtaining even 50 per cent more water, let alone three times as much.1
Fisheries given a greater Australian Population
Lowe then turns to putting the microscope on other ‘renewable resources’. He goes
over the previous figures and states if our population reaches the predicted 33
million if not more, there will be greater strain on fisheries. He does make the point
I did earlier in this book to state that a lot of our seafood comes from overseas. He
goes into weak political will to ensure seafood sustainability. Lowe gives an example
of the Howard Government: ‘When the Howard Government was told it needed to
restrict fishing in the area of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, it took the path of
least resistance and used the lowest figure from the range recommended by
scientists.’2
The book ‘Bigger or Better? then goes into fish farms, although I personally see this
is a way to provide protein to people, you do have to feed the fish with something as
Lowe calls it ‘low-value marine species’ and there can be a problem with nutrient
build up from the fish faeces. So fish farms really require strong currents to dissipate
nutrients as Lowe writes.
Then Lowe moves on to forests:
1
2
‘Bigger or Better?’ Low pages 50 & 51
‘Bigger or Better?’ Lowe page 52
Page 63 ‘The situation is more complicated for forests. For most of the 200 years, forests
were seen as a source of timber. Great stands of trees like red ceder were cleared
along the east coast, while in Western Australia jarrah forests were heavily exploited.
In both cases this was done with little regard for the other values forests provide,
such as animal habitat, climate regulators and sites for recreation and spiritual
refreshment. The rise of the environmental movement saw increasing community
awareness of the broader roles forests play and political momentum for protecting
old-growth forests. Until quite recently, the logging of jarrah forests was still being
defended on the grounds that the timber resource was being harvested sustainably.
This claim ignored the loss of forest species that was an inevitable consequence of
logging; the industry removed the old trees that provided nesting holes and in the
process did serious damage to the understory. Logging of old-growth forests has
been phased out in Queensland but is still occurring in the other eastern states.
It is possible in principle to meet the demand for timber by establishing plantation
forests. This approach has been quite successful in Queensland. The timber
industry agreed to phase out the logging of old-growth forests and in return the state
government expanded the plantation estate to meet the demand for wood. The
critical issues are land and water. If the purpose of moving to plantation forestry is to
protect the habitat of native forests, it makes no sense to clear native forests to
establish plantations. The land used must be taken from other applications, such as
grazing, or be pubic land that has no commercial application. Establishing forest
plantations requires careful assessment of the area’s water availability. There are
community tensions in rural Tasmania and some other areas where new plantations
are seen to be depriving other rural activities of their water needs. Once again,
meeting the demand for timber will be a constantly growing issue if the population
continues increasing.
All other things being equal, 2 per cent more people will mean 2 per cent more
timber needed, which will mean 2 per cent more trees need to be logged. But all
other things aren’t equal, and so recognition of the need to reduce the release of
greenhouse gases is likely to see an increasing demand for wood to replace other
building materials like concrete and aluminium. Consequently, the demand for
timber is likely to grow more rapidly than the population. I don’t see how we could
easily produce 50 per cent more timber that we are now doing, let alone increase
production still further. So the growing population is likely to deplete our forest
resources at an accelerating rate in the absence of a concerted policy response to
protect their other values.1
1
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe pages 53&54
Page 64 The book then outlines that we predicted with computers that there would be less
paper required. However, society is using more paper than ever, as people print out
more drafts of work than they once did. As in Tasmania old-growth forests were
being used for high grade timber but now much of it is used for low value wood
chips for paper. I personally am very aware that this too is happening in Victoria,
Toolangi forest. Tasmania is though unlike Victoria moving away from cutting down
Old – Growth forest to plantation.
Finally Lowe moves on to renewable energy. Where he says we must turn away from
burning fossil fuels and use renewable energy, wind, wave and tidal energy –
geothermal, biomass, and so on. Unlike other renewable resources we tend to have
an abundance of renewable energy.
Quoting again from Lowe’s book:
‘Environmental Impacts – Lowe’s Summary
I chaired the advisory council that produced in 1996 the first independent national
report on the state of the environment (Australia). It concluded we have a unique
and beautiful environment, much of which is in good condition by any international
standards, and that many of our approaches to the environment are recognized as
models of best practice. It also found we have a range of serious problems that need
to be addressed if we are to live sustainably, as is the stated objective of our
governments. The serious issues we face include the loss of our unique biological
diversity, degradation of some of our rural land, the state of our inland rivers
(especially our largest river system, the Murray – Darling), pressures on the coastal
zone and spiraling release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. All of these
problems, the report said, are consequences of the consumption of the growing
human population, our lifestyle choices and the technologies we use. Since 1996
there have been three further national reports on the state of the environment, each
saying that all of the issues identified in the first report are getting worse. The fourth
report, released in late 2011, showed that all of those problems are still getting
worse.
At a broadly superficial level, there is an inevitable link between population and
environmental impacts. If the consumption patterns of 18 million people in 1996
were causing serious problems due to lifestyle choices and the technologies being
used, we would expect that the consumption by 22 million people in 2011 would be
making those problems worse unless there were substantial changes in lifestyle
choices or the technologies employed. There have been no significant changes in
lifestyle that would alleviate these issues thus far. On the contrary, the average size of
Page 65 new homes has increased in the last 15 years, more of our homes are air
conditioned, our cities have spread wide so people are on average travelling further
to work, more people are driving their children to school rather than letting them
walk or cycle, we are using more energy in our daily life, and so on.
The Australian Conservation Foundation lodged a request to the government in
2010 to designate population growth as a factor threatening biological diversity and
the integrity of ecological systems. Under the Environmental Protection and
Biodiversity Conservation Act, the government has the capacity to declare
threatening processes and take action. Failing to declare a nominated threat does not
necessarily mean the government has taken scientific advice and decided the threat is
groundless; in this case, they decided that other threats were more important to the
habitats or regions, which the government has designated as the priority themes for
that round of assessments (or, I suspect, less likely to frighten investors). For the
2010 round, there were two priority themes: health lands and mallee woodlands, as
well as the entire coastal region (terrestrial, estuarine and near-shore environments).
The ACF submission argued that human population growth is a significant threat to
endangered species and ecological systems in all those areas.
The Australian Natural Resources Atlas identifies clearing of land for the extension
of urban development as the greatest threat to heath lands. Population growth is the
main reason we are still clearing land for urban development.1
Lowe then goes on to present the figures of the coastal expansion. That such
expansion is clearing bushland and obviously that effects the ecosystem. That huge
areas of the mallee has been cleared in the Murray-Darling Basin for agricultural
use.
‘The ACF Submission said population growth is a driver of many processes that
threaten the environment, including:
• construction and operation of infrastructure: roads, houses, railways, water
reservoirs, electricity distribution systems, etc.
• alteration of natural landscapes, including land clearing, ocean dredging and
altered fire regimes
• increased use of natural resources, such as extraction of water from rivers and
aquifers, logging of forests, etc
• altered flow regimes for rivers and estuaries
• pollution of natural systems by oil, nutrients, heavy metals and other wastes
1
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe page 56 & 57
Page 66 • disturbance of natural systems for recreation
• introduction of non-indigenous species, both intentionally in farming and
unintentionally by releasing a wide range of pests
• changing the global climate by releasing greenhouse gases.1
The book then goes onto point out that you change the climate too when clearing
land, forests have microclimates which are destroyed when changed to urban areas,
water run off too is a problem.
Lowe then turns back to ACF’s submission to the government, outlining that ACF
gave the government four case studies, and he goes onto discuss the four locations.
Then the Queensland government itself as Lowe states has acknowledged the impact
of the rising population: ‘’population growth has led to extensive development with
resultant loss of large areas of natural vegetation and a wide range of habitats. Many
of the region’s remaining natural areas have been degraded as human pressures have
identified.’ The south-east Queensland regional plan acknowledges the decline in
populations of iconic species such as Koalas, as well as the growing threats to coastal
wetlands.’2
‘Bigger or Better’ then turns to the issue of Climate Change. It talks about green
house gas emissions being the highest in the world for Australia per capita. It points
out that the science is now widely accepted and that Australia were treated quite
separately to the rest of the developed world. The Kyoto negotiations allowed
emissions to increase given Australia’s dependency on coal.
‘The National Framework for Energy Efficiency, released in 2003 by the Howard
Government, found that we could reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per
cent using measures that repay their cost within four years. It is a public scandal that
neither Howard nor his successors have implemented these reforms, which would
be good for the economy as well as the atmosphere.’3
‘The Kyoto Protocol has now been ratified, despite the obstruction for several years
of the United States and Australian governments. The most likely future will involve
more demanding targets. The Kyoto agreement allows effective stabilization of
emissions from the developed world at present levels, but the amount of carbon
dioxide being released is much more than can be absorbed by natural systems.
Achieving the declared goal of the international community – stabilizing the
atmosphere at levels that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference to the
1
2
3
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe page 57
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe page 58
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe page 62
Page 67 climate – will require much larger reductions than specified by the Kyoto Protocol.
More importantly, a truly global agreement must include developing countries,
which are very unlikely to accept any agreement that freezes their material living
standards as far below OECD countries as they are now.
One possible scenario is a re-enactment of the process for limiting ozone-depleting
chemicals. The Montreal Protocol of 1987 was a first step, but was recognized as
inadequate and subsequently tightened at the Stockholm and London meetings.
Given the growing anxiety around the world about recent manifestations of climate
change, stronger measures are quite likely.’1
Lowe goes onto discuss the fact that an increased population is having a greater
effect on Australians emissions. Another big one contributing to greater emissions is
that many houses are poorly designed meaning more people are using emission
intensive air-conditioning. However, Lowe again is making the point that a growing
population is having a significant impact on emissions.
‘It should also be noted that transport emissions are growing significantly faster than
the population. A sustainable future will involve stabilizing both the population and
emissions per person. At the moment, both those factors are increasing.2
Economics of the Baby Boomers – Professor Lowe
Okay this is the burning issue in Australia and I don’t wholly agree with Lowe on
this, I do think there is going to be greater demand on health Care, but maybe not
quite as much as the fear mongers this is what Lowe has to write:
‘Government projections show the proportion of the population over 65 increasing
from the current figure of about 13 % to somewhere around 23 per cent; in other
words, the percentage will roughly double in the next 20 years. This leads to
alarming projections of the possible cost of healthcare and pensions for the retired. I
recently heard one pro-growth advocate say that we will need to bring in at least
350,000 migrants a year to have enough taxpayers to fund the pensions of the ‘baby
boomers’, the people who turn 65 between 2011 and 2020. Another said we will
need three times as many hospitals by 2030.
Some of the alarmism about the projected demand for healthcare is, in my view,
misplaced. The fundamental reason we are living longer is that we are healthier. So
1
2
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe, pages 62 & 63
‘Bigger or Better? – Lowe, page 63
Page 68 the increasing number of people in their eighties does not necessarily mean a
proportionate increase in their need for medical services. I have written about the
phenomenon of over – 40s, over – 50s, and over - 60s cricket. When I began
playing serious club cricket in the 1950s, most men retired from the game when they
got married or became fathers. It was rare to find anyone over the age of 30 still
playing the game in the Australian summer. Most had moved to more sedate
pursuits like golf or even lawn bowls as they got older. It is only in the last few
decades that there have been enough men still playing cricket at age 40 for carnivals
and regular arranged fixtures. Now there is a national over-60s competition and
serious talk of introducing an over 70s series.
If men in their seventies now have the fitness that my father’s generation had in their
fifties, we can expect the improvement in our health to continue.’1
Ian Lowe then goes onto write that good health is not a given. That younger
generations aren’t eating as healthy foods. Too there is the issue of the next
generation spending too much time on the computer etc and not out doing exercise.
‘It should also be noted that Australia’s age profile is not at all unusual for an affluent
country. In research for this book, I dug out United Nations statistics. We ranked
33rd in the world on the listing of countries according to the percentage of the
population aged 60 or over. In 2009, 19 per cent of Australians were in that age
group, compared with almost 30 per cent in Japan. We have fewer 60-year olds or
over than most European countries. The average for Europe as a whole is 22 per
cent, with the figure for western Europe 24 per cent. Sweden’s figure is 25 per cent,
Germany and Italy 26 per cent. On a ranking by median age, we come in at 43rd,
with an average of 37.6. Japan has the oldest population, with a median age of 44.4,
seven years older than ours. We don’t just have a younger population on average
than almost all European countries, we are also younger on average than Hong
Kong, Singapore, Canada and Cuba. Our median age is slightly higher than the
figure for New Zealand and the USA, both at 36.5 years. Finally, the percentage of
our population in the 0-14 age group (19) is much greater than the figure for Europe
(15 per cent), about the same as the average for eastern Asia and significantly more
than the average for the developed world as a whole (16.6 per cent).
The figures suggest we don’t have a special problem of being an unusually old
society. If anything, we area on the young side of the distribution for an affluent
country. There is certainly no reason to panic.’2
1
2
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe pages 67 & 68
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe page 69
Page 69 A valid point that Professor Lowe makes, is given there is a questionable need to
grow the numbers of the younger generations in order to support the ‘Baby
Boomers’, it then becomes cyclical that then following generations have to be large
enough to keep on supporting the next generation. I am not so sure about Lowe’s
argument about the upcoming generation being healthier and as such questioning
people’s outlook, on the need for extensive health care for the ‘baby boomers’. He
might have somewhat of a point but not great in my opinion. I think his better
argument is that compared to the world our population is not so old. It’s on this
statistical comparison with other nations that I am still in support of cutting
immigration as Lowe is advising. The other reason I am following Lowe’s advice is
that our natural systems just can’t cope with an increase in population whether it’s
water resources, wood, oil the whole darn system which supports us would be at
breaking point. It could possibly break.
Lowe specifically on Economics in relation to Population
‘Economic Issues
The most problematic area of discussion about the population growth is its
economic impact. At one extreme, many economists and politicians believe fervently
that population growth is not just good for the economy, by essential for it to remain
strong. At the other end, some economists argue that the population growth does
more economic harm than good, with a few concluding that rapid growth actually
prevents government from meeting the community’s needs.
At a basic level, and as discussed earlier, more people mean more purchases of
food, clothing and consumer goods, so the overall size of the economy is greater.
Not surprisingly, most people who sell food, clothing and consumer goods come to
the viewpoint that population growth is good for business. So it was a shock of sorts
when the highly successful seller of consumer goods, Dick Smith, broke ranks and
spoke out about the negative consequences. In his television documentary and
accompanying book, Dick Smith’s Population Crisis, he argues strongly and
passionately for a policy of stabilizing our population.
He makes two basic points. One is that increasing the population does result in
proportionate increases in demand, so the overall economy grows but are we better
off, even on narrowly economic terms, only if the total size of the economy grows by
more than the population. If the population grows by 2 per cent and the economy
by 3 per cent, we are each slightly wealthier, at least on average. If the population
grows by 2 per cent and the economy by 2 per cent, we are not better off. If the
economy grows by 1 per cent and the population by 2 per cent we are worse off on
Page 70 average. So the crucial indicator is not the overall size of the economy, but wealth
per person.
His second point it that there are negative environmental and social consequences of
growth that need to be weighed against whatever economic benefits there might be.
Given the choice between, for example, being as wealthy as you are now with current
amenities or being 1 per cent wealthier with reduced access to beaches, bushland
and road space or seats on public transport, you might well decide that the small
increase in money is not worth the loss of amenity. Being 1 per cent wealthier but
finding the train so crowded you have to stand up, or on roads so congested it takes
twice as long to drive to work might strike you as a bad trade- off.
Dick Smith argues that we should at least consider the downside of growth, rather
than just assuming it will inevitably be beneficial. The fundamental issue is whether
population growth is actually good for the economy. If it is, there are financial
benefits to weigh up against the loss of amenity. If it isn’t even good for the
economy, then it is an extremely bad deal indeed.1
……. Lowe then goes into the precise, well as close to as you can ever get, figures
specifically in relation to Queensland but also using national statistics. I’m not going
to quote all the figures.. go read the book! There possibly is increase in wealth not
much and when you figure in congestion let alone for natural systems to support the
growing population, the minimal economic benefit I conclude is by far not worth it.
‘In other words, the countries with a stable population are seeing wealth per person
increasing significantly, while those with growing population have much lower rates
of increase in wealth per person, with some seeing wealth per person declining as the
population grows.’2
‘There have been many similar studies of the relationship between population
growth and economic performance. One comparison of the hundred largest US
cities found, as ALP member for the federal seat of Wills Kelvin Thompson put it,
‘faster population growth rates are associated with lower incomes, greater income
declines and higher poverty rates … the 25 slowest – growing metropolitan areas outperformed the 25 fastest growing in every category and averaged $8455 more in per
capita income in 2009.’ At the most basic level, there is certainly no general rule that
a growing population means more prosperity.
1
2
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe, pages 76 to 78
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe, page 81
Page 71 Some of the most affluent countries in the world have small and stable populations:
Norway and Switzerland are obvious examples.’1
‘When summarizing the link between population growth and economic
performance, Dr Clive Hamilton told the Economics Society of New South Wales
in 2002:
Firstly, there is no correlation between population size and economic performance.
There are plenty of very small countries that do very well by any standard, including
northern European ones whose populations are stabilizing. If we take the richest 24
countries (by GDP per capita) and compare population with GDP per capita the
correlation coefficient is less that 0.1, and the rank correlation coefficient is negative.
Over the last 15 years Australia’s population has expanded by 22% while that of the
European Union has grown by 4%. Yet growth of GDP per person has risen faster
in the EU than in Australia. In other words, size doesn’t matter.’2
Dr Richard Denniss from the Australian Institute comments…. ‘He points out that
the economic argument ignores ‘the value of peace and quiet, space, lack of
congestion, biodiversity and air quality.’’3
From what I’ve read you could greatly add to the list of which economics ignores
such as water scarcity, agriculture etc…etc..etc. Also, from my reading in this book
the actual economics as quoted above does not correlate with bigger means better,
so the economics isn’t even there anyway.
The book goes onto conclude what I just did that this perception of many
economists that a bigger population means economic growth and benefits is
‘oversimplified or actually wrong.’4
So there are economists out their advising to get off the economic growth treadmill
such as Peter Victor and Herman Daly. The go over the economic arguments
already discussed so far, arguments I feel make plain sense.
Another point I would make is I do wonder sometimes why the Greens party in
Australia isn’t bigger than it is I feel their arguments make sense. So I feel that
society has and is choosing the wrong path.
1
2
3
4
‘Bigger
‘Bigger
‘Bigger
‘Bigger
or
or
or
or
Better?’ –
Better?’ –
Better?’ –
Better?’ –
Lowe, page
Lowe, page
Lowe, page
Lowe, page
81
84
84 & 85
85
Page 72 GDP as a Measure of growth Professor Lowe Discusses
I feel and have probably already written this, that I am quoting most of Lowe’s book.
The reason for this is I feel his arguments are good I am worried that people will not
read his book so I’m putting much here hoping you read my book.
So I am going to quote what Lowe has to say on GDP as a measure of wealth:
‘Another economic issue that needs to be considered is whether GDP (gross
domestic product) is actually a sensible measure of well-being or even wealth. Many
authors have criticized this assumption. They point out that GDP is simply the sum
of all economic activities, so it is not even a good measure of material well-being.
There are two obvious shortcomings in the common practice of using GDP. The
first is that it includes activities that are clearly not beneficial. Accidents, natural
disasters, vandalism, violence and drug abuse all increase the total level of economic
activity, so they increase GDP. If I were to smash one headlight of every car in the
Griffith University car parks, I would increase the GDP requiring car owners to buy
replacements. I could augment the GDP twice as much by smashing both headlights
of every car. If I destroyed the windscreens as well, I would be a minor economic
miracle. So some economists have argued for a need to replace GDP as a measure
of activity with what has been called a ‘Genuine Progress Indicator’, essentially
obtained by subtracting from GDP those economic activities that are not beneficial.
There is inevitably some subjectivity about the classification, but the exercise leads to
the interesting conclusion that genuine progress stopped improving a few decades
ago, while GDP has continued to grow as we spend more on our response to
accidents, illness, violence and natural disasters.
The second point is that GDP only measures transactions where money changes
hands. If my partner and I ate fish at the local surf club tonight, that would have
added $30 to the GDP. But if we bought our fish from the local seafood shop and
cooked it at home, the same sort of meal contributes $8 to GDP. Melbourne
economist Dr Duncan Ironmonger wrote extensively about the failure of the
economic statistics to account for unpaid work, whether it is cooking, child-minding,
cleaning or teaching. If a household didn’t look after their own children or cook
their own meals or clean the house but paid other people to do those jobs, GDP
would increase, but it is hard to make a case that the community would be better off
as a result.
Page 73 …… Given those two fundamental problems, it is simplistic to see GDP as a measure
of wealth, let alone as a broader measure of well-being. But some see it as the
indicator of success.’1
Lowe continues by quoting Ross Gittins:
Ross Gittins is the economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. His views are
discussed at greater length later. He wrote in 2010 about the economic case for
population growth:
As economists know – but don’t like to talk or even think about – the reason
immigration adds little or nothing to the material living standards of the existing
population is that each extra person coming to Australia – the workers and their
families – has to be provided with extra capital equipment: a home to live in,
machines to use at work and a host of public infrastructure such as roads, public
transport, schools, hospitals, libraries, police stations and much else. The cost of that
extra capital has to be set against the benefits from the extra labour. If the extra
capital isn’t forthcoming, living standards – and, no doubt, quality of life – decline.
If we don’t build the extra homes – as we haven’t been doing for some years – rents
and house prices keep rising, making home ownership less affordable. To build the
extra public facilities, governments have to raise taxes and borrow money. But they
hate raising taxes and both sides of politics have sworn to eliminate government
debt.
Gittins concluded that ordinary people can see the future being advocated by ‘our
leaders on both sides’ doesn’t add up. He summarized the public mood as
recognizing the provision of such basic infrastructure as roads, public transport,
energy and water is inadequate now, so ‘what would it be like with more people?’2
Skilled Migration – Lowe
Lowe goes onto discuss the issue of skilled migrants talking about the conclusions
made by Skills Australia the government advisory and comparing those conclusions
with that of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University.
The conclusion is that Skills Australian stats are basically wrong and that according
to Monash University we don’t have a skills problem. If your interested in knowing
the figures I suggest one reads Lowe’s book. I’d just like to comment here is if you
have a question about Lowe’s book, he does go through all the arguments much
1
2
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe pages 85 to 87
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe page87 &88
Page 74 more than I’ve quote. So have a read!! I have quoted quite a lot, I feel, to give the
basic evidence to want a stable population.
A Move Away from Car Use??
Lowe’s book goes onto discuss Australia’s dependence on cars, where in each state
of Australia Public Transport amount to a maximum of 15% of travel, many states
being actually below 8% of all travel. Car dependence in Australia is in my opinion
reading Lowe’s book wrong. The amount of resources that go into cars is alarming. I
do like my car but I do think there is a place for asking ones self, do I need to make
that trip in the car??? Can I car pool??? Even better can Public Transport be
used??? So there is the oil consumption to run the car then there are all the
resources that go into making the car itself. Lowe earlier in his book discussed just
the water required to build a car let alone other resources.
Education Issues of Overseas students – from ‘Bigger or Better?’ Lowe
There are several issues that Lowe discusses about our tertiary education system as it
looks to the overseas education market.
According to Lowe, Prime Minister Julia Gillard tried to clean up the dodgy system.
So there are a number of issues relating to our tertiary education system. What
Gillard apparently went to fix up was that a number of dodgy private education
businesses who were taking overseas students money without training them properly.
So the first issue then is the standard of education achieved by our overseas students.
It is not in Australia’s interest to lower the education standard as we will loose the
market of such students. Because they are paying as Lowe states about $30,000 a
year in fees, they are basically demanding to be passed. As stated it is an issue for
our quality education reputation. I personally know someone who was pressured by
an education institution to pass such students.
The issue that Lowe writes of is that some students don’t care about the standard of
education they are receiving as long as they can be classed as ‘skilled migrants’ and
allowed permanent residency here in Australia. Then there is the other problem that
we are taking ‘skilled migrant’s whether educated here or overseas from countries
desperate for their skills.
Lowe Specifically on Economic Growth – Peter Victor
Page 75 ‘In more recent times, the economist Peter Victor has carried the torch for nongrowth economics. He grew up in the United Kingdom but has spent most of his
adult life in Canada, so unsurprisingly has concentrated on the two countries he has
knows best. He has written a landmark study of the Canadian economy, Managing
Without Growth, and a discussion paper that formed the basis of the UK
Sustainability Commission’s report and a subsequent book by its director, Tim
Jackson, Prosperity Without Growth. Victor’s study of the Canadian economy is
particularly relevant because it is closely similar to the Australian economy. We are
both relatively affluent countries that have run down our manufacturing base and pay
for our imports by exporting low-value commodities. So we should pay close
attention to his conclusion: ‘we should not bother with growth as a policy objective at
all or only as subsidiary to more specific objectives that have a clearer and more
substantiated relation to well – being.’
Most people are shocked by the assertion that a non-growth alternative would be
quite acceptable in economic terms, even if they accept it is obviously better in social
and economic terms than trying to maintain the delusion that growth can go on
forever. In fact, even sober economists now concede there is a problem. The World
Economic Forum, which brings together the big end of town at a global level for its
annual meeting in Davos, held a Summit in 2008 on the Global Agenda in Dubai. It
was only a few months after the global financial crisis, but the gathering was also
aware of other problems facing the world community, such as peak oil, climate
change and the emerging food shortages. The summit concluded that the crises of
food, fuel and finance are simply ‘the three canaries in the mine’, the early warning
signals that ‘the current economic system is not sustainable’. It recognized that the
system faces critical problems arising from the continuing expansion of money
traded without a corresponding increase in the value of goods and services, as well as
the fundamental impossibility of perpetual growth in a closed system. When even
the World Economic Forum starts to question growth, it is obviously time for a
serious re-evaluation of the traditional assumptions of economics.
Victor begins his analysis in Managing Without Growth from the fundamental limits
of natural systems. He notes that two centuries of economic growth has enabled
almost all people in countries like Canada and Australia to live at a level of material
comfort that has never before been experienced, but ‘the biophysical limits of the
planet will prevent the kind of economic growth enjoyed by rich countries from
being extended to all peoples of the world.’ So there is a fundamental dilemma.
Nobody can deny that our fellow humans are at least entitled to such basics as clean
drinking water, sanitation, adequate nutrition and reasonable shelter, but several
scientific studies show that the current total burden of the human population is
straining the capacity of natural systems. This leads inexorably to Victor’s conclusion
Page 76 that ‘rich countries should make room for economic expansion in those countries
where the need is greatest’.
If it were really true that growth was needed even in the rich nations, it would be a
most unpalatable prescription to restrict that growth. But when Victor tests the
general belief that economic growth is necessary for full employment, alleviation of
poverty and protection of the environment, he finds that it is certainly not sufficient
to achieve those goals; despite decades of uninterrupted growth: ‘…. employment has
seldom been full, poverty has not been eliminated and the environment remains a
major public concern.’ Not only has economic growth failed to eliminate
unemployment and poverty, it has actually made the distribution of wealth more
unequal and it has clearly worsened environmental problems, despite the assurances
of pro – growth enthusiasts that economic expansion would provide the wealth that
would allow us to clean up our act. Victor goes onto show the alternative policies
that might achieve those objectives are not implemented because they are seen to be
opposed to the presumed higher goal of economic growth.
His approach was to model alternative futures for Canada, looking 20 to 30 years
ahead. He used the sort of economic models regularly used by our Treasury and the
Productivity Commission to assess the impacts of alternative policy approaches.
Victor found that a ‘business as usual’ future of continued economic growth will not
reduce unemployment levels, sees more people living in poverty, and produces
unacceptable increases in greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. A nogrowth ‘disaster’ scenario in which all growth variables declined to zero looked even
worse. Then he analyzed futures in which growth rates were slowly reduced, looking
at the impacts of the different levels of investment and various approaches to the
country’s trade balance.
Reducing the average working week to spread employment more evenly, coupled
with income redistribution measures, greatly reduced future levels of poverty. He
also found that greenhouse gas emissions would be curbed, but not rapidly enough
to play a responsible global role. When he added in a serious carbon tax - $200 per
tonne rather than the inadequate $23 the Australian Government put forth in 2011 –
applying the tax to be revenue – neutral by compensating reduction of other taxes,
he got a much more attractive future with steadily declining unemployment and
poverty levels as well as greenhouse gas emissions reducing by 30 per cent from
2005 levels by 2035. As Victor concluded for the case of Canada, ‘slower growth,
leading to stability around 2030, can also be consistent with attractive economic,
social and environmental outcomes: full employment, virtual elimination of poverty,
more leisure, considerable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and [improved]
fiscal balance’.
Page 77 What policies would be needed for this golden future? The first and most basic is,
as Victor puts it, ‘managing without economic growth requires a stable population’.
This is an obvious conclusion. As discussed in ‘Economic Issues’, if the population
is increasing but the economy is not growing, per capita wealth is declining. So this
reverses the usual belief, that a growing population promotes economic growth, by
saying that it is only if the population is increasing that we actually need economic
growth. Secondly, he wrote, we need to recognize the fundamental importance of
our impacts on natural systems. Most governments still see environmental protection
as a lower priority than economic development, so environmental protection
agencies are usually subordinate to Treasury, Finance, Trade and other departments
explicitly promoting economic development activities, even if they are
environmentally damaging. The clear underlying belief is that environmental
problems can always be repaired as long as we are sufficiently wealthy.
In some recent challenges to proposed developments seen by community activists
are causing serious environmental damage, the government agencies charged with
protecting the environment behaved as if their job was to ensure no environmental
concern holds up a potentially profitable operation. No amount of money will bring
back an extinct species, or restore a saline wheat field, or return the climate to a safe
state if we exceed critical thresholds. Daly proposed three principles of
environmental management: renewable resources should only be used at rates that
allow regeneration, non- renewables resources should only be used at rates that allow
the development of substitutes, and wastes should not be produced at rates that
exceed the assimilative capacities of natural systems. Unless we obey those basic
rules, he argued, we reduce the capacity of natural systems to supply our own needs.
So the activities that breach those rules are undermining our own interests and
should not be pursued, even if we take the extreme anthropocentric view that
assumes human welfare is the only goal of development and we can ignore the needs
of the 8 million or so other species that we share the planet with.
While there are arguments for and against specific policy instruments like carbon
taxes or emissions trading schemes, Victor favours the simpler arrangement of a tax
because governments have more experience in this sort of system. He argues
governments are inexperienced in setting the conditions for market-based
instruments, so they are likely to get it wrong and produce a structure that just allows
some people to make lots of money without solving the problem.
(I note I Lisa do not agree with Victor necessarily, I know that present staff at ACF
(Australian Conservation Foundation) are in ‘general support’ of a trading scheme.
My point though as you will read too is that I don’t think governments tax fairly. I
don’t think it’s something politicians get right in general, so I don’t have faith that a
tax would be fair).
Page 78 In his final analysis, Victor concludes that managing without growth will not appeal
to those who see economic growth as an end in itself, or who regard it as an essential
to achieve other social or economic goals. Since there is mounting evidence that
continuing economic growth is not increasing human happiness and is directly
putting in peril the capacity of natural systems to provide the essentials for human
civilization, we should be prepared at least to examine alternatives. As he says:
….there are indeed feasible economic alternatives but getting to them will be beyond
us unless we change how we think about our economy, society and environment,
undertake some close reflection on what is important to ourselves and others,
including other species, and develop a readiness to rethink and transform much of
what we have come to take for granted.
This is the crucial point because politicians, in particular, are extremely reluctant to
consider rethinking and transforming what has been taken for granted, usually
preferring to muddle along and hope things will turn out for the better. We can no
longer afford that sort of approach to our future.
Of course, the discussion in the earlier sections of this book show that getting off the
economic growth treadmill will be a long-term exercise for Australia because of the
demographic inertia built in by previous actions (and inaction) of governments.
These combine to mean that our population will, barring the unforeseen, continue
to increase for several decades, carrying with it the political imperative for the
economy to grow at a similar rate to avoid reducing material living standards. There
is some ground for hope if we recognize we could live at the same level of material
comfort using much less resources that we now do. It remains the case, however,
that the inability to stabilize our population in the short to medium term also
restricts our capacity to get off the treadmill of economic growth.
I mentioned earlier the pressure there is likely to be for redistribution of wealth in a
non-growing economy. Several observers have commented on this issue. Australia
today is much less equal than the country in which I grew up. Globalisation has
depressed wages in labour-intensive industries to compete with sweat-shops in very
poor countries, while managerial salaries have inflated to telephone numbers without
producing any convincing evidence that our large corporations are being better
managed. Despite the dramatic widening of the income distribution, there is less
political pressure for redistribution of wealth than there was 40 years ago.
It has been argued that economic growth is the crucial factor. As long as those at the
bottom end of the income distribution are a little better off each year, there is no
political pressure to tackle the problem by, for example, scaling back the middleclass welfare provisions or reducing the massive level of tax avoidance by the most
affluent members of the community. It is not just professionals in such areas as
Page 79 medicine and law that have many opportunities to avoid tax; there are individuals
who make the list of the 500 wealthiest Australians but claim to have incomes so low
they are exempt from the Medicare levy! Deciding to slow down economic growth
toward a future goal of stabilizing the economy would inevitably have the effect of
putting the issue of income distribution back on the agenda. Beyond a basic level,
absolute income has little impact on our well-being and happiness, but relative
income has been shown to have an impact. Analysis of different countries shows also
that there are negative health impacts of inequality. So the issue would have to be
tackled eventually.
The final point is where the issue of growth or lack of it stands in our priorities.
Given increasing wealth does not seem to have made Australians happier in the last
two decades, should it be our highest priority? Dr Richard Eckersley poses this
question to people: ‘Given what you know about the state of the world and your own
financial situation, is it absolutely your highest priority to become twice as wealthy in
the next 20 years and consume twice as much?’ Few people say this is their highest
priority. Some don’t even see it as desirable, but a small number put it at the top of
their list of goals, above staying healthy, being secure, having satisfying work, being in
a strong relationship, and so on. He then points out that all governments, state and
Commonwealth, ALP or coalition, start from the premise that the highest priority is
to ensure the GDP grows at a rate of at least 3.5 per cent – in other words, to double
the economy in 20 years. That only makes sense if we all agree that becoming twice
as wealthy by 2030 is the highest priority, which justifies social division,
environmental damage and increasing foreign control of our productive assets.
Most people are not convinced that a steady state economy without growth is even
feasible, let alone desirable. Even if you don’t think we can end growth, you
probably don’t see it as the highest priority. Buying the cheapest shoes in the shop
leaves you with the most money in your pocket, but few walk into a shop and
demand the least expensive product. Most people understand there is a trade-off
between economic considerations and other factors, like quality. So the general
economic argument is parallel to the ones I asked about urban areas: If doubling the
size of a city’s population would make us wealthier, is that economic benefit worth
the changes to the quality of our life? If growing the economy at a rate of 3.5 per
cent requires accepting developments that are socially divisive and environmentally
destructive, is the extra money worth it? The questions become more complex if we
factor in the role of foreign investment in many big projects, because much of the
economic benefit flows to those overseas financial interests. I suspect the support for
those developments would be even lower if the community understood how little of
Page 80 the profit generated actually flows into the Australian economy to trickle down to
you and me.1
An Interesting Comment by Lowe on Free-markets
‘A number of economic libertarians, who believe in freedom of trade with a fervor
that boarders on the evangelical, see restrictions on migration as inconsistent with the
benefits the believe would flow from ruthless implementation of their ideology. Just
as they believe that tariffs protect inefficient producers and should be eliminated in
the interests of economic efficiency, they see restrictions on the movement of
workers as protecting the less productive. They would like to see the Australian
workforce challenged by competition from foreign workers and forced either to be
more productive or accept lower wages. So they support a removal of restrictions on
foreign workers coming to Australia.’2
I totally disagree with the above philosophy I see foreign workers as a way to flood
the employment market and thus bring down wages and people’s quality of life. I do
agree that there are inefficient businesses. As Professor Lowe in this book has stated
there are farms that are using open channel irrigation or spray irrigation which is
particularly inefficient. I think such needs to be tackled by government regulation
than competing efficiency in the free market. I understand from reading Higgs MIT
press book that the US loves the free market and are not fans of government
regulation. I’m the opposite I do believe a good government can impose good
regulations. Regulations on banks can be argued as saving Australia from the 2009
GFC (Global Financial Crisis). Then I find that USA say to the world they love the
free market but then they protect their domestic supply of gas and the like.
I’m a bit skeptical of people’s motives when it comes to ‘economic efficiencies’ and
‘an open employment policy’ I think both come down to trying to make greater
business profits. I was shown a graph by Ross Olney of the tax breakdown in
Australia, a graph which came from the ATO (Australian Taxation Office), the
largist proportion of the tax breakdown comes from Income Tax, and relatively
smaller is tax from business / corporate tax. The reason Ross showed me this graph
was to point out the relatively small amount of tax being paid by businesses. The last
federal Australian budget handed down about a week ago by Treasurer Joe Hockey
(today’s date 23.5.15) anyway Hockey announced ‘about’ a 1.5 tax income break to
businesses. Then the opposition Treasurer Chris Bowen announced that Labor
would cut the company tax rate by 5%. I just spoke to my father to confirm such.
Apparently the tax break is for small businesses alone not all businesses. He agreed
1
2
‘Bigger or Better?’ Lowe – pages 118 to 125
‘Bigger or Better?’ Lowe – page 130
Page 81 that Labor did offer a small business tax break of 5% but his words was it is a load of
crap as to where are they going to fund such a tax break from. I did try to look up
my notes on such but couldn’t find the precise information. So company tax is not a
huge percentage of the tax income I ‘do’ understand the need to support small
business but I don’t think making labor cheap is the right way to go about such.
Lowe in his book points out that he felt there was a stronger movement when he was
growing up of wage equality compared to today and he hopes the movement for
wage equality kicks off again. So I’m not a fan of the business community crying
poor wanting deregulation of labor markets I rather see such as pure greed.
Lowe actually does then follow on in his book to state what I just did that some
people are interested in a larger labor market to force down wages.
Migrants who come here – from Lowe’s book???
‘Some politicians, most notably former finance minister Peter Walsh and former
Opposition leader John Hewson, have seen recent migrants as an interest group in
search of handouts from the government. They consequently saw migration as
having negative impacts on the government finances to offset the usually assumed
benefits.
Various unemployment or under-employed people see migration competing with
them for existing jobs. Those in this group are understandably not impressed by the
general economic argument that migrants boosts the economy. They often blame
their inability to find rewarding work directly on the presence of migrants.’1
CEO responsibility – Lowe’s book
‘‘There are eminently positive ways of dealing with the problem,’ he said. He
derided the notion of sustainable development and said we should just focus on
development, rather than worrying about whether it would be sustainable. That
seems alarmingly irresponsible, even from a simple business perspective. Any board
of directors that expanded their business, for example by borrowing or using limited
resources to open new outlets, without verifying that the expansion was sustainable,
would be failing to discharge their basic obligations. They would at least risk a
shareholder backlash, if not prosecution for failing to act responsibly.’2
I must admit I don’t have faith in shareholders that Lowe does. Whether their lives
are too busy, I don’t believe many shareholders understand what companies are up
1
2
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe page 132
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe page 136
Page 82 to and too I would say that there are shareholders just out to make a buck whatever
the expense. I’m not saying ‘all’ shareholders don’t care but from where I stand
multinationals have been acting irresponsibly for years let alone politicians. The
reason why I quoted the above is that I feel Lowe touched on something. That is
that of business acting sustainably or facing prosecution. That is where having
thought about this for awhile the future needs to be. The future again needs to be of
prosecuting businesses whom can be fairly seen as acting unsustainably or
unethically. I wish we could prosecute politicians who do the same thing.
Defence - Lowe and my take on it
As the other significant group of traditional expansionist, many strategic analysts and
defence experts believe that we would be more secure if we had a larger population
and support growth for that reason. As discussed earlier, there is no simple
relationship between a country’s population and its ability to defend its boarders.
There has been no obvious military threat to Australia since the 1940s. Even then
our capacity to defend the country was related much more obviously to our
geography, our military hardware and our international alliances than the number of
able-bodied Australians prepared to aim guns at potential invaders. But respected
strategic analyst Professor Hugh White argued in a recent paper for the Lowy
Institute that ‘even with good economic growth’ we might not be able to afford
‘forces sufficient to provide us with the kind of security we have enjoyed in recent
decades’. In other words, he accepts that the key to our defence is our military
capacity, but argues that our ability to afford the military capacity we need is
dependent on economic growth. His case is that the region is likely to become
increasingly unstable in the next few decades and that we are, apart from the obvious
heavyweights of India and China, the only country that could in principle have the
military capacity to play a strategic role. New Zealand simply could not afford to, he
says, but we could as long as our economy grows strongly enough to afford hightechnology military forces.’1
My personal take on this is I do believe in putting as much money as we can in
defence. I agree that foreign aid is a way to try to address living standards in other
countries, and such leads to stability rather than an attack on Australia. I, however,
am against foreign aid coming from government. Not ‘all’ aid, I understand that
some government aid from Australia is very strategic. The reason I’m against aid
coming from government is that if we go into further debt and don’t right the books
to surplus our ability to help the homeless is reduced. The ability to provide aged
care and disability pensions that are sufficient to have a basic standard of living will
be reduced. So I would rather a community campaign to occur to encourage
1
‘Bigger or Better’ Lowe – pages 138&139
Page 83 everyday people to donate, therefore we still help where we can and the poorest of
our society are protected. So there is a debate amongst some in our community that
aid does bring stability which I agree but we also need to protect our most
vulnerable. Present Prime Minister Tony Abbott and specifically related ministers
could put this argument to the community that individuals give what they can in aid.
They could set a good standard by asking what I see are our tax avoiding rich list to
start thinking about others in the world and cough up!!! The rich list may also have
companies that rip off the most vulnerable around the world and again it’s time to
cough up money to help such people. This I think is a better solution than cutting
pensions.
Still on defence. I do partly agree here that a bigger Australia with economic growth
has a greater ability to pay for increased military capacity. I am not sure where
Lowe’s examples come from that population size does not dictate such, well he has
really. Population growth does not mean economic growth. Generally if he is right
I’ll go with him anyway in not expanding Australia’s population. You have to toss up
which is more important our environment etc. I conclude that we pay for what
military capacity we can but without population growth and I agree trying to aim at
stabilizing economic growth. I do agree that there is going to be greater world
instability, I conclude this from reading ‘The Coming Famine’ Julian Cribb a
CSIRO book. Cribb says the world is going to struggle to feed it’s human population
and predicts there is going to be conflict over such. So to wrap up my views… I
believe in campaigning the Australian population to donate what they can to the
world etc That we spend as much as we can on military hardware. Of course we look
to stabilize our population.
Back Against the Ecological Wall
‘Social anthropologist Richard Wilkinson argued 40 years ago that the root cause of
the Industrial Revolution was the ecological imbalance in England, as increasing
population and shrinking forests made it impossible to meet demand in traditional
ways. He maintained that generally rapid technological innovation was a sign of a
society with its back to the ecological wall, forced to change its food production or
energy supply or water use to get back in balance with its resource base. Of course,
he also noted that some societies had proved incapable of innovating fast enough to
solve their problems and had consequently collapsed. In those terms, encouraging
rapid population growth is a high-risk strategy, forcing the society to innovate or
disintegrate.’1
‘There are small populations that are very innovative, like Finland or Singapore,
while there are countries with much larger populations that have not be so innovative
1
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe page 152
Page 84 in recent years. Rather than population growth rate being closely correlated with
increased income per capita, there is an observable relationship in the real world
that it is negative. Countries with rapidly growing population tend to be poor, while
the affluent countries tend to have stable or slow-growing populations. The casual
link probably goes the other way: people in poor countries are more likely to have
large families as an insurance against poverty in their old age, while people in the
affluent world are more likely to be able to control their fertility and exercise a
choice to have fewer children. It certainly does not follow from the empirical
evidence that encouraging the population to grow rapidly will automatically generate
an economic miracle and produce a wealthier society.’1
Not all Economists are Wrong or Questionable – Lowe
I don’t want to malign an entire profession, as there are thoughtful economists who
take a more sophisticated view. Professor John Quiggin’s recent book, Zombie
Economics, is trenchantly critical of the dead economic ideas that still walk among
us, like the discredited ‘trickle-down’ theory that all of us eventually benefit if the
richest people in our society become even richer. Gittins, economics editor of the
Sydney Morning Herald, recently published The Happy Economist in which he
argued that the profession has lost sight of ‘the most important measure of economic
success’. He argues that ‘happiness is our most important measure of economic
success’ and attacks the profession’s obsession with financial and economic
measures.
Gittin’s view is that economics lost its way in the 1930s, when it decided that
measuring happiness was too hard, focusing instead on what was easy to measure,
the things we buy. That might have been valid in a world where there was little
advertising. Given its role in the modern world, which Professor Clive Hamilton
famously summarized as ‘persuading us to use money we don’t have to buy things
we don’t want to impress people we don’t like, it is extremely naïve to regard our
purchases as maximizing our marginal utility, as if they were a rational expression of
our needs. The success of products like Coca-Cola and the spread of junk-food
chains are the ultimate demonstrations of the power of marketing to persuade us to
act against our own best interests. Gittins contends that a renewed focus on the
original purpose of economics, maximizing happiness, would end the simplistic
obsession with growth as an end in itself. He says we should see some forms of
growth as a positive means of achieving the goal of greater levels of happiness, while
others clearly do not. We should support or oppose proposals for growth according
1
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe page 152
Page 85 to whether or not they advance the goal of increasing happiness.1 Lowe then goes
onto talk about trying to measure happiness which is quite interesting to further read.
Engineers and Physicist on Future Energy and Societal Issues – Lowe
I don’t like quoting a whole book, but I find the information a need to know!
‘Engineers and physicists are generally optimistic about the capacity of new
technology to solve any problems and so usually support growth. I am a Fellow of
the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, so I have a fair
bit to do with senior members of the engineering profession. They are almost
universally supporters of high-technology solutions for our problems, like nuclear
power rather than improved efficiency or renewable energy supply, desalination
rather than reduced water use, genetic engineering of crops rather than drip
irrigation or better food distribution systems, and so on. I suspect most engineers
would enjoy the challenge of providing transport systems for 36 or 40 million
people, rather than a much smaller number.
When I was a young physicist, I shared the enthusiasm of the profession for nuclear
energy. It seemed cleaner, more technically sophisticated and less risky than the
alternatives for generating electricity, principally mining and burning coal. The
fission reaction was proven to work in the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, then controlled in the first types of power stations and proven to be able to
generate large amounts of energy. There was optimism that the systems could be
engineered to make them fail-safe and scaled up to make them cost competitive. So
far, that dream has not been realized, though some enthusiasts are still encouraging
us to believe that the next generation of nuclear reactors will solve all the problems.
They might, but the track record is not very encouraging.
For 40 years the nuclear industry has been promising a new generation of reactors
that would be more reliable, provide cheaper electricity and not pose any danger to
the community, but has not delivered. The fukushima disaster was a timely warning
that every system of energy supply has risks, but those associated with nuclear power
are potentially much more serious than other technologies. As with Chernobyl
accident 25 years earlier, Fukushima has put a significant area of land effectively off
–limits for human use for many decades. It has probably ensured that there won’t be
community support for conventional nuclear power in Australia.
There is still hope for nuclear fusion, the process that provides the massive amounts
of energy in stars like our sun – and the hydrogen bombs that were tested in the
atmosphere in the 1960s an 1970s, with devastating impacts on some Pacific island
1
‘Bigger or Better’ – Lowe page 152 to 153
Page 86 communities (and some effects closer to home, including the fall – out in Adelaide
when the wind changed as a British bomb was being tested at Maralinga). The
technical problems of maintaining a temperature of several million degrees in a ball
of gas while extracting energy from it have so far proved intractable, but I still hear
some physicists enthusiastically talking about fusion as the energy of the future. I
recall a physics professor telling me and other undergraduates in the 1960s that
‘controlled fusion energy is 50 years away- and probably always will be!’ It is
conceivable that our energy problems will be solved by a wonderful technical
breakthrough, but it seems unwise to rely on that happening. It certainly does not
seem a responsible approach to put future generations in a position where their
survival depends on an unproven and speculative new technology.’1
Local Councils – Lowe
I do think the book ‘Bigger or Better?’ by Professor Ian Lowe needs to be read in
entirety. Following from Engineers etc as above. Lowe starts to discuss local councils
within Australia from a survey that was done in 2011. Nearly all councils are saying
they are finding it financially difficult to handle the massive population increases.
Previous to that Lowe wrote about the houses / dwellings required in the capital
cities, to support the vastly growing population, approximately half a million
dwellings will be required in each of Sydney and Melbourne It seems the local
governments are finding it very hard to deal with it, to provide all the appropriate
services. Lowe states it takes much more than good planning to deal with such an
increase.
1
‘Bigger or Better?’ – Lowe, pages 153 to 155
Page 87 General Economics Issues
Tax Havens / Multinational Tax
The 2014 G20 meeting in Brisbane saw discussion about companies who base
themselves in tax havens like Luxemburg and the Bahamas etc. I very much want to
see a crack down of tax thief’s. Not only avoiding company income tax but avoiding
tax in general. When there are so many people in this world in poverty for rich
people to seek to be richer by avoiding tax just plainly disgusts me. I do agree with
some thoughts I’ve heard that companies should have to pay income tax in the
countries they derive the income, which I totally support.
This is from Higgs book which is quoted in another section of this book also.
‘Another factor inflates the scale of this divide. Financial assets hidden away in tax
havens by the ultra-rich are estimated to be well over $21 trillion as of 2010; these
assets are earning their owners invisible and largely tax-free income, and neither asset
nor income shows up in the statistics of inequality. (52 Higgs Referencing)1
Laptops – A new kind of HECS system
I have taught at no joke forty schools in Melbourne Australia, some full time most
emergency teaching. I believe the defining difference between private schools and
the public system in the future will be that of laptops. Those who have them and
those that don’t. Primary school students in private schools that do all their class
work and homework on tablets and laptops develop serious lifelong computer skills.
Compared to those in the public school system who don’t have compulsory laptops
etc.
So I think all students should all have laptops or tablets. For families who can’t
afford the computers it goes on a HECS kind of scheme. That when the child
eventually one day starts earning a wage that over a certain threshold they start
paying the computer cost back. I think computer know how is nearly essential these
days in nearly if not all industries.
HECS loans of people who get work overseas
1
‘Collision Course’ Kerryn Higgs, page 122
Page 88 I think it is wrong that people who get work overseas often with good salaries that
they don’t have to pay back their HECS bill, that is what I’ve heard. This is really the
same as tax avoidance, the money should be paid back.
State of Victoria Not Getting it’s share of Offshore Royalties
I read the whole book of ‘Public Accounts and Estimates Committee Report on the
2006-07 Budget Estimates. I did this because former Premier of Victoria John Cain
presided over a state in financial trouble. The following segment comes from
Wikipedia:
During its second term Cain's government began to run into difficulties with the state budget.
The stock market crash of 1987 created a crisis which forced the government to cut spending,
alienating some trade union supporters. The State Bank of Victoria, in particular its merchant
banking arm Tricontinental, ran up a huge portfolion of bad loans, without adequate fiduciary
supervision.
So I decided to read the books on Victoria’s financial situation just to check in with
it. I ‘believe’ that Victoria now has a triple A rating. I can assure you that the
estimates book I read was pretty good. However, I came across this:
(d) Revenue from Royalties
Given that the government encourages almost $2 billion in new oil and gas
investment in offshore Victoria, (879 the books referencing) the committee asked
the Minister to outline any taxation or royalty revenue it receives, or is likely to
receive, from the new oil and gas fields and from the existing Bass Strait operations.
Over the last six years, there has been a massive expansion in the oil and gas sector
in Victoria. (880 books referencing) Large scale projects made possible by the
department include: (881 books referencing)
• The development of BHP’s $250 million Minerva gas project and Santos’s
$200 million Casino gas project at the Otway Basin;
• Anzon’s $304 million Basker- Manta oil project in the Gippsland Basin;
• The completion of the first stage of Woodside’s $1.1 billion Otway gas
project;
• Offering Esso a production licence for the Kipper gas project in Bass Strait;
and
• Origin’s $500 million BassGas project, which is likely to come into operation
in the near future.
The minister informed the Committee that: (882 books referencing)
Page 89 It is the biggest petroleum investment since the development of the Bass Strait fields
by Esso BHP that we have been able to bring about. So more than ever with the
development of these multi-million dollar facilities, we see ourselves as the energy
hub of the south-east of Australia. But … while Victoria is a beneficiary of this boom
in terms of employment, it is not a beneficiary in terms of revenue from resource
rent. Indeed, the government which collects the petroleum resources rent is in fact
the federal government, which collects something in the order of $1.5 billion in
petroleum resource rent from this industry every year. It is an unfortunate situation
where we in Victoria are disadvantaged, relative to the other states. There are
resource rent arrangements in place in Western Australia, for example, where it
receives hundreds of millions of dollars in relation to the big resources that come
out of that state, and I am talking about the offshore resources. Victoria receives
virtually nothing from the massive amount of revenue that is raised each year by the
Commonwealth in resource rent …..
….The fact is that Western Australia gets something in the order of $600 million or
$700 million in resource rent arising out of the offshore North West Shelf
operations that are taking place in this sector; Victoria gets virtually nothing …. This
area requires some reform and we would welcome the federal Treasurer entering
into discussions about how he could return some of that $1.5 billion back to
Victorians.
The Committee supports the concept of Victoria receiving a fair share of the
resource rent collected by the Commonwealth Government.1
At the time that I read this book I wrote to the State Treasurer to ask about the
progress in the State receiving more revenue in correlation to Western Australia
from the Federal Government, but I never received a reply back. I also put this
reading past Helen Peddington my case manager to confirm that the State of
Victoria is being dittled, which Helen agrees we are.
For chasing this matter up I would like a portion of the money, as this book states I
am becoming a puritan more and more each day. Not because I agree with the
Puritan model per say but rather that the world is in a particular situation where we
basically have to be Puritan. I hope it is understood why, we have been ripping
through the world’s resources at an expediential rate and we just can’t do that
anymore. However, I believe on a number of fronts I’ve earnt money, I will find a
way to put such money to good use, money I’ve earnt. I do want to be a good role
model given the world’s predicament, heading into famine too.
1
Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, State of Victoria Australia 2006-07, page
383 and 384
Page 90 Superannuation Infrastructure, Ag and Pharmaceutical Investment
I believe there has been a lack of infrastructure investment in Australia and lack of
investment in other areas of the economy particularly agriculture. We have had a lot
of foreigners looking at investing in Australia. I am particularly wary of foreign
ownership in regards to agricultural investment but also commodities. Australia has a
lot of money put away in superannuation. The Rudd government underwrote banks
during the GFC (Global Financial Crisis). Understanding very well that the future is
going to see the world stretched to feed the world’s population I am eager to see
food security measures put in place in Australia, limiting financial investment in
particular in agriculture. I think Australia has a lot of money tied up in
superannuation that could be invested to grow the agricultural sector. If I were the
government I would be taking measures to support superannuation funds investing
in particular areas of the Australian economy, such as potentially underwriting a
certain value in some strategic areas of the economy. I am concerned about food
security in Australia.
Superannuation Taxes / Reassessing Taxes Fairly Regularly
I don’t have the full figures on this subject. How this was explained to me by Ross
Olney, if I remember correctly. People placing money in superannuation funds get
such money taxed generally at a rate of 15%. I believe people pay no tax on money
that is taken out of the funds in retirement. My understanding is usually such money
is generally taxed at a rate of 30%. Please excuse if the figures are wrong. There may
also be increments as to the tax rate???
So my further understanding was that the 15% tax reduction to invest in
superannuation was put in place when superannuation was established, for the
reason as to encourage people to save for retirement than rely on the age care
pension. I personally think this was a smart idea given the baby boomers coming up
to retirement. So I can see why there was a tax incentive for people to invest in
superannuation. However, we are at a time when there is a lot of money invested in
superannuation and the need of the incentive to invest is not so urgent.
Due to the large superannuation pool lying in wait for retirees it is time to assess
whether the tax rate is appropriate. Ross said that the tax rate should go up.
However, Tony (another friend) said there was a point in time where he wasn’t
working but legitimately seeking work, so his superannuation is not as big as it
should be to support him in retirement. So I do see that for some people a lesser tax
rate on superannuation is a way of supporting some people to top up such for the
future.
Page 91 So the point here is tax’s change as to their purpose. Thus I believe it is import to
reassess taxes. I do note, however, that many sectors of the economy are seeking
long term plans of security. Scientists want funding security, ten + year plans. Too
the business community likes stability, so to change the tax rules and the like all the
time is counter productive. However, superannuation taxes seem to be a legitimate
tax system that needs to be reassessed. I do believe there is a situation where high
earning CEO’s are towards the end of their careers and are placing large amounts of
money in superannuation at half the tax rate. Such to me seems unfair and it’s time
to reassess what the tax discount was there for.
CEO Incentives to Act Ethically
For sometime now I ‘believe’ the broader community has been concerned about the
ethics of big trans national organisations. I think such concern extends well beyond
trans – national companies. I have heard and agree personally that the ethics of
many CEO’s are questionable further to that it seems that many CEO’s get company
financial incentives to deliver good returns to shareholders. With a broad concern
that such incentives are at the detriment to acting ethical, whether that of
environmental, labor and other ethical questions.
I would also summarize that communities have expressed concern at how much
CEO salaries are. I personally and I believe it’s not just myself are concerned that
CEO’s are getting paid so much and they are not in many cases acting ethically.
I believe there needs to be incentives for CEO’s to act ethically. At this time I have
not thought of what such could be, other than elaborate dancing balls to celebrate
romance and equality.
Ethical Superannuation and the Like
I did transfer at the time my super into an Ethical Superannuation Fund, but due to
my circumstance I had to sell my super. I believe that my ethical superannuation
fund was doing well, however, I am concerned that some ethical superannuation
funds charge high fees which is a deterrent to people investing. I wouldn’t mind
paying a bit more in fees but I do think the ethical funds I am aware of, the fees
weren’t reasonable for the service???
Page 92 Illegal to make financial commissions
In Australia our major banks have recently come into question over financial advice,
first the Commonwealth bank and then the National Australia bank. However,
commissions seem to be an industry wide issue with other perpetrators from my
understanding. I am pretty sure it was ABC Four Corners that I watched in relation
to the Commonwealth banks financial advice. My conclusion from watching such a
documentary is that financial commissions should be illegal. That it is law that a
financial advisor must act in the best interests of the customer. I think the financial
advisor should derive money solely from the client, rather than commissions. I have
just googled what ‘trailing commissions are’ – Ross Olney brought up the issue of
trailing commissions. So from googling it, it seems that trailing commissions are
annual financial incentives ‘commissions’ to financial advisors and the UK has just
banned the practice, from what I read rightly so.
I do believe that the response of other people to the commissions issue is that
instead of banning such they want financial advisors to have to disclose any
commissions they may derive. I am against such because people have busy lives and
may not get the time to read such in detail. Too they may get around to reading the
commission disclosures but have no idea whether the commissions are in their
favour. So I just want the practice of commissions banned altogether, that the client
pays for the services of the advisor.
Trade Practices Act – Ross Olney – Hilarious
I have forgotten whether the subject of the Trade Practices Act came up in Ross
Garnaut’s book or whether it was just Ross Olney’s thoughts. I think it was the later.
Ross was telling me that when politicians came up with the Trade Practices Act they
made themselves exempt from it. Which means you can sue a company for false
advertising but you can’t sue a politician for false advertising. Can you just imagine if
we could sue the government for false advertising!!! I saw a post on facebook of the
top ten lies to the Australian Community from the Liberal National Party tonight.
USA not so ‘Free Trade’???
The US has been shoving ‘Free Trade’ down the throats of the international
community as the way to alleviate poverty and the like yet back home the US’s
policies are not so free trade!! My understanding is that the US has many tariffs for
imported agriculture as well as protecting gas prices to the US domestic market.
Page 93 Tim Jackson – Points from Prosperity Without
Growth
Decoupling – Big Point
‘The conventional response to the dilemma of growth is to call for ‘decoupling’:
continued economic growth with continually declining material throughput ……
As chapter 5 points out, it’s vital to distinguish between ‘relative’ and ‘absolute’
decoupling. Relative decoupling refers to a situation where resource impacts decline
relative to GDP. Impacts may still rise, but they do so more slowly than the GDP.
The situation in which resource impacts decline in absolute terms is called ‘absolute
decoupling’. Needless to say, this latter situation is essential if economic activity is to
remain within ecological limits.
Evidence for declining resource intensities (relative decoupling) is relatively easy to
identify. The energy required to produce a unit of economic output declined by a
third in the last thirty years, for instance. Global carbon intensity fell from around
one kilo per dollar of economic activity to just under 770 grams per dollar.
Evidence for overall reductions is resource throughput (absolute decoupling) is
much harder to find. The improvements in energy (and carbon) intensity noted
above were offset by the increase in the scale of economic activity over the same
period. Global carbon emissions from energy use have increased by 40% since only
1990 (the Kyoto base year).
There are rising global trends in a number of other resources – a range of different
metals and several non – metallic minerals for example. Worryingly, in some cases,
even relative decoupling isn’t happening. Resource productivity in the use of some
structural materials (iron ore, bauxite, cement) has been declining globally since
2000, as the emerging economies build up physical infrastructure, leading to
accelerating resource throughput.
The scale of improvement required is daunting. In a world of nine billion people, all
aspiring to a level of income commensurate with 2% growth on the average EU
income today, carbon intensities (for example) would have to fall on average by over
11% per year to stabilize the climate, 16 times faster than it has done since 1990. By
2050, the global carbon intensity would need to be only six grams per dollar of
output, almost 130 times lower than it is today.
Page 94 Substantial economic investment will be needed to achieve anything close to these
improvements. Lord Stern has argued that stabilizing atmospheric carbon at 500
parts per million (ppm) would mean investing 2% of GDP each year in carbon
emission reductions. Achieving 450 ppm stabilization would require even higher
levels of investment. Factor in the wider capital needs for resources efficiency,
material and process substitution and ecological protection and the sheer scale of
investment becomes an issue. The macro – economic implications of this are
addressed in Chapter 8.
More to the point, there is little attempt in existing scenarios to achieve an equitable
distribution of incomes across nations. Unless growth in the richer nations is
curtailed, the ecological implications of a truly shared prosperity become even more
daunting to contemplate.
The truth is that there is as yet no credible, socially just, ecologically sustainable
scenario of continually growing incomes for a world of nine billion people.
In this context, simplistic assumptions that capitalism’s propensity for efficiency will
allow us to stabilize the climate and protect against resource scarcity are nothing
short of delusional. Those who promote decoupling as an escape route from the
dilemma of growth need to take a closer look at the historical evidence – and the
basic arithmetic of growth.’1
An Equitable World – Jackson
‘These data underline one of the key messages of this report. There is no case to
abandon growth universally. But there is a strong case for the developed nations to
make room for growth in poorer countries. It is in these poorer countries that
growth really does make a difference. In richer countries the returns on further
growth appear much more limited. In the language of economics, marginal utility
(measured here as subjective wellbeing) diminishes rapidly at higher income levels.’2
Parts of Tim Jackson’s book to be sorted
‘Sen has tended to stop short of clear prescriptions, even though some are implicit in
his writing. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum has gone furthest in this direction.
Her list of ‘central human capabilities’ bears a striking resemblance to the
components of prosperity identified in this chapter and includes:
1
2
‘Prosperity without Growth’ – Jackson page 8
‘Prosperity without Growth’ – Jackson page 32
Page 95 • life (being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length); bodily
health
• bodily integrity (to be secure against violent assault)
• having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and choice in matters of
reproduction
• practical reason (being able to form a conception of the good life)
• affiliation (being able to live with and toward others)
• play, and control over one’s environment
Ultimately, as the Dutch report cited above recognises, any such list needs to be
negotiated in open dialogue before it can be taken as the basis of policy. But in
practice, there is a surprisingly strong overlap between the components in such lists
and the constituents of prosperity identified here.’1
Absolute Decoupling (the necessity)- Jackson
‘The situation in which resource impacts decline in absolute terms is called ‘absolute
decoupling’. Needless to say, his latter situation is essential if economic activity is to
remain within ecological limits. In the case of climate change, for instance, absolute
reductions in global carbon emissions of 50 – 80% are required by 2050 in order to
meet the IPPC’s 450 ppm stabilisation target.’2
Tim Jackson’s Findings
For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single
most important policy goal across the world. The global economy is
almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to
grow at the same rate the economy will be 80 times that size by the
year 2100.
This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity is without historical
precedent. It appears to be totally at odds with our scientific knowledge of the finite
resource base and the fragile ecology on which we depend for survival. And it has
already been accompanied by the degradation of an estimated 60% of the world’s
ecosystems.
1
2
‘Prosperity Without Growth’ – Jackson page 35
‘Prosperity Without Growth’ – Jackson page 48
Page 96 For the most part, we tend to avoid the stark reality of these numbers. The default
assumption is that – financial crises aside – growth will continue indefinitely. Not just
for the poorest countries, where a better quality of life is essential, but even for the
richest nations where material wealth adds little further to people’s quality of life and
may even threaten the foundations of our wellbeing.
The reasons for this collective blindness are easy enough to find. The modern
economy is structurally reliant on economic growth for its stability. When growth
falters, as it has done recently, politicians panic. Businesses struggle to survive.
People lose their jobs and sometimes their homes. A spiral of recession looms.
Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries.
In short, society is faced with a profound dilemma. To resist growth is to risk
economic and social collapse. To pursue it is to endanger the ecosystems on which
we depend for long-term survival.
For the most part, this dilemma goes unrecognised in mainstream policy or in public
debate. When reality begins to impinge on the collective consciousness, the best
suggestion to hand is that we can somehow ‘decouple’ growth from its material
impacts.
Never mind that decoupling isn’t happening. Never mind that no such economy has
ever existed. Never mind that all our institutions and incentive structures continually
point in the opposite direction. The dilemma, once recognised, looms so
dangerously over our future that we are desperate to believe in miracles. Technology
will save us.
Capitalism is good at technology. So let’s just keep the show on the road and hope
for the best.
We can’t entirely dismiss the potential for technological breakthroughs. In fact we
already have at our disposal a range of technologies that could begin to deliver
effective change. But the idea that these will emerge spontaneously by giving free
reign to the competitive market is patently false.
This delusional strategy has reached its limits. We stand in urgent need of a clearer
vision, more honest policy-making, something more robust in the way of a strategy
with which to confront the dilemma of growth.
The starting place must be to confront the structures that keep us in damaging
denial. The analysis in this study suggests that nature and structure conspire together
here. The endless creativity of capitalism and our own relentless striving for social
Page 97 status have locked us into an iron cage of consumerism. Affluence itself has betrayed
us.
Affluence breeds – and indeed relies on – the continual production and
consumption of consumer novelty. But relentless novelty seeds social anxiety and
weakens our ability to protect long-term social goals. In doing so it ends up
undermining our own wellbeing and that of others. And somewhere along the way,
we lose the sense of shared prosperity that we sought in the first place.
For at the end of the day, prosperity goes beyond fleeting material pleasures. It
transcends material concerns. It resides in the quality of our lives and in the health
and happiness of our families. It is present in the strength of our relationships and
our trust in the community. It is evidenced by our satisfaction at work and our sense
of shared meaning and purpose. It hangs on our potential to participate fully in the
life of society. Prosperity consists in our ability to flourish as human beings – within
the ecological limits of a finite planet.
Delivering these goals is not an entirely unfamiliar task to policy-makers.
Governments care about health provision. And the recent focus on wellbeing has
extended that concern to psychological health. At the same time these goals too
often take second place to economic growth. The role of the state is too narrowly
framed by a misguided vision of unbounded consumer freedoms. Governance itself
stands in urgent need of renewal.
But the current economic crisis presents a unique opportunity to invest in change.
To sweep away the short-term thinking that has plagued society for decades. To
replace it with considered policy-making capable of addressing the enormous
challenge of delivering a lasting prosperity.
The policy demands of this task are considerable. Specifying them with any degree
of precision is beyond the scope of this or any other single document. First and
foremost, they call for a concerted and committed effort on the part of government
to establish a detailed set of viable and effective policies for a sustainable economy.
This is a challenge that governments can no longer afford to ignore. Beyond that
need, it is possible to identify a range of broad policy recommendations on which
the transition to a sustainable economy could be built.
In the following paragraphs, these recommendations are grouped into three main
themes that flow directly from the analysis in this report. Specifically these themes
are:
•
Building a macro-economics for sustainability
Page 98 •
•
Protecting capabilities for social flourishing; and
Respecting ecological limits
Inevitably, there is some overlap between these groupings. Undoubtedly there are
things missing from the range of policies suggested here. Not all of them can be
achieved immediately. Not all of them can be achieved unilaterally. But taken
together they offer the foundation from which to build meaningful and lasting
change.
12 STEPS TO A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY
A
A macro-economy predicated on continual expansion of debt-driven materialistic
consumption is unsustainable ecologically, problematic socially, and unstable
economically (Chapters 2, 5, 6). The time is now ripe to develop a new macroeconomics for sustainability (Chapters 7 & 8) that does not rely for its stability on
relentless growth and expanding material throughput. This theme includes four
specific policy areas to help achieve this goal.
Building a Sustainable Macro-Economy
1
Developing macro-economic capability
There is an urgent need to develop the capabilities required to build a new macroeconomics for sustainability. This will include developing tools to explore different
configurations of the key macro- economic variables and to map the interactions
between these and ecological variables. Particular challenges include 1) exploring the
investment demands associated with a sustainable economy; 2) investigating the
economic implications of strict resource or emission caps; and 3) evaluating the
impact of changes in natural assets and ecosystem functioning on economic stability.
Examples/ precedents: Canadian LowGrow model; climate- economy models
(cf.IPCC, Stern Review) Cambridge Econometrics’ MDM – E3 model; the EU’s
TEEB study, the millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
2
Investing in jobs, assets and infrastructures
Page 99 Investment in jobs, assets and infrastructures emerges as a key component – not just
of economic recovery – but of a new macroeconomics for sustainability. Targets for
this include: public sector jobs in building and maintaining public assets; investments
in renewable energy, public transport infrastructure, and public spaces; retrofitting
the existing building stock with energy- and carbon-saving measures; investing in
ecosystem maintenance and protection; and providing fiscal support and training for
green businesses, clean technologies and resource efficiency.
Examples/precedents: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA); UK
Pre-Budget Report ‘green stimulus’; UNEP’s global Green New Deal; Deutsche
Bank ‘Green Investment’; SDC Sustainable New Deal.
Sustainable Development Commission Prosperity without Growth? 103
or community-based bonds; outlaw unscrupulous and destabilising market practices
(such as short- selling); and provide greater protection against consumer debt.
Examples/precedents: G20 statement on regulation of finance and currency markets
(Nov 2008); Tobin tax; Obama Administration plan to protect borrowers.
3
Increasing financial and fiscal prudence
Debt-driven materialistic consumption has propped up economic growth for over a
decade. But maintaining it has destabilised the macro-economy and contributed to
the global economic crisis. A new era of financial and fiscal prudence needs to be
ushered in to: reform the regulation of national and international financial markets;
increase public control of the money supply; incentivise domestic savings, for
example through secure (green) national or community-based bonds; outlaw
unscrupulous and destabilising market practices (such as short- selling); and provide
greater protection against consumer debt.
Examples/precedents: G20 statement on regulation of finance and currency markets
(Nov 2008); Tobin tax; Obama Administration plan to protect borrowers.
4
Improving macro-economic accounting
Page 100 The shortfalls of conventional output or consumption-based measures of the GDP
are now well-established. There is an urgent need to develop more robust measures
of economic wellbeing that correct for the most obvious drawbacks in using the
GDP. These new measures will need: to account more systematically for changes in
the asset base; to incorporate welfare losses from inequality in the distribution of
incomes; to adjust for the depletion of material resources and other forms of natural
capital, to account for the social costs of carbon emissions and other external
environmental and social costs; and to correct for positional consumption and
defensive expenditures.
Examples/precedents: longstanding critiques in the economic literature; the World
Bank’s Adjusted Net Savings measure; RDA policies on Regional-ISEW;
Sen/Stiglitz recommendations from the French Commission on the Measurement of
Economic Performance and Social Progress.
Protecting Capabilities for Flourishing
B
The social logic that locks people into materialistic consumerism as the basis for
participating in the life of society is extremely powerful, but detrimental ecologically
and psychologically (Chapters 4-6). An essential prerequisite for a lasting prosperity
is to free people from this damaging dynamic and provide opportunities for
sustainable and fulfilling lives (Chapter 9). We offer five policy areas to help achieve
this task.
5
Sharing the work-life balance
In a declining or non-increasing economy, working time policies are essential for two
main reasons: 1) to achieve macro-economic stability; 2) to protect people’s jobs and
livelihoods. But in addition, reduced working hours can increase flourishing by
improving the work-life balance. Specific policies need to include: reductions in
working hours; greater choice for employees on working time; measures to combat
discrimination against part- time work as regards grading, promotion, training,
security of employment, rate of pay and so on; better incentives to employees (and
flexibility for employers) for family time, parental leave, and sabbatical breaks.
Examples/ precedents: French, German and Danish work time policies; TUC
Green and Decent Work seminar.
Page 101 6
Tackling systemic inequality
Systemic income inequalities drive positional consumption, increase anxiety,
undermine social capital and expose lower income households to higher morbidity
and lower life satisfaction. Too little has been done to reverse the long-term trend
towards income inequality. But redistributive mechanisms and policies are wellestablished and could include: revised income tax structures; minimum and
maximum income levels; improved access to good quality education; antidiscrimination legislation; implementing anti-crime measures and improving the
local environment in deprived areas; addressing the impact of immigration on urban
and rural poverty.
Examples/precedents: proposals for higher income tax on higher rate earners in
PBR 08; restrictions on bonuses in the financial sector; Obama ‘shared prosperity’
plan; history of redistributive taxation, in many countries.
7
Measuring prosperity
The suggestion that prosperity is not adequately captured by conventional measures
of economic output or consumption leaves open the need to define an appropriate
measurement framework for a lasting prosperity. Specifically this would entail the
assessment of people’s capabilities for flourishing in different sections of the
population and across the nation as a whole. Developing national accounts of
wellbeing (or of flourishing) could proceed through the measurement of outcome
variables such as healthy life expectancy, educational participation, social wellbeing,
trust in the community, social capital and so on. A further requirement here is to
adjust existing economic measurement frameworks to account systematically for
ecological and social factors.
Examples/precedents: Defra SD indicator No 68; Dutch capabilities index; nef’s
national wellbeing accounts; the Government Economic Service project on
sustainability and Green Book.
8
Strengthening human and social capital
Understanding that prosperity consists in part in our capabilities to participate in the
life of society demands that attention is paid to the underlying human and social
Page 102 resources required for this task. Creating resilient social communities is particularly
important in the face of economic shocks. Specific policies are needed to: create and
protect shared public spaces; strengthen community-based sustainability initiatives;
reduce geographical labour mobility; provide training for green jobs; offer better
access to lifelong learning and skills; place more responsibility for planning in the
hands of local communities; and protect public service broadcasting, museum
funding, public libraries, parks and green spaces.
Examples/precedents: Cabinet Office study on social capital; Foresight study on
wellbeing and intellectual capital; Transition Town movement; Environmental
Action Fund; Young Foundation’s Local Wellbeing Project; the ‘Capital Growth’
project.
9
Reversing the culture of consumerism
The culture of consumerism has developed in part at least as a means of protecting
consumption- driven economic growth. But it has had damaging psychological and
social impacts on people’s wellbeing. There is a need systematically to dismantle
incentives towards materialistic consumption and unproductive status competition.
This recommendation will require: stronger regulation in relation to the commercial
media; enhanced support for public sector broadcasting; more effective trading
standards and stronger consumer protection – particularly on questions of product
durability, sustainability and fair trade. Other measures might include: banning
advertising to children, the establishment of commercial-free zones and times, and a
funded right of reply to advertisers’ claims.
Examples/precedents: Scandinavian advertising policies; public transport ‘quiet
zones’; Brazil’s Lei Cuidade Limpa.
C
Respecting Ecological Limits
The material profligacy of consumer society is depleting key natural resources and
placing unsustainable burdens on the planet’s ecosystems (Chapter 5). Establishing
clear resource and environmental limits and integrating these limits into both
economic functioning (Chapter 8 and Appendix 2) and social functioning (Chapter
9) is essential. The following three policy suggestions contribute to that task.
10
Page 103 Imposing clearly defined resource/emissions caps
A lasting prosperity requires a much closer attention to the ecological limits of
economic activity. Identifying and imposing strict resource and emission caps is vital
for a sustainable economy. The contraction and convergence model developed for
climate- related emissions should be applied more generally. Declining caps on
throughput should be established for all non-renewable resources. Sustainable yields
should be identified for renewable resources. Limits should be established for per
capita emissions and wastes. Effective mechanisms for imposing caps on these
material flows should be set in place. Once established, these limits need to be built
into the macro-economic frameworks developed in 1 above.
Example/precedent: UK climate change budgets; the Supplier Obligation; rationing
– post-war and Cuba; contraction & convergence proposals; Kyoto and post- Kyoto
negotiations; concept of ecological space.
11
Fiscal Reform for Sustainability
The argument for an ecological tax reform – a shift in the burden of taxation from
economic goods (e.g. incomes) to ecological bads (e.g. pollution) – has been broadly
accepted for at least a decade and has been implemented in varying degrees across
Europe. But progress towards this goal has been painfully slow. In the UK the
proportion of taxation from green taxes is now lower than it was in 1997. There’s an
urgent need to achieve an order of magnitude step-change in the structure of
taxation. A sustained effort by government is now required to design appropriate
mechanisms for shifting the burden of taxation from incomes onto resources and
emissions.
Example/precedent: UK Government 1997 Statement of Intent on Environmental
Taxation; Danish, German experience in Ecological Tax Reforms; the UK Green
Fiscal Commission (reporting 2009).
106 Prosperity without Growth? Sustainable Development Commission
12
Promoting Technology Transfer and Ecosystem Protection
A key motivation for redefining the basis of prosperity in advanced economies is to
make room for much-needed growth in poorer nations. But as these economies
expand there will also be an urgent need to ensure that development is sustainable
and remains within ecological limits. International policy will be required to establish
Page 104 a global technology fund to invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency, carbon
reduction, and the protection of ‘carbon sinks’ (e.g. forests) and biodiversity in
developing countries. This could be funded through a carbon/ resource levy
(payable by importers) on imports from developing countries, or through a Tobin
tax on international currency transfers.
Example/precedent: Global Environmental Facility, Clean Development
Mechanism; Development Aid targets; funding provisions of the UN Biodiversity
Convention.
In summary, these 12 steps offer the foundations for a comprehensive policy
programme to make the transition to a sustainable economy. There is a unique
opportunity here for government to demonstrate economic leadership and
champion international action on sustainability. But it’s also essential to develop
financial and ecological prudence at home. And we must also begin to redress the
perverse incentives and damaging social logic that lock us into unproductive status
competition and materialistic consumerism.
Above all, there is an urgent need to develop a new ecologically-literate macroeconomics capable of offering meaningful guidance for a lasting prosperity: a
prosperity that for now at least will have to do without growth; and may eventually be
able to replace it altogether.
Page 105 Letter/s sent out on Economics
Letter to ‘All’ my Work on Economics
3.6.15
To Helen Peddington (Case Manager), Dr Sarah Berriman (new Registrar), Zoe
Daniel (ABC), Elizabeth Broderick (Sex Discrimination Commissioner
This is a general letter about where I’m at. I hope you enjoy the discussions etc. I do
think Elizabeth Broderick was fantastic on Australian Story in relation to her work
with the Chief of Army David Morrison now retired. Also her work with MCC
(Male Champions of Change) male CEO’s working for greater equality within their
businesses. I really hope she gets another term as Discrimination Commissioner.
Before I go onto economics issues I want to address a point Helen Peddington
made last visit to the clinic. I wrote of transcending country boarders by developing
‘good’. Whether that be things like:
• My new church model to teach the world, and for individuals, having learnt all
to decide for themselves what they believe.
• At church (for a quarter of a year every four years) learning different
disciplines to see what cross generational education can do for society,
disciplines like maths.
• Having emergency shelters at all churches (would not really work in third
world countries)
• Making up new stories to teach the community which depict men and women
as equal leaders in society.
• New Olympics – events of response scenarios to man made and natural
disasters.
• Obviously female priests and I hope in equal number to male priests
• A fairer education system than private and state.
• Equal number of females in politics
• There are more ideas…..that’s a brief summary off the top of my head.
So I believe the above ideas good and I hope such transcends country boarders.
Helen is correct the land grabs were not specifically about having power over
another country. Although you could go through some wars like WWII and other
wars which were partly about white supremacy. I agree with Helen that most land
grab wars were over economics, money. I a presently reading economics but I do
have books on the Boer and Opium wars. I don’t want to conclude on whether
Page 106 English tactics and wars over economics were unjust without reading such first, I
suspect so, but not for sure. I am interested in reading over what Captain Cook was
involved in with the French in Canada too etc..etc..etc. So one could conclude
generally that land grabs wars were mainly over economics and somewhat believing
that one group of people are superior than another. I don’t believe I’m superior
than anyone else (maybe criminals) but I do think my ideas are good.
My stance on the subject of Foreign Aid which was somewhat discussed with Helen.
I am on the disability pension and I understand within the bounds of cost of living it
is not much to live off at all. I worry if the budget is not put back to being in the
black the governments position to provide people like me with a ‘basic’ standard of
living becomes hard. I think that we are going to face hard times in the future
particularly over food security, and life after peak oil. I possibly have the answer to
the peak oil – Joule Fuel, but Joule has not replied to me over questions about their
fuel. http://www.jouleunlimited.com
Getting back to the subject, I understand there are people like myself on the pension
trying to have a basic standard of living and thus I believe charity begins at home. So
I am in favour of cuts to foreign aid. However, I am a fan of developing an emphasis
in the community which I believe is partially there but needs to be improved upon,
and that is people who have money donate more than present to institutions like
OXFAM etc Having read half way through The Dummies Guide to Islam there is
an emphasis in that religion to donate to charity, a percentage of income. I dropped
Islam to read economics which I hope you will read and understand why.
Other issues with Foreign Aid. I can conclude for myself that Apartheid was wrong.
That the British were wrong to side with the Boers (Dutch) to run South Africa. The
native population should always have been involved in governance from the start
than pushed to the side and treated very badly. I note though back home in the UK
the people were to a large extent treated the same in terms of the class system. I can
go into several examples of the manipulation of the ruling class to maintain
superiority in the UK. I’ll give you one, that professional fraternities charged it’s
members quite a lot of money to be a member, trying to weed out people who
couldn’t afford the fees….thus education was restricted.
So the issue of Apartheid…. It was wrong to treat native people in South Africa like
dirt and it was wrong to do the same at home in the UK. So Australia is a colony of
the UK and thus I think for past deeds we should try to right the ledger and help out
were we can financially for the way such people in South Africa were treated and in
other parts of the world. It would be nice if there was pressure put on the rich who
have been abusing labor around the world to cough up!!! On our aid budget I would
be interested to find out how long our foreign aid budget has existed, how far we
have gone to help people we have treated like dirt. Obviously too there is the
Page 107 treatment economically of aboriginals such as lost wages, which needs correction.
My book on Indigenous issues I commend to you which is on my website.
The other issue of the aid budget is that Australia is one of the biggest consumer
societies in the world. I believe our consumption per capita is the largest in the world
and our carbon emissions are up there also. So I do think we have to take
responsibility to reduce carbon emissions and I do think we have to aid such
countries as those in the Pacific Island facing rising water due to warming.
Cutting this letter a bit. I stopped this letter to watch the weekly National Press Club,
the speaker was Rosie Batty and I’m not sure if you could address domestic violence
issues better than she did today. I totally agree with her that we have to challenge the
gender stereotypes we’re born into. With my work Rosza and I decided that
women’s place in society has been incorrect from the outset, we always should have
been equal. The survey’s of boys which Rosie mentioned, that there perception of
their place in society is one of dominance. Ms Batty also spoke extremely well of the
role the media has to address the issue.
Okay now for a main part of this letter, where I’m at in terms of my economic
reading. To refresh you I’ve dropped reading on religions and issues such as trade
ethics such as the Opium wars to read economics. I started this economic journey
from a challenge Dick Smith put forward in his National Press Club address, of that
you can’t have perpetual economic growth in a finite world. To most economists
economic growth is the be all and end all. The world only has so much zinc, copper
so the present economic situation, the rate we chew through resources is
unsustainable and ‘largely’ commodities are behind Australia’s recent wealth, the
growth in GDP.
To summarize somewhat the issue, is a quote from eminent economists Joseph
Stiglitz and Amarliga Sen – when responding to a question by former French
President Sarkozy. His question to these economists was: ‘How should we measure
Progress?’ they answered: ‘It may not be possible to increase the production,
especially goods, beyond a limit, because of the environmental damage that this
would entail…… As society progresses, it is not unreasonable to except people to
enjoy some of the fruit of that progress in the form of leisure.’ – This came from
Peter Victors youtube presentation.
So what have I learnt about my reading on economics??? I have been doing such
daily for some months now an hour minimum, and then I do half an hour of general
reading.
Well the issue is far from simple. The issue is not a case of we just lower our growth
projections. The librarian at ACF (Australian Conservation Foundation) has been
fantastic. Before I continue, my aim in learning about economics is to start filtering
Page 108 into society discussions of very pressing issues which you will read and are reading.
So the ACF librarian had obviously herself read on the issues I’m looking at and she
suggested watching two youtube videos listed below.
Jackson Tim – An Economic Reality Check – TED 2010
www.ted.com/talks/tim_jackson_s_economic_reality_check?
Dr. Peter Victor is an economist, Apr 15, 2013 - Uploaded by Science4Peace
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZI2RDNvd6M
The Peter Victor youtube is particularly interesting and I commend such for viewing.
I am now reading Tim Jackson’s book as I’ve just finished reading ‘Bigger or
Better?’ by professor Ian Lowe. Before I go on I think the issues around population
are nearly all economic and thus the title of my book came about.
So the reason I found the Peter Victor youtube so important and commend to you is
that the economic balancing act is crucial to the future. He presents charts in the
youtube which depict different ways of approaching the issue of growth. One of the
issues why I really want the Australian Budget back in the black is for the reason it is
very easy for a society to spiral out of control. So Professor Ian Lowe, Tim Jackson
and Peter Victor along with others do have an issue with growth projections. They
are among a few with such views. So Professor Ian Lowe the outgoing ACF
president in his book looks at the issue of material living standards. He does
question the measurement of living standards which presently is GDP – Gross
Domestic Product. Basically a measurement of material living. He doesn’t think it is
a good measurement of happiness and some economists have come up with other
alternative measurements but to present not an alternative measurement that has
stuck.
So basically Lowe is saying whilst you might have more money to spend on materials
with high economic growth such is not necessarily a degree of happiness. So whilst
you might be able to now afford x, y z product, how is the use of such materials to
make it affecting the environment???? Is the state of the environment critical to your
living standard?? Thus are a few economists right in questioning perpetual economic
growth of which most economists are striving?? There are environmental
considerations but there is also resource scarcity considerations and I don’t think
issues stop there.
Page 109 Economic Growth has been toughted by the West as the model to get the world out
of poverty. However, Kerry Higgs in her book MIT press ‘Collision Course’ if we
continued present economic practices it would take us 1500 years to get the world
out of poverty (another consideration). Ian Lowe, Tim Jackson and Peter Victor all
agree with her. Supposedly increased economic growth was meant to trickle money
down to the poorest in our society but rather the gap has increased between rich and
poor, with many people in the world living off $2 a day. So the money has remained
with a small rich few. A comment made by Lowe is pertinent to Australia that when
he was growing up poorer people had a fairer go than the present situation in
Australia. Another huge point I agree with Lowe on is that CEO’s relative to their
employees get paid bucket loads. Like Lowe I question whether the ever increasing
money to CEO’s is in relation to better leadership and on merit to earn more.
From being involved with ACF for years and years now and off general reading
through my life, I know that many CEO’s disregard environmental considerations.
Considerations like making products to last, the list of environmental issues is
endless. Another example is uranium mines leeching tailings into nearby rivers, as I
wrote the environmental degradation from many companies is out of this world yet
these CEO’s get paid buckets. This is another area of economics I will be looking
into but haven’t yet. I’ll be looking to make CEO’s accountable for their companies
impact on the environment. I know such is not easy, I think it was Lowe that wrote
that international agreements can get in the way of good environmental practice such
as free trade agreements. I think it is a joke that CEO’s get paid so much yet many
trash the environment. Teasing out such a particular issue may take much reading a
model for CEO ethics might take over six months to work on if not more. The US is
a very capitalist country and they hate regulation of the markets. It would seem
straight forward that from the beginning of time that CEO’s would have an ethics
code of conduct but with sweat shops in Bangladesh and very crude tin mines in
Indonesia the exploitation of labour and the environment is far from ethical. The
American capitalist way that was shoved down American’s throats over generations
by US big business is not ethical and good for the population as it promised. I rather
think unregulated capitalism is more a case of how many people can a business
screw over. I would imagine that many small businesses are ethical to their
communities, but the big companies from what I’ve read over the years are not in
the slightest ethical and the CEO’s get paid fortunes for screwing people over, it has
to stop!!!
So Peter Victor in his youtube presentation gives examples of two different ways to
tackle economic growth (in the form of graphs), one spirals the economy out of
control and the other has the desired affect of maintaining a standard of living whilst
tackling affects of markets on the environment and carbon in the atmosphere. I do
not understand how to achieve the two differences presently, I need to go over
Page 110 watching the presentation several times which I will do. The point I’m trying to make
is that tackling economic growth can have an affect on many variables and it is not a
cut and dried issue.
I did go back to that presentation of the two graphs: One just sheerly cut economic
growth which had the following consequences:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Unemployment sky rocketed
Poverty sky rocketed
Debt to GDP Ratio sky rocketed
And Emissions went down slightly
GDP down
The second graph he showed called ‘A better low / no growth scenario: delivered
the outcomes required and such occurred using the following parameters.
1. New meanings and measures of success
2. Fewer status goods
3. Limits on materials, energy, wastes and land use
4. Stable population and labour force
5. Carbon price – more informative prices
6. More efficient capital stock
7. Shorter work year
8. Education for life not just work
9. More generous anti poverty programs
When the above were modelled the resulting graph showed:
1. Poverty down
2. GDP slightly up
3. Unemployment down
4. Emissions go down a lot then stable
5. Debt to GDP ratio is down and stable
The above is a Canadian model.
Another example with different parameters. Presently Australia’s population policies
are on a stupid irresponsible trajectory a conclusion I’ve come to through reading.
We should be trying to have a net increase in population (from reading) of 30
thousand a year not 350,000 a year (Lowe). My example though is if Australia
increases it’s population but economic growth doesn’t go up. Given that scenario
that would mean you’re monetary living standard is dropping. More people but not
more money. So you do to a point if there is expanding population, to maintain
monetary living standards growth has to go up.
Page 111 I will jump around a bit: So I am not precisely against economic growth having read.
I do totally agree with the books I’ve been reading that to question economic growth
is totally the correct path. I wrote to my council to tour the waste facilities, I received
a very quick response and my best friend Rosza and I toured the facility last Tuesday
morning. I think in the future and agree, I believe it was Lowe, who wrote that future
generations are going to be gobbed smacked about how much we threw away to
landfill. I went to the facility wondering where we were at, where are we now?? As I
had toured VISY in Geelong over ten years ago. I am very pleased that it has come a
long way. However, there is still a way to go. I do think that recycling in the future is
going to be big business. Whilst we are getting better at recycling computer and
mobile phones we are not good at recycling other electrical goods. However, our
fantastic guide Sam Di Giovanni said that Boroondara are looking to, in about
August, having facilities to take all electrical goods in which they hope to fix them
where possible and sell them off or where not possible to fix, recycle. I hope such is
a succuss!!!! So I hope we recycle all we can and make money from it, so I would
like to see economic growth from recycling.
Tim Jackson in the book I’ve just started reading talks about decoupling. My
understanding of decoupling of which I’m yet to read the chapter on. Decoupling is
about separating material goods from the economic equation or somewhat
decoupling material goods.
So looking into CEO ethics and how to enforce with regulation best practice such
will take awhile. Too, decoupling will take awhile for me to understand properly and
then in my online book (my website) start pointing to new practices. I think
environmentalist David Suzuki is correct which I have written before.. that you ask
yourself when purchasing goods, do I really need it?? Again, Australia’s
consumption is one of the highest in the world and it does have an affect, we are
contributing green house gases and of course environmental degradation. So I do
think Australians really need to shift their way of thinking to ‘do I really need this’?
Such a way of thinking will have an affect on consumerism and thus I come back to
the point dealing with such issues is far from easy and I just think that Government
has put it in the too hard basket. So I do think Kevin Rudd was very wrong to give
out his $900 stimulus package. I think we need to ‘decouple’ rather than encourage
consumerism. I think some businesses have to accept lower growth, particularly
companies of consumer goods. Again, decoupling, that stimulus money should have
gone to stimulate industries of the future, like solar money to companies using
recycled goods etc. That money probably did the reverse, it probably stimulated
companies that need to accept a declining market not an expanding market. Lowe in
his book on population and as the former president of ACF makes comments about
agricultural practice around Australia where open water channels are still in
operation, spray irrigation too. The government could have brought in legislation
Page 112 where the use of open irrigation channels and spray irrigation are illegal, which
would have forced farmers to simulate the market of alternative and affective
irrigation technology. There could have been a number, a myriad, of small policy
changes and legislation to stimulate products of the future. So growth does not
necessarily have to fall but definitely from my reading the present situation has major
issues.
Below are some exerts out of Professor Tim Jacksons book I’m reading currently
reading: Prosperity without Growth:
So he is pointing to the direction of my thinking, my comments on the Rudd
stimulus…that green stimulus would have been better.
•
•
•
providing a much-needed boost to employment in the expanding
‘environmental industries’ sector
making progress towards demanding global carbon reduction targets
protecting valuable ecological assets and improving the quality of our living
environment for generations to come.
In short, a ‘green stimulus’ is an eminently sensible response to the economic crisis.
It offers jobs and economic recovery in the short term, energy security and
technological innovation in the medium term, and a sustainable future for our
children in the long term.
Page 10 and 11
What we still miss from this is a viable macro- economic model in which these
conditions can be achieved. There is no clear model for achieving economic stability
without consumption growth. Nor do any of the existing models account fully for the
dependency of the macro-economy on ecological variables such as resources and
emissions. In short there is no macro-economics for sustainability and there is an
urgent need for one.
Against the surge of consumerism there are already those who have resisted the
exhortation to ‘go out shopping’, preferring instead to devote their time to less
materialistic pursuits, to their family, or to the care of others.
Small scale ‘intentional’ communities (like the Findhorn community in Scotland or
Plum Village in France) are exploring the art of the possible. Larger social
movements (such as the ‘transition town’ movement) are mobilising people’s desire
to live more sustainably. These initiatives don’t appeal to everyone. But they do
provide an invaluable learning ground, giving us clues about the potential for more
mainstream social change.
Page 113 The policy demands of this analysis are significant. Chapter 11 presents a series of
steps that governments could take now to effect the transition to a sustainable
economy. Box 1 summarises these steps. They fall into three main categories:
efforts, progress towards sustainability remains painfully slow. And it tends to stall
endlessly on the over-arching commitment to economic growth. A steep change in
political will – and a renewed vision of governance – is essential.
But there is now a unique opportunity for government – by pursuing these steps – to
demonstrate economic leadership and at the same time to champion international
action on sustainability. This process must start by developing financial and
ecological prudence at home. It must also begin to redress the perverse incentives
and damaging social logic that lock us into unproductive status competition.
Page 12
Above all, there is an urgent need to develop a resilient and sustainable macroeconomy that is no longer predicated on relentless consumption growth. The
clearest message from the financial crisis of 2008 is that our current model of
economic success is fundamentally flawed. For the advanced economies of the
Western world, prosperity without growth is no longer a utopian dream. It is a
financial and ecological necessity.
• building a sustainable macro-economy
• protecting capabilities for flourishing
• respecting ecological limits.
Box 1: 12 Steps To a Sustainable Economy
Building a Sustainable Macro-Economy
Debt-driven materialistic consumption is deeply unsatisfactory as the basis for our
macro-economy. The time is now ripe to develop a new macro-economics for
sustainability that does not rely for its stability on relentless growth and expanding
material throughput. Four specific policy areas are identified to achieve this:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Developing macro-economic capability
Investing in public assets and infrastructures
Increasing financial and fiscal prudence
Reforming macro-economic accounting
Protecting Capabilities for Flourishing
Page 114 The social logic that locks people into materialistic consumerism is extremely
powerful, but detrimental ecologically and psychologically. A lasting prosperity can
only be achieved by freeing people from this damaging dynamic and providing
creative opportunities for people to flourish – within the ecological limits of the
planet. Five policy areas address this challenge.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Sharing the available work and improving the work-life balance
Tackling systemic inequality
Measuring capabilities and flourishing
Strengthening human and social capital
Reversing the culture of consumerism
Respecting Ecological Limits
The material profligacy of consumer society is depleting natural resources and
placing unsustainable burdens on the planet’s ecosystems. There is an urgent need
to establish clear resource and environmental limits on economic activity and
develop policies to achieve them. Three policy suggestions contribute to that task.
10. Imposing clearly defined resource/emissions caps
11. Implementing fiscal reform for sustainability
12. Promoting technology transfer and international ecosystem protection.
The above was a summary from Professor Tim Jacksons book ‘Prosperity without
Growth’ from the Summary.
Another quote I liked on this which came from Peter Victors youtube presentation
was this:
From Larry Elliot (economics editor) 29th August 2008 – The Guardian Weekly
‘The real issue is whether it is possible to challenge the “growth at any cost model”
and come up with an alternative that is environmentally benign, economically robust
and politically feasible’.
The other comment I liked from reading was just the short term ‘green growth’.
I note I am not even reading through this letter once. The reason being is that I’m
saving money by walking to officeworks this letter is too big to print out at home. I
don’t have another time to walk there, I’ve taken today off the gym to finish this.
Finally, I have written how I would like to write history in past letters. I have tried
many times to find someone to help tell the story I believe to be right. For one that
Page 115 females should always have had equality of leadership in society.. that I’d like to be
gay over such (I hoped such would be a post it note to future generations that whats
happened is not okay). I’ve tried many times to find someone, I wrote to Zoe that I
will be by myself than tell an alternative story but I’m not so sure about that. I will do
what I can but.
I note my books are still online wwww.lisawilliamscaptaincook.com …. The
economics book is now quite large.. but with much work to do. There is much more
on that website than my books.. religion etc..etc Again the youtube presentations on
economic growth I commend.
I hope you find the economics update important.
Regards
Lisa A Williams
I forgot a few points:
The first is that carbon emissions need to drastically be reduced more than
significantly. I can read up the figures but I think people are aware of this, the change
required is very significant. So there are two reasons we have to decouple economics.
1. We have reduce the consumption of goods for the reason that we don’t have
perpetual resources. Doing this also is a matter of saving resources to for future
generations, not that we haven’t already consumed resources at a phenomenal
rate.
2. We have to cut consumption due to the energy required / carbon emissions for
a safe world.
Peter Victor stated at the end of his hour youtube presentation what he is looking to
do in the future:
Four Challenges Ahead
• A financial system that saves the real economy
• A real economy that serves the interests of people and communities
• Absolute reductions in throughput
• Stem loss of biodiversity
So that’s his to do list. I’m doing very similar.
Regards,
Lisa A Williams
Letter to CEO of ACF – an Idea to ‘start’ to turn the economy to Environmental
Sustainability
16.6.15
To CEO Kelly O’Shanassy C/O Laura
Page 116 For the last 9 months I’ve been studying economics. I’ve been doing such because Dick
Smith in his National Press Club address questioned to the audience that we cannot
have perpetual growth in a finite world. He did not come up with an idea for a solution
he left it for others to work out and I thought I’d have a crack and thus have been
reading on economics.
The problem he has put forward again: you can’t have perpetual growth in a finite
world. Well people that I’ve been reading like Tim Jackson, care of the ACF library, also
Librarian Anjte emailed me some youtube presentations on the issue from Peter Victor
and again Tim Jackson.
Jumping: At the AGM for ACF last year talking about Dick Smiths issues, outgoing
president Ian Lowe suggested I read ‘Collision Course’ MIT press by Australian Kerryn
Higgs. I did also read a general Australian Economics book twice once by myself and
once with a family friend – that book was mainly life after the mining boom by
Professor Ross Garnaut, ‘Dog Days’.
Anyway I can understand why Dick Smith himself is not trying to find the exact
solution and that is because for the last 50 years our society has made economic
growth the be all and end all. The be all and end all at first from English economist
John Maynard Keynes was that of full employment then society started to realise to
have full employment people needed to sell stuff and thus Economic Growth became
the be all and end all.
So everyone on this subject is having trouble finding a solution. So I am not 100% sure
admitting that economic growth is bad… to aim for decreased economic growth
completely stuffs the economy…les jobs, less jobs less tax… it is why this issue has
been so hard.
So I intend to read on economics widely over the foreseeable future. As I read I’ve been
mulling over the issues. So the reason I’m writing is I have a tiny idea to try and
address the issue: Buying cards from OXFAM the cards associated with aiding a
particular poverty issue. So you buy a $50 card for a present and that buys so many
goats or things like water for a community. Such is a financial transaction which
includes the employment of staff etc .. etc So I think ACF should look into such cards
that people can buy such to address and environmental issues. I don’t think this has
been done yet???? If it is aiding an endangered animal, the card could be like $50 or
less but also with information about the animal. So I could buy such a card for like my
Nephew’s birthday he can read about the animal and I can tell him I’m trying to leave
you with a better world.
So having read a few books on this subject that’s the best idea I’ve come up with yet,
to try and turn the present economic growth around, that based on consumer goods. I
don’t think Rudd was right to hand out $900 and say .. go spend, go consume. To
stated the obviously consuming is hurting our world in so many ways… chewing up
finite resources and degrading so much of our world.
So as I’ve said the best solution I’ve come up with yet is environmental cards aiding a
particular environmental problem. Again, such would be included in growth figures,
create employment etc etc. I would hope in the future we can say to communities
across the world instead of buying x novelty item why not spend money to protect the
world for future generations and buy the above described cards.
Page 117 Then comes the issue of CEO responsibility to the community. There has been a
widening between rich and poor and the rich getting paid more are not earning
‘generally’ their money as many multinational corporations trash the environment. So a
code of conduct is another issue… to widening inequality. Too, issues of shareholder
profits at the expense of the environment, linked to the CEO issue.
So my solution presently in environmental cards as explained… like the Oxfam cards.
Regards,
Lisa A Williams
Captain Cook Family
Letter on labour standards to CEO of ACF Kelly (economic sustainability etc
issues)
17.6.15
To CEO Kelly O’Shanassy C/O Laura
Sorry to bother you again. So obviously the idea in the last email dated 16.6.15 was
‘an’ idea, one of many that are required to turn our society away from consumerism, to
a society that lives within our ecological limits. A society that leaves the world in good
shape for future generations.
Before I go on I’d love a reply email to say you’re received the two emails, I haven’t
used the email address I have for awhile and I’d like to know that it’s gone to the right
person.
Continuing: In that letter I told you that I have been reading several economics books
over sometime now to try and solve issues of economic sustainability.
I have been working on numerous issues for a very long time, I jump from one societal
issue to another. Mine safety, (new fuel ‘Joule fuel’ - http://www.jouleunlimited.com),
Indigenous the work is pretty much endless. Some issues I’m completely stumped over
but I mull away at things over years.
This may not work: but I think I’ve come up with the only solution to the issue of world
wide working conditions.
I’m not sure if you’re aware but Australia just shortly after New Zealand was a first
country to enact in law the minimum wage. I too believe there is history in Melbourne, I
think the stone masons. for fighting for the hours of the working week. So what’s the
issue: Well countries like China and Bangladesh undermine both, both the hours of the
working week and a decent minimum wage.
I have thought previously because we were the leaders on such that it was our job,
Australia’s job to bring China etc to justice, that a descent standard of living is correct
and to undermine such is wrong. To fight for financial compensation from china etc for
industries lost over such issues in Australia. I must admit I do have a book to read on
the Opium wars to see if our heritage has been incorrect in the past too, I’m still to
read it and I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as it may seem.. still to read.
Page 118 So my conclusion over China etc is to try and get compensation from work lost from
Australia due to the above, well it diplomatically would be suicidal, it possibly ‘would’,
could cause a nasty reaction from China. The only way one could do this is to take
China to an international court over such, I have no idea how one would do such.
So mulling over this I came up with another solution tonight. I am not a free trade
person, having read economics free trade has meant no environmental responsibility
(in banking sectors etc it’s been financial irresponsibility too) etc. So I think my idea
would be in breach of the new fair trade agreements. The idea is to tax all goods from
around the world where the product is made not meeting Australia’s living standards,
that of the working week and that of a basic minimum wage. It maybe first hard to
implement but I think worth it. If a company is not forth coming over how the product
is made then the item is banned from the Australian market. So this is the only
solution I’ve come up with to try and address the issue of standards of living. I think
again trying to bring China to justice over such would be hard… but due to the history
of being the first on such I do think it’s our job to chase it up.
So if we can start putting taxes on goods made using bad labour conditions this could
help Australia. But due to ecological issues we do need also to change our consumer
society. Although the Oxfam card idea: Having greeting cards which you buy for $20 +
where the money goes towards an environmental problem… that the card has the
information about the environmental issue. It maybe a simple idea copying it from
OXFAM but if we start to ‘try’ and make it a socially norm way to help the environment,
we could do a lot of good. I don’t believe it’s been done for environment causes??? As
appose to poverty causes OXFAM???
Okay so tax goods coming into Australia made from bad labour conditions. I think
there should be a two part solution to goods that are made not to last. First that once
it’s been established that a product has been made not to last that it is taxed, taxed
too over working conditions if that’s been breached also, but if the item is found to be
made for the short term has been taxed but continues to be produced its banned from
Australia.
So the general idea of this letter is to make Australia competitive again in making good
quality ‘necessary’ goods. Slowly weaning society off consumerism. Noting from
economic reading I conclude if you tried to suddenly get ride of consumerism
unemployment would sky rocket the economy would stuff up majorly. So I do believe
in decoupling from a consumerism society but not all at once. Having also read
Professor Ian Lowe’s book ‘Bigger or Better?’ I agree with a stable population of net
migration of 30,000 a year not 350,000.
I may not have the answers to the problems I’ve just discussed but it’s the best I can
come up with. Love debate. One issue would be stuffing with your biggest trading
partner (China) but what else can we do??? Start making stuff here???
Regards,
Lisa A Williams
Tax Letter on Company Breeches to Environment and Labor laws (Australia)
19.6.15
Page 119 To Helen Peddington (Case Manager), Dr Sarah Berriman (new Registrar), Zoe Daniel
(ABC), Elizabeth Broderick (Sex Discrimination Commissioner) and Kelly O’Shanassy
(CEO ACF) C/O Laura
I am attaching to this letter, two letters (emails) of ideas sent to CEO Kelly O’Shanassy.
To Kelly, it is a long explanation as to who the people being sent this letter are.
Possibly I’ve been through hell. Broderick I’ve been writing to for years it has been on
equality issues in the church but my work is pretty broad now and I send my work
through to her for a general read. I went to read Zoe’s book on her time as a foreign
correspondent for the ABC, struggling for money she sent it to me. It is an excellent
book, Storyteller.
So the reason for this letter is I’m quite excited about an idea I’ve had. I am still
thinking it through, the implications of trying to do it. Please read the second letter to
Kelly for the background on this. I would be just typing it out again.
Instead of trying to take China to the international court for undermining the minimum
wage and hours of the working week etc. I think China would see that as antagonistic
and I think the threats would come fast and thick in trying to do it. I note it is
Australia’s battle to fix this, well I believe it’s our job, we have the history, please see
ACF- Kelly letter two.
Before I go on: I am problem solving with myself on this and am more than open to
debate to solve such issues: So if Australia did introduce a tax on goods coming into
the country which undermine our labor laws, that of the basic minimum wage and the
hours of the working week.
In bringing in a tax on dodgy goods breaching our laws of standard of living, it is not
specifically aimed at China, it’s any good produced anywhere in the world that
contradicts our labour laws.
I watch Four Corners on the ABC virtually every Monday. I am pretty sure it was Four
Corners that did the documentary on working conditions in China in terms of goods
being produced for Apple. In the same documentary there was a case study of labour
issues with Tin mines in Indonesia. So Apple (USA) corporate office do have a supply
chain policy but it was being breached in a massive way in the factories in China and in
how the Tin was being supplied from Indonesia.
So say Australia chooses to tax Apple goods because of the massive breaches to their
supply chain policy which also breaches Australia’s labor laws. Some of the issues
we’re talking about are:
Unregulated mining of Tin in Indonesia has very unsafe practices (very high injury rate
/ death due to landslides). The Tin is mined at a fraction of the cost of properly
constructed mines. I note here I think it’s pretty darn clear Apple is turning a blind eye
both to issues in their China supply change and in Indonesia. So the Tin mining in
Indonesia is massively dodgy, it’s not just how it’s being mined with no safety it’s also
supporting an illegal underground movement with the people brokering the illegally
mined Tin.
So my suggestion is that how we tax such businesses, like how the ATO (Australian
Tax Office) somewhat works, they look at random issues. So I am suggesting an
Page 120 Australian body randomly investigates such issues. I think the ACCC is supposed to do
this but it doesn’t.
So my idea is having a check list. Is the product breaching labour laws in Australia. If
yes is it a minimum wage (standard of living) being breached if so a tax on the product
is applied. Are hours of the working week being breached if so another tax would be
imposed. In the production line is the environment being degraded and hence another
tax. Is the product being made for a short life span, another tax. So there would be a
list of breaches with individual taxes being applied to each breach.
So my thought when coming up with this idea is that it’s going to make goods a lot
more expensive for consumers in Australia. Because it’s the Australian consumer who
is going to pay the tax or the real price of the product in the scheme of things. This
could / would create an issue of retail sales, so the retail market may fall. However,
this is partially the idea. Meaning that consumer goods are very much undervalued as
to their social and environmental impact. There have been letters on economics from
me, which was I believe well received, in addressing the economic issue of economic
growth. Teasing out the issue presented by Dick Smith (National Press Club Address)..
you can’t have perpetual economic growth in a finite world???
So such taxes as hopefully explained above would hurt the retail market. It would fly in
the face of Kevin Rudds Stimulus ….go out and consume.
However, thinking about it, it’s what you do with the new tax money. Apple might
possibly address supply chain issues to have a competitive market in Australia. My
understanding is Apple is the biggest company in the world with the highest profits,
am I correct on that?? Maybe they might forgo such huge profits to start being ethical.
Anyway…thinking on this, the money from the tax, the money could be used in a
number of ways, ways I’m suggesting:
1. The money could be used to address environmental issues in Australia and
around the world. Such would create jobs and stimulate the economy in another
way.
2. Such tax money could be used to produce goods in Australia, reinventing the
manufacturing industry….. as long as environmental and labour laws are
adhered to. But, on this, part of my plan is taking up the issue of ‘decoupling’
an issue presented by environmental economists such as Tim Jackson and Peter
Victor and the like. Decoupling meaning decoupling the economy away from
consumer products which use finite resources etc. Finite resources meaning we
do not have an endless supply of resources and we do have a responsibility to
future generations to properly manage the consumption of such resources so
they have some such resources at their disposal.
3. Part of the money from the tax could be used in foreign aid, given standards are
met. What I mean is that we support foreign entities who have proper labour
laws. I note on this I want to reduce poverty and like issues in Australia first but
I am interested addressing world poverty using economics.
I do note with my idea Australian companies would not be exempt from the supply
change scrutiny and taxes for breaches.
So taxing companies could be flying in the face of international free trade agreements.
I do differ from Hillary Clinton on this, she is a fan of the free market I’m not. Not if it
Page 121 is flying in the face of the above labour and environmental standards. Hillary Clinton
does write in her book about an incident with a Chinese activist that America briefly
harboured in the US Chinese Embassy, the US mainly Hillary decided to take in the
activists partially to uphold US values. I want to tax goods dodgely produced to stand
up for our values.
So in Hillary’s book she talks up the (TPP) Trans-Pacific Partnership (one of many free
trade agreements. However, ACF (Australian Conservation Foundation) has issues with
it. ‘Apparently’ a company can sue a government if a government legislates a change
which impacts on a companies bottom line. If this did go to court that a company is
loosing money because of my idea of introduced taxes on dodgely produced goods….
It would be interesting to see who would win.
I note I have discussed this for the first time with a lady from church. She said that we
used to have tariffs to protect Australian businesses. We agreed that the tariffs went
with deregulation in the Hawke and Keating eras, also the time of the floating of our
dollar. I don’t see my ‘taxes’ as tariffs. I see it as companies breaking labour and
environmental laws. There was another Four Corners episode where international
labourers were being majorly abused… extremely poor accommodation…. Massive
working hours, not getting the minimum wage etc..etc this was happening in Australia.
So again Australian companies wouldn’t be exempt.
I note discussing this idea of taxes, there could be a backlash from trading partners,
however, I think it’s worth a go. I note even though the USA always upholds the ideas
of a freemarket they do protect through tariffs their gas supply, is my understanding.
They do such for purely economic reasons, to keep gas prices down for the domestic
market. Something Australia (my understanding) doesn’t do but should.
I will be addressing a list of issues in this letter.
I note today 19.6.15 as also dated above. On the news whilst I was on the Cross
Trainer I believe the Pope is also looking at this. Environmental issues and issues of
greed. This was addressed in my book thus far on economics (on my web page)
www.lisawilliamscaptaincook.com. In that book of mine it does look at Kerryn Higgs
book ‘Collision Course’ MIT press, that book is nearly completely on how USA business
has screwed the world. I would agree with the Pope from that reading that it was
largely USA big business greed that has caused so many economic issues. Margaret
Thatcher also pushed the free market and free market means to me little fiscal
regulation and for many businesses complete disregard for the environment. So that
book said that if the freemarket continued as present it would take 1500 years to get
the world out of poverty. So I agree with the Pope. I am pretty much always honest and
I can honesty say I had no idea he’s looking into similar issues.
In all the economic books I’ve read on sustainability all say that population is a key
factor of world consumption issues and the like. It may be ‘one’ policy by the Vatican
but its impact is massive. That policy being not to use contraception. Can I go further
and say also lack of education to girls in terms of controlling fertility. I personally think
the reason for the policy was to say to the Catholic community ‘go out and procreate’
and thus expand the Catholic community across the world. So it may be ‘one’ Vatican
policy but its impacts on the world are enormous. I have read a CSIRO book called ‘The
Coming Famine’ by Julian Cribb and I know that in order to feed the worlds population
we basically have to double food production by 2050. Cribb predicts wars over food
security, if some already haven’t been partly a reason for conflict. So I think the Vatican
Page 122 has a lot to answer to. I am not sure but in discussing issues about consumption
(greed), as I saw on the TV today from the Pope is he promoting to the world
contraception education??? I think trying to expand the catholic world (how I see the
issue) is he driving consumption through a bigger population. Is trying to have a
bigger Catholic society a form of greed?? I have no idea the Pope’s stance on
contraception. He is ,however, a person who has for his life worked under the catholic
umbrella and that has been no contraction and in my opinion a complete disrespect for
women…etc..etc I wouldn’t be working under the Catholic umbrella to start with.
To CEO Kelly, the reason for writing to Broderick is that of bringing up issues of using
law to enforce female priests in all religions not just Protestant. Law was used in the
Protestant church in Melbourne to allow female bishops. Previously the synod had past
female priests but the synod did not pass female bishops, again that was legally won.
My family was in the thick of such issues. So if you can win the legal battle in the
Anglican church why not take up the legal battle in all religious denominations.
Anyway, thinking about such issues I have come up with my own religious model…to
teach all religions - again on my website particularly ‘Religion in Action’ and ‘Blog 4’.
This work is about eight years old.
So the Pope on TV today pointed out the issue of greed in society in particular
consumerism. I find uncontrolled population a form of greed to want to spread around
the world (given spreading was the intension which I think so). If the Catholic religion
is so good why not let it expand without stupid lack of contraception. I do note that on
the contraception issue Catholic families have from where I sit always been known to
be big families (general rule), so I really do think the policy is about expanding the
Catholic world. Any Pope could have said … smaller families please (population
responsibility).
World poverty is a huge issue, massive. The Pope today was not just talking about
greed but I believe like me greed and global warming go hand in hand. It is our
consumption of goods and thus energy that has created global warming issues.
I will note two things here: I am not generally an overall competitive person, well. I
don’t go out of my way to do it in general but over women’s place in society that is
different to me. Whatever religion or societal structure, I believe like my friend Rosza
that since the word dot women should always have been equal in society. I want to do
well to point out we can also do it well, that’s the aim. So in a past letter I used the
description that I want to cream the boys on issues, it is somewhat an aim.
I will come back to the Pope but this seems to be a good time to discuss Hillary
Clinton. For a more light hearted read away from economics I’ve been reading Hillary
Clinton’s ‘Hard Choices’ from her time as secretary of state. I am really enjoying it and
no where near finished. I think she has a similar mindset to me, she tells it as it is. I
was greatly impressed to read of her visit to Laos. Instead of ignoring the massive
amount of cluster bombs dropped in neutral Laos during the Vietnam war she rather
tried to do what she could to address the wrong. Many people in Laos have lost limbs
and lives whilst working in the fields. She went home to the US and petitioned for a
greater budget to help address the issue, probably never enough of a budget but she
tried. So the point I’m making here is she is not ignoring wrong doing on the part of
the USA. I was greatly impressed so far a whole chapter on USA – China relations and I
conclude she worked her butt off to work together. I could list many factors but this
letter would be too long. I will say though that I do like John Pilger a journalist, and I
know from twitter he is trying to create a documentary about the coming war between
Page 123 USA and China. I like him because he often tells the story how it is, however, I think he
really needs to read Hillary’s book because she has worked again her butt off to
progress a good relationship with China and she’s far from looking for conflict, the
complete opposite. So I don’t agree with many John Pilger documentaries but I like
taking things from them which is ‘somewhat’ honest about particular aspects of what
he’s reporting.
Still coming back to the Pope: Whilst I’m on the USA. I know they’re far from perfect
but since the end of WWII and I have written this before, they have been the worlds
Police. They helped win the war and the big point is who was going to police the world
as there was no international organisation to do such at the time. Well other than the
international women’s organisation (Women’s International League of Peace and
Freedom 1915). The US did put into motion the beginnings of the UN (United Nations).
So my stance is up until the UN can take over properly, the USA should be paid for
military compensation. Too, assisting nations. Fighting for such compensation has
been my work for years now.
So coming back to the Pope. I think that Pope Francis is one of the better Popes, he
seems to genuinely care, how he has appointed Cardinal Peel is another issue but he is
trying. I am in support of more people being concerned about Global Warming and the
like, it’s better that he’s doing something than not!!! I just wish he would apologise
and that of other religions for not including women as equals. Father Bob from
Melbourne said that such an issue was the fault of Vatican hierarchy, he hasn’t helped
though by following. I’m not such a fan of his (Bob) I have read some of his opinions.
I note this letter I will spend a bit more time on than the usual. Mainly because I have a
lot on.
I note I have specifically for awhile been reading on economic growth issues. Issues of
sustainable economics. I did read with a family friend chapter by chapter Professor
Ross Garnuats book ‘Dog Days’. A book not on sustainable economics which I don’t
particularly agree with, but it was a Australian specific economics book and in his book
he stated that not many economists focus specifically on Australia. I will read more
widely on sustainable economics but I’m interested in general economics too. I’ve just
bought a book called ‘Currency Trading for Dummies’ Kathleen Brooks and Brian
Dolan. I’m not going to read it with the intent to make money but just rather how the
system works. So I am generally reading also. An intension in wider reading is to close
loop holes for tax avoidance and the like.
Both Tim Jackson and Peter Victor, two sustainable economists. A solution to our
consumer society, both have come up with a solution of a smaller working week in
their models. Jackson states examples of some European countries who have such
policies. Personally I don’t know how the suggestion would work. I am totally against
changes to penalty wages on many counts, but I’m not sure how business would cope
with having to pay employees for a reduced working week and be competitive. Unless
society said that a reduced working week was indeed needed and we tax products from
other countries who disagree??? The only comment or thought I have is that many
people find little time to exercise with very busy lives. I’d possibly go for a 7 hour day
and one hour is set aside for exercise. Possibly too if we can afford to do it, maybe just
for the poor is to discount gym memberships.
I have come up with many ideas on society over the years. A token suggestion, I do
want the church to be back as the heart of society, with a change in content etc (my
Page 124 new model). Another suggestion other than having compulsory emergency rooms at all
churches (West Countries wouldn’t work in Africa). So other than emergency shelters is
having music rooms at churches. I’m not sure whether people take into consideration
having big houses so that people can separate kids who are learning music. If it is, why
not have music rooms at churches. Where parents can drop them off to practice??
Possibly not my best idea but, the churches would have to be safe. I just don’t know
how people put up with a child learning the drums!! There is a kid a couple of houses
way learning… I’d hate to be in the actual house!!! Sound proof church music rooms??
Could this help people to have smaller houses??
Kelly might be able to correct me here. I’m not good on this one but I’ll try. I hope I’ve
got the two systems correct. I am a fan of Labors carbon trading scheme. Rather than
the coalitions policy. My understanding is that money would be raised from the trading
scheme. In comparison the Coalition is giving out money for businesses to reduce their
emissions. So? One makes money and one gives it out??? I’m a fan of ‘making money’
so that we can further ‘decouple’ the economy to further make our society sustainable
and there is a huge amount of work to do. Huge, the amount of emission reductions
needed to achieve global targets is massive. So bring on the money, if I have that
right!!!
I note I need to get this letter printed at officeworks today, it’s the only time to do it
this week. I am eager to get my ideas out. I have read through it ‘once’ but I also
added to it after doing that. I hope it reads well.
There are really two main parts to the economics in this letter: Upholding our labour
conditions, a basic standard of living, it’s our history that led the world. But also
equally important is trying to decouple the economy away from endless consumer
goods which is having a huge impact on the environment. So using the proposed taxes
to create green jobs would be a high priority for me.
Thank you all for your time.
Regards,
Lisa A Williams
Page 125 Bibliography
Ebook
Professor Tim Jackson ‘Prosperity without Growth’- 2009 - Economics Commissioner
Sustainable Development Commission
www.sdcommission.org.uk/data/files/publications/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf
The above link does not work – I believe you have to buy the rights to access it.
Books
‘Australia’s Water Resources’ – From Use to Management, Pigram, John J, CSIRO
publishing 2006
‘Bigger or Better’ Australia’s population debate, Lowe Ian, First Published by
University of Queensland Press, 2012
‘Collision Course’, Higgs Kerryn, MIT Press, 2014
‘Dog Days’ Australia After The Boom, Garnaut Ross, Published by Redback, 2013
‘From Naked Ape to Superspecies’ Suzuki David and Dressel Holly, Greystone
books, 2004
‘Public Accounts and Estimates Committee – 2006-07’ - Parliament of Victoria
‘The Coming Famine’ The global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it, Cribb
Julian, CSIRO Publishing 2010
‘The Melbourne Anglican’, ‘Education, research vital for sustainable future’, page 4,
Director/ Editor – Roland Ashby, Anglican Media, Melbourne, April 2015, No535
Rosza Ganser, Notes from, Conversation with Archbishop Freier with MP’s Adam
Bandt and Kelly O’Dwyer
Youtube
Jackson Tim – An Economic Reality Check – TED 2010
Page 126 www.ted.com/talks/tim_jackson_s_economic_reality_check?
Dr. Peter Victor is an economist, Apr 15, 2013 -­‐ Uploaded by Science4Peace www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZI2RDNvd6M
Page 127 To Do List
• Green growth – youtube peter victor
Page 128