Can Australia any more afford an ecological deficit than it can afford a financial deficit?

Tue, 2010-09-28 17:26 by James Sinnamon

Reporting of Federal Parliament this morning was dominated with claims by Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey that the Budget is about to return to deficit and counter-claims by the Government that it is not.

The far more serious deficit, which got no mention, is the deficit to humanity's natural capital, caused by the consumption of non-renewable natural resources and the destruction of our natural environment, without which the global "economic recovery", in particular China's, would not be possible. Australia's rulers are banking on the increased demand for Australia's mineral wealth by China's vast manufacturing sector keeping prices high and money flowing into the Australian economy.

The ecological cost of the increased emission of global-warming carbon dioxide and other pollutants from China's factories and the consumption of mineral resources, which rightly belong to all future generations of Australians, as well as this one, got no mention. Also to dig up so much coal, much of Australia's natural and rural areas face devastation.

Even if China's "growth" were to continue, with its terrible environmental cost, the financial benefits to Australia are likely to be limited by other mining countries being able to fill much of the demand, thereby lowering the high prices upon which the Australian Government is depending.

The only truly sustainable economy is one which is not dependant upon the fortunes of overseas giants. Australia once had a manufacturing sector with a decently paid workforce that was able to meet almost all of its needs, even during the years of the Second World War._#main-fn1">1 Only by returning to an economy something like we had then can we hope to have true long term prosperity for all citizens which is not dependent, in a colonial fashion, upon the fortunes of large overseas nations.

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">[back] According to Armed and Ready - The Industrial Development and Defence of Australia 1900-1945 (1995), by Andrew T. Ross, produced as part of the Australian War Musem's "Australia remembers 1945-1995" commemoration, Australian defence capability alone, largely derived from its own defence manufacturing industries, dissuaded the Japanese from invading Australia in 1945. At meetings in February and March 1942, the Japanese Navy proposed that Australia be invaded. This was vetoed by the Japanese Army. The Japanese Army vetoed the Japanese Navy's wishes because its knowledge of the Australian armed forces and its strategic knowledge of the Australian economy convinced it that it would not be able to win a war on Australian soil (pp 408-409). Andrew Ross argues that the Japanese Army's assessment of Australia's defence capability was accurate. Ross's thesis has not been challenged by any other historian in any work comparably researched since then. That Australia's own domestic resources could dissuade such a powerful, populous and militarily effective nation from invading its territory, when it had the occupied nearly all the territory to our North is surely testimony to Australia's manufacturing capability back then. Since then, Australia's leaders have allowed the edge that we have achieved to be lost. Is it too late for this nation to be able to regain that edge?

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Bandicoot

Wed, 2010-09-29 08:58

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Ecological Overshoot Day

The world has gone into ecological overdraft. As of August 21, we’ve exceeded our natural ‘budget’ for the year. In other words, we’ve consumed 12 months worth of natural resources in under nine months. So how do we turn this around? It wasn’t always like this. Our planet used to be able to comfortably cope with the demands we all made on it. But for the last 30 years or so, the rate at which people have been using up the Earth’s ‘ecological services’ has been exceeding the rate that nature can provide them. Ecological Overshoot Day Last year, Earth Overshoot Day was observed on September 25, 2009. This year, overshoot day is estimated to come more than a month earlier in the year. Ironically, it was on the day of our Federal Election! In 1960, the ecological footprint of humankind required only 0.7 planet Earths. In 1980, it required only 1.0 planet Earth. In 2000, it required 1.2 Earths and continues to rise. If global warming and acidification of the world’s oceans place the biospheric life support system in disequilibrium, the planet’s carrying capacity will be dramatically reduced. This situation would not be good for either posterity or us. It is interesting that all of the major players -- scientists, economists, human rights workers and religious leaders, among others -- have no clear opinion on the ideal size of the human family. We are amazingly united in a pact of silence. Overpopulation, combined with overconsumption, is the elephant in the room, says Paul Ehrlich, 42 years after he wrote his controversial book, "The Population Bomb". We don't talk about overpopulation because of real fears from the past—of racism, eugenics, colonialism, forced sterilization, forced family planning, plus the fears from some of contraception, abortion, and sex. We don't really talk about overconsumption because of ignorance about the economics of overpopulation and the true ecological limits of Earth. The wall of silence is evident in politics, the media and the human herding instinct obscures the size of our "human family".

Can Australia any more afford an ecological deficit than it can afford a financial deficit?

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Ecological Overshoot Day

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