11 July 2017, The Conversation, Why a population of, say, 15 million makes sense for Australia. Population growth has profound impacts on Australian life, and sorting myths from facts can be difficult. This article is part of our series, Is Australia Full?, which aims to help inform a wide-ranging and often emotive debate. Neither of Australia’s two main political parties believes population is an issue worth discussion, and neither currently has a policy about it. The Greens think population is an issue, but can’t come at actually suggesting a target. Even those who acknowledge that numbers are relevant are often quick to say that it’s our consumption patterns, and not our population size, that really matter when we talk about environmental impact. But common sense, not to mention the laws of physics, says that size and scale matter, especially on a finite planet. In the meantime the nation has a bipartisan default population policy, which is one of rapid growth. This is in response to the demands of what is effectively a coalition of major corporate players and lobby groups. Solid neoliberals all, they see all growth as good, especially for their bottom line. They include the banks and financial sector, real estate developers, the housing industry, major retailers, the media and other major players for whom an endless increase in customers is possible and profitable. However, Australians stubbornly continue to have small families. The endless growth coalition responds by demanding the government import hundreds of thousands of new consumers annually, otherwise known as the migration intake. The growth coalition has no real interest in the cumulative social or environmental downside effects of this growth, nor the actual welfare of the immigrants. They fully expect to capture the profit of this growth program, while the disadvantages, such as traffic congestion, rising house prices and government revenue diverted for infrastructure catch-up, are all socialised – that is, the taxpayer pays. The leaders of this well-heeled group are well insulated personally from the downsides of growth that the rest of us deal with daily. A better measure of wellbeing than GDP The idea that population growth is essential to boost GDP, and that this is good for everyone, is ubiquitous and goes largely unchallenged. For example, according to Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report: Economic growth will be supported by sound policies that support productivity, participation and population — the ‘3Ps’. If one defines “economic growth” in the first place by saying that’s what happens when you have more and more people consuming, then obviously more and more people produce growth. The fact that GDP, our main measure of growth, might be an utterly inadequate and inappropriate yardstick for our times remains a kooky idea to most economists, both in business and government. Genuine progress peaked 40 years ago Read More here
Tag Archives: Economy
8 July 2017, Reuters, Leaders from the world’s leading economies broke with U.S. President Donald Trump on climate policy at a G20 summit on Saturday, in a rare public admission of disagreement and blow to multilateral cooperation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, keen to show off her skills as a mediator two months before a German election, achieved her primary goal at the meeting in Hamburg, convincing her fellow leaders to support a single communique with pledges on trade, finance, energy and Africa. But the divide between Trump, elected on a pledge to put “America First”, and the 19 other members of the club, including countries as diverse as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Argentina, was stark. Last month Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of a landmark international climate accord clinched two years ago in Paris. “In the end, the negotiations on climate reflect dissent – all against the United States of America,” Merkel told reporters at the end of the meeting. “And the fact that negotiations on trade were extraordinarily difficult is due to specific positions that the United States has taken.” The summit, marred by violent protests that left the streets of Hamburg littered with burning cars and broken shop windows, brought together a volatile mix of leaders at a time of major change in the global geo-political landscape. Trump’s shift to a more unilateral, transactional diplomacy has left a void in global leadership, unsettling traditional allies in Europe and opening the door to rising powers like China to assume a bigger role. Read More here
22 June 2017, Renew Economy, Australia’s new citizenship test: swear allegiance to Queen and Coal. The Coalition government’s new citizenship test appears to include talking points that might have been prepared by the coal industry in defending their role in climate change.Details of the extraordinarily complex reading material that new citizens are being asked to comprehend, in preparation for their citizenship tests, have been revealed in The Australian newspaper, which was concerned by the level of complexity in the language. What struck us at RenewEconomy from the examples used by The Australian was the nature of the content. It looked like marketing spiel from the coal industry, so we checked it out further. Take this, for example: “Clean coal is another avenue for improving fuel conversion efficiency. Investigations are under way into super-clean coal (35 per cent ash) and ultraclean coal (less than 1 per cent ash). Super-clean coal has the potential to enhance the combustion efficiency of conventional pulverised fuel power plants.” And on it goes. You can read more here. But having absorbed this, the hopeful new citizen is then given some practice multiple choice questions. Such as: Read More here and be astounded by the audacity!
8 June 2017, The Guardian, Australia’s carbon emissions rise in off-season for first time in a decade. Exclusive: On the eve of the long-awaited Finkel review, analysis shows Australia’s emissions rose sharply in the first quarter of 2017. Australia’s carbon emissions jumped at the start of 2017, the first time they have risen in the first few months of a year for more than a decade, according to projections produced exclusively for the Guardian. Emissions in the first three months of the year normally drop compared with the previous quarter, driven by seasonal factors and holidays. But in something not seen in since 2005, emissions rose in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the last quarter of 2016 by 1.54m tonnes of CO2, according to the study by consultants NDEVR Environmental. The rise was driven by increases in emissions from electricity generation. Government data on greenhouse gas emissions is released up to a full nine months after the end of a quarter. So NDEVR Environmental replicate the government data for the Guardian, releasing it about a month after the quarter finishes. The unseasonal rise in emissions continues a trend of rising national emissions which began in 2014 and which the government’s own modelling suggests will continue for decades to come, based on current policies. Read More here