Econews - Sunshine Coast

ECO talks with former Australian of the Year, author, scientist and renowned conservationist, Tim Flannery.

ECO: As far back as 1995 you were advocating a population policy by 2005 with an ultimate target looking out two centuries. Nothing has been done – in fact we seem to be heading to unsustainability at a much faster pace. What do you say to that?

TIM: I think that’s pretty much correct. Well, we need a population policy in this country rather than a series of programs that simply boost that population. We’ve got a number of pro-natalist programs and immigration programs, but we don’t have an over-arching population policy based on our environmental assessments, social assessments, and an economic assessment as to what the true population needs of our country are over the medium to long term. And that’s what we need.

ECO: How do you feel that even after all this time that the only decision as far as population policy is concerned is to not have a real decision at all and to let Australia head for limitless growth?
TIM: We have to win these battles but it takes a long time to do that. It took us a long time to get an environment minister in this country. Unfortunately, until enough people want this and understand the problem it doesn’t become a political priority. And, of course, one of the difficulties is we’re seeking to take something away from politicians effectively. At the moment they are at least arguably responsible for setting the programs and their parameters. It is all hard at the moment, but we have to keep pushing.

ECO: What size of population is sustainable in Australia and what should we do now that we may already be past that point?
TIM: We don’t know the sustainable population of Australia – and that’s one of the great tragedies. The government has never asked for a commission or commissioned a group to try to do that. That would be the first job of an independent body that would help set population targets into the future. But we just don’t know at the moment what the optimum population for this country is and therefore what sort of population size we should be aiming for by 2030 0r 2050.

ECO: Why can’t our leading decision-makers get their heads around this issue?
TIM: It’s a failing of all governments, not just this one. No government has done it before. Part of the problem is that government likes to have more taxpayers – they like growth just like businesses like to have more customers. They like growth as well.  But the populace as a whole doesn’t necessarily want high rates of growth. We have to deepen our democracy to the point where this becomes a real imperative politically.

ECO: Where should we be by 2020 let alone 2050 because of the world’s deteriorating food supply problem and with Australia having to feed more of its own? How will that change our dealings with the rest of the world?
TIM: A good question – for the agriculture minister. I haven’t seen the latest figures on our food security situation but my guess is that we are using more food domestically and exporting less than we were 30 years ago. I’d like to see the figures on that. That’s one of the factors that have to feed into a population policy.

ECO: How will the Catch 22 dilemma ultimately be resolved -- the dilemma being how to sustain the Australian lifestyle that some tell us needs a growing economy which in turn needs a growing population where more people use up more of our finite resources in a shorter space of time and quickly destroy the lifestyle  we love so much?
TIM: I don’t believe a vibrant economy needs a growing population. There are plenty of countries in the world with stable or even declining populations that have a good economic status. It’s a matter of decoupling those two things to some extent. I think that’s entirely possible and, of course, every country in the world is going to have to do that in the medium term. It looks as if the world population will peak around 2050. So I think we can do that.

ECO: The social culture of many immigrants is to have large families. How do we deal with that issue?
TIM: What you have to do is have a national population policy with some rough targets. They are only guidelines, of course. Government can’t dictate family size to people but what we want to do is just have an overall policy setting which at least nudges the population towards where we think we might want to be.

ECO: On the issue of carrying capacity how do we reach that figure and how do we manage the country once we go past it? Does it mean we would then have to sacrifice our present level of living, which would be political dynamite?
TIM: No one knows what the optimum population for Australia is at this moment. We don’t have those figures. That’s the first job of any government or anyone who is concerned with this; to try to set up some kind of medium- to long-term target. Of course, population only changes very, very slowly. So you really need to deal with 20 year and 40 year time frames and so forth.

ECO: How can we win the argument and get politicians to see commonsense and no longer be blinded by vested business interests and perhaps their selfishness?
TIM: Again, we have to deepen our democracy to the point where people actually do get a say in it. One political party needs to put up a strong proposal about some sort of Reserve Bank board- type structure that would help set those medium to long term targets. That’s the only way we’ll get change in this area.

ECO: Is stabilisation of population an option? How do you get to that steady state situation?
TIM: The United Nations projections for world population are that it will stabilise around 2050 at around 9 billion. Many countries have already stabilised their populations. Of course it’s an option. How you get there is through good government policy, if that’s what you want to achieve.

ECO: What are your views on the increasing number of debates and forums about the population/growth issue?
TIM: They’re useful. Where there is a rational debate about this and you have a good cross-section of views – yes, then I think it is worth discussing the issue.

ECO: What is your greatest fear and your greatest hope now on the population issue?
TIM: My greatest fear is that things continue as they are. My greatest hope is that we end up with a rational population policy and an independent body that sets the medium to long-term population figures for the country.

Related posts:

1. South East Queensland Regional Plan: a ‘scary blueprint’
2. Population: perpetual growth is not the answer
3. Population: looking at the numbers with Bob Abbot

Lois Levy argues that governments should be considering a steady-state economy rather than blindly promoting unsustainable growth. Martin Rasini talks to this environmental warrior of the Gold Coast.

Veteran environmental campaigner Lois Levy

Veteran environmental campaigner Lois Levy views the upcoming population forums as an opportunity to highlight the unwanted social impacts of population growth and expose the thinking behind it.

Ms Levy, secretary of Gold Coast environmental group Gecko, will be a speaker at  one of the forums where she will also argue that government promotion of population growth in southeast Queensland fails to give adequate consideration to the consequences of climate change.

“What I will be trying to convey in my address is that the population growth forecasts handed down by government to guide the new South East Queensland Regional Plan are based on nothing more than the desire of developers to continue to build homes, shopping centres and workspaces,” she said.

“Most of the southeast Queensland growth is occurring in coastal communities such as the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast despite the fact climate change is likely to cause water levels to rise which could require the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people.”

Ms Levy said the southeast Queensland community has never been asked whether it wants growth so, effectively, its voice has been muzzled.

“The forum provides an opportunity to increase public awareness of the many negative consequences of growth and the need for the community to lobby to achieve change to the regional plan,” she said.

“People are unhappy about coping with congested roads, poor infrastructure and reduced open space and, by working together, can bring this message home to the government.”

Ms Levy, a social worker for 40 years and for 13 years a TAFE teacher who now teaches community development part time, has played significant roles in many high-profile environmental campaigns, including the campaign to prevent development of a cruise terminal on the Southport Spit.

Her involvement with environmental issues began in 1979-80 when she worked with community group Friends of Currumbin Estuary to prevent national development company Lend Lease undertaking a major residential project on the north bank of Currumbin Creek.

“As a consequence of that first campaign, I became fascinated with the processes linked to conserving open space and the methodologies associated with involving the community,” she said.

“I have been active in the environmental movement ever since.”

Ms Levy said population growth, with the high-density living that accompanies much of it, is presented to the public as a rosy vision, but that there are many downsides such as anti-social behaviour in general, crime and mental illness.

“We have rising levels of mental illness among our young and we could easily conjecture that this is a consequence of the need for both parents to be working, the increased congestion in our cities and towns and the dearth of social and community infrastructure being provided in new suburban developments.

“Also, in relation to the issue of population growth, we need to consider the Australian psyche.

“Australians have been raised to think of homes as places with sizable backyards and of communities as places with lots of open space.

“Higher residential densities in the form of apartments and townhouses clustered around infrastructure such as town centres mean there will be little in the way of open space and no backyards.

“This is in complete conflict with the Australian vision.”

Ms Levy said the sorts of problems that flow from ill-considered and under-resourced growth are evident in the Gold Coast’s burgeoning northern suburbs, such as Coomera.

“The services in these areas are abysmal and youth is jammed into urban sprawl precincts with no facilities.

“Across the whole of the northern Gold Coast there is only one community hall, at Oxenford, and that exists solely because of the efforts of a community activist.

“There must be a limit to this sort of development and the community must find other ways of doing things.

“I believe it is time for governments and the community to start thinking about concepts such as the steady-state economy.”

Steady-state economy has its origin in ecological economics, although its roots are in classical economics such as the ‘stationary state’ concept put forward by John Stuart Mill.

The steady-state concept connotes constant populations, constant stocks of capital and a constant rate of throughput of energy and materials that, within a given technological framework, will yield constant flows of goods and services.

Advocates argue that neither economic growth nor economic recession is sustainable and that, therefore, the steady-state economy is the only sustainable option and the appropriate policy goal if sustainability is to be achieved.

Related posts:

1. South East Queensland Regional Plan: a ‘scary blueprint’
2. Population: perpetual growth is not the answer
3. Population: looking at the numbers with Bob Abbot

When Debra Henry stands up to speak at the Brisbane population forum she will be well-armed with knowledge and confident she has the unequivocal backing of her community. Martin Rasini talks to a woman on a mission.

Redland City Councillor Debra Henry

Redland City Councillor Debra Henry is committed to challenging the growth paradigm and plans to make her personal views known at the Brisbane and Sunshine Coast population forums organised by the Queensland Conservation Council, the Sunshine Coast Environment Council and other environmental groups.

Cr Henry considers the latest South East Queensland Regional Plan to be a ‘scary blueprint’ for an unwanted future in which quality of life is sacrificed for little if any benefit.

“The Redland City Council elected in 2008 has focused on preserving lifestyle, and environment and community values while taking steps to control growth through its planning process,” she said.

“However, with the latest South East Queensland Regional Plan the state government is moving the goal posts. The plan significantly raises the intensity of development, increasing pressures on everything from lifestyle, open space and wildlife to road, rail, education and healthcare infrastructure.”

Cr Henry has been active in pursuing community-focused social and environmental outcomes since the late 1980s when she became involved with green groups after being motivated by a statement from the UN’s Commission on Environment and Development.

In 1996, she prepared a 15,000-word submission on the Redland council’s strategic plan which, she says, was completely ignored.

Not liking the direction of the then Redland council, Cr Henry had stood for election on a green platform in 2000. Although unsuccessful in this attempt, Cr Henry was encouraged to stand again and, her views having won the support of residents, she was elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2008.

Cr Henry said that, while there was a role for higher density housing, increasingly the community was coming to the view that many southeast Queensland areas were already approaching the maximum population for retention of a wholesome lifestyle.

“We must acknowledge that there are limits to growth and it appears that we are fast approaching, and may have already surpassed, those limits if traditional community values, lifestyles and the ecosystems are to be preserved,” she said.

“The inevitability of growth is a myth. Growth targets are merely predictions based on current trends of immigration plus births minus deaths. Immigration programs are entirely within the control of government and can be reduced until such time as Australia’s carrying capacity has been determined.

“Similarly, the Federal Government can abandon its policy of paying people to have children.

“Changes to these two policies would go a long way to stabilising Australia’s population.”

Cr Henry is also unhappy about the government attitude to Australia’s ageing population.

“It infuriates me the way the government goes on about the rising number of over-65s, viewing them as a burden and advocating the importation of people as a way to meet the additional costs which, it claims, are associated with longevity,” she said..

“I believe we are in a transition period and the ‘bulge’ of older residents should be viewed as temporary.

“Even were the claimed additional costs real and unable to be met by other means, our politicians have had the resources and should have faced the consequences of an expanding ageing population long ago.

“Now, suddenly, it is being touted as a huge problem. It  certainly needs to be carefully considered but so too should the significant costs associated with providing for the needs of a younger generation.”

Cr Henry says that, while many believe growth is good for the economy, this view has not been proven.

“I advocate alternative positions and challenge the status quo because things just don’t add up,” she said.

“Take the issue of population capping. Whenever capping is discussed the response is: We want our children to live here and capping will drive up home prices.

“Nevertheless, despite the fact there has been no population capping and no restriction by government on the rezoning of land for residential purposes, home prices have escalated alarmingly. And, somehow, the position that capping will drive up prices is held alongside the popular view that house price escalation is good without any realisation that the two positions are incompatible.

“Land-banking by developers is a factor contributing to housing affordability and there needs to be strong advocacy for the impacts of land-banking on the housing market to be scrutinised.”

Cr Henry said those who question the status quo need to network better to make sure the broader community is given adequate and comprehensive information on which to make important decisions.

“It is not difficult to recognise that constant expansion in a finite world is an impossibility,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter how small the area in which a person can live, the ecological footprint spreads much farther than their own backyard or balcony. When people understand this, and when other myths are dispelled, we’ll be on our way to sustainability.”

Cr Henry said councils were doing what they could to prompt the State Government to face the population issue and to convince the community that the government’s long-held commitment to growth at any cost was unsustainable.

“In recent years, at the insistence of the State Government, councils were required to develop Local Growth Management Strategies (LGMS) to demonstrate how they would meet growth ‘targets’,” she said.

“In 2008, the newly- elected Redland City Council submitted its LGMS with a proviso.

“We accepted the government’s ‘targets’ only after further detailed studies to ascertain whether or not such growth was within the Redlands’ carrying  capacity – the maximum population able to be accommodated indefinitely without suffering any loss of amenity, including natural environment.

“Last year, Redland City councillors voted to place a motion before the Local Government Association of Queensland’s annual conference seeking to ensure that the projected growth and population distribution be in keeping with the social and natural environment. The motion was unanimously adopted.”

Cr Henry said she believed the political system itself was responsible for many of the problems we faced and that ‘things needed to be done differently’.

“The donation system allows significant influence to be brought to bear on government decision-making by a small group of powerful people, often leading to outcomes that are not in the best interests of the wider community,” she said.

Related posts:

1. Bigger road networks or better public transport?
2. Population: perpetual growth is not the answer
3. Jamming us in

In her office at the Nambour headquarters of the Sunshine Coast Regional Council, Cr Vivien Griffin pulls out the super-duper plan for the Mooloolah River Interchange and by the look in her eyes asks silently, ‘What do you think of that?’.

The planned Mooloolah River interchange

It’s then that you realise that projected population growth is sending people loopy, including road planners.

It’s enough to send any sane driver into a spin. On paper, it’s like curled strings of spaghetti have been spilled on the map, the spaghetti signifying multi-lanes of concrete and bitumen which will cover a huge area and mean the demolition of many family homes.

And once it’s built you’ll never see granny again as she drives off into its motoring maze to who knows where.

So this is the Sunshine Coast’s future where the big spending is presently focused on bigger and more complex road systems rather than public transport – all to accommodate more and more people beyond its comfortable capacity.
So when you get onto these roads in 2030 or even earlier, where do you go – just down the freeway to get lost in the complexities of the next challenging interchange and funnel off into the next delightful bit of urban infill.

But back to Cr Griffin. At the face of it a serious woman, but one suspects her of having a wry sense of humour.

“Imagine the billions of dollars that would go into that – it’s a multi-modal transport corridor,” said the councillor as she waved the copy of the planned motorway upgrade.

“This is where the Department of Transport and Main Roads spends the money, drawing this stuff up – they don’t spend their money on getting the public transport improved.”

Cr Griffin holds an important portfolio on the new Sunshine Coast Regional Council.

The portfolio is ‘Integrated Transport’ – one Cr Griffins describes as having two elements; it is ‘integrated with land use but also it means that each mode is integrated with the other’.

“I asked the mayor for this portfolio immediately after the council was elected because I think that if we do not have a sustainable transport outcome, then we will never achieve a sustainable Sunshine Coast,” she said.

“There are other important elements to long-term sustainability but this is a core one.”

At the same time as showing the aerial map/overlay artwork composite of the multi-looped Mooloolah River Interchange, Cr Griffin also showed a page of the Sunshine Motorway 32 Study’ put together by global transport consultants Connell Wagner.

“Their brief was to come up with a motorway that could deal with the doubling of the Sunshine Cost population by 2032. These figures had been supplied by the Planning Information and Forecasting Unit (PIFU). Transport modelling done as part of the study predicted traffic volumes would increase in some areas to more than three times the level.

Connell Wagner reported back that ‘to cater for projected 2032 traffic volumes, the motorway would need to be planned for 10 lanes’ [in one of its sections].

They added a rider: ‘A 10-lane motorway is not practical. As more lanes are added, the spacing between interchanges needs to increase and it would not be possible to accommodate many of the proposed and existing interchange locations’.

“The engineers are saying ‘we actually can’t build it’,” said Cr Griffin.

“It would be a hideous choice, anyway.”

“Then what they say is ‘what we need to do, because we can’t do that, is shift to more effective public transport, increased vehicle occupancy, and land-use planning’,” said Cr Griffin.

“Do I see any evidence that they’re tackling these issues? The answer is ‘No’.”

So, it would seem that the engineers can not deliver a road system on this part of the Sunshine Coast to adequately cope with the State Government’s projected population figure which is in the ballpark of the South East Queensland Regional Plan.
But perhaps the prospect of ‘Peak Oil’ and the attendant escalation of fuel prices will drive drivers off the roads and on to public transport and save the day. We just need more money redirected towards installing those public transport systems.
Meanwhile, the SM2032 Study team, instead, has decided to provide a detailed planning strategy for a four to eight lane motorway that will cater for traffic demands to at least 2021 and provide strategic direction for motorway development through to 2032.

Fortunately, the consultants have also been looking at other transport solutions which include more effective public transport, increased vehicle occupancy and land-use planning to reduce road-based travel demand (transit systems).

This is where Cr Griffin has a particular interest. She believes that with the prospect of Peak Oil there will be rapid advances in public transport systems.

However, other advances of technology in ‘green mobility’, which include hybrid-fuels or hybrid vehicles, will still mean cars on the roads creating congestion.

“If you still have private motor vehicles, no matter how eco-efficient they are, there’s still a need to build more roads, and that’s not long-term sustainable,” said Cr Griffin.

“It will lead to loss of habitat and spending massive amounts of money on capital infrastructure, creating gridlocks, incurring more maintenance costs.

“While it’s important to look at those fuel options it is still important to look at public transport as a key element in the equation.

“Ultimately, people understand that their choices have prices. However, we must focus on delivering a great alternative to the private motor vehicle – to deliver a quality, fast, frequent, reliable, good-looking public transport service.

“We’re incredibly focused on working up the public transport options now. We have to make sure we are not approving residential or economic development without clearly having a delivery of public transport. It has to be a major player in our planning.

“With the council amalgamations we now have a much larger area to cover and have an opportunity at a regional scale to deliver good transport outcomes. We will be neglectful to our community if we don’t seize that opportunity.

“A key element is that we build into our land use planning, from the beginning, certain parameters to encourage public transport use such as designing in a ‘green link’ connector to major employment centres.”

But Cr Griffin did point out that one of the issues they had with State Government  was getting agreement to deliver infrastructure at the right time and sequence, when the residential development, or indeed something like the Kawana University Hospital comes on line.

She said there was the danger of creating a residential ghetto if you get to a situation where you say ‘Ooops! Now we need to deliver the public transport’.

Taking her ‘transport’ cap off, Cr Griffin said: “As a council we are saying you can have a healthy economy without relying on infinite population growth, and there are plenty of documents around to support that.

“Our economic advantage here is as a lifestyle region. We think we have a competitive economic advantage through rural food production as well.

“I also have no doubt that regions do not have an exponential capacity to sustain population growth into the future – that’s a nonsensical proposition. Physically you would have to be delivering a Shanghai-type future with lots of 80-storey residential towers.

“You have to be honest. You have to be wise in acknowledging that there is this thing called ‘sustainable carrying capacity’.”

Related posts:

1. South East Queensland Regional Plan: a ‘scary blueprint’
2. Populate and perish
3. Jamming us in

Martin Rasini gets a little tutorial help on the population issue from one of Queensland's sharpest academic and research minds

Dr Jane O'sullivan

Growing crops in a more sustainable way is easier than growing the human population in a sustainable way.

In fact, the latter is nigh on impossible – and a sentiment embraced by Dr Jane O’Sullivan, an agricultural research scientist at the University of Queensland.

She is firmly convinced that arguments advanced by government that we must grow our numbers to meet the costs of an expanding aged population are fallacious.

As a speaker at the Brisbane and Sunshine Coast population forums organised by Queensland Conservation, the Sunshine Coast Environment Council and other green groups, Dr O’Sullivan will argue that the cost of growing a younger population is higher than the cost of maintaining a stable population and that government policy therefore makes little sense.

“The population debate implies a trade-off between economic benefits of growth and its social and environmental costs, but it seems to be that the touted benefits of growth are poorly based,” she said.

“In addressing the growth debate, we need to separate the impact of the size of the population and its demographic structure from the impacts of rate of growth.

“Rate of growth has immediate impact on facilities and resources and in Australia in the past decade it has doubled.

“There are two major areas of public expenditure associated with nation-building. These are skills-training and the development of infrastructure.

“In general terms, a stable population needs to replace about 2 per cent of community infrastructure each year. However, the current growth rate of Australia’s population requires the provision of a further 2 per cent.

“This not only doubles the capacity requirement but may more than double the cost, as it must be generated from a diminishing physical resource base. Increasingly, we have to substitute environmental services, such as for water supply, with more resource-intensive alternatives.

“Even small changes in growth rate result in large changes to infrastructure needs and if necessary additional resources are not provided, as has been the case in the past decade in Australia, access to services and service quality declines and society goes backwards.”

She points out that the same effect happens in the supply of skills.  To grow the supply of, for example, doctors or electricians by 2 per cent per year, we need to recruit around 50 per cent more than would be needed to maintain a constant workforce, either by graduations or immigration.

If we import them, they add to the need for every other skills area. Far from curing the skills shortage, our expanded immigration program is fuelling it.

While the costs of supporting more aged people are overstated, so is the ability of immigration to solve the problem. Dr O’Sullivan says that for Australia to maintain its current ratio of over-65s to working-aged people would require a much higher rate of immigration than we have now – a rate that could not be sustained and would greatly expand the future ageing problem, let alone the problem of food security.

“The current proportion of aged is an historical anomaly. It must rise, but will stabilise at quite a manageable level. We can plan for this, but we can’t plan for perpetual growth,” she said.

“Expanding our population is effectively living off the future and putting generations yet to come in a precarious position.”
Dr O’Sullivan says an oft-overlooked factor associated with population growth is that construction – the creation of new infrastructure – is the most energy-intensive form of economic activity.

“So, by accelerating growth, our energy intensity rises and our carbon emissions per person increase. Stabilising population therefore means a drop in per capita emissions without any impact on lifestyle,” she said.

Dr O’Sullivan says the focus on aged dependents ignores the even greater cost of young dependents, and completely fails to recognise the cost burden imposed on the community by the not-yet-arrived.  By this she means those who will be additional, requiring expanded capacity, not those who will replace the current population.

“They provide nothing, yet we have to spend massively to accommodate them.

“The worry that per capita Gross Domestic Product will be smaller with a larger aged population is outweighed by the fact that, under a growth scenario, capital and resources are being expended on people who are not yet with us.

“I am confident that, without growth, Australia will be more than able to service the needs of its aged citizens and that the community will be better off economically and environmentally.

“If we stop the ridiculous scare campaign about below-replacement birth rates, and let our fertility drop again to around 1.7 where it was before the baby bonus was introduced, we would also be able to receive many more refugees than we currently do.

“Every time anyone talks about limiting immigration, it is reported that they want to turn away refugees. I don’t think many people realise that refugees now constitute less than 5 per cent of our immigrants.”

Dr O’Sullivan is concerned that the population debate is being dominated by vested interests, which stand to benefit by growth in property and consumer demand and the oversupply of labour.

“The economic benefit is for them, not us.

“We must insist that politicians do not put the wants of the powerful above the needs of the wider community.”

Related posts:

1. South East Queensland Regional Plan: a ‘scary blueprint’
2. Population: looking at the numbers with Bob Abbot
3. Populate and perish

• Sunshine Coast mayor Bob Abbot sees uncontrolled population growth as an insanity
• We’re looking at 98,000 dwellings that the State Government has told us we have to build in the next 20 to 25 years

Sunshine Coast Mayor, Bob Abbot

Charismatic Sunshine Coast mayor Bob Abbot says he can see a light at the end of the tunnel in the population-growth debate.

He is comforted to a degree that it has now become a mainstream issue and some former ‘development-at-all-costs’ proponents are at last beginning to understand the folly of fast-tracking southeast Queensland into what could be dangerous territory.

Bob, a man who is able to cut to the chase in an argument, sees the problem simply. In fact, he uses simple arithmetic to highlight the long-term impracticality of some state planning decisions.

But firstly, he gives a broad brush response to the people who still see no problem with ever-continuing population growth.

“It’s important to get an understanding that continual reliance on population growth in your environmental, economic and lifestyle policies is a self-defeating philosophy,” he said.

Then on a local level he gets down to the nasty mathematics of it.

“We’re looking at 98,000 dwellings that the State Government has told us we have to build in the next 20 to 25 years,” he said.

For simplicity’s sake he considers some statistics and the equation relating to a thousand new homes.

“The way I look at it is –  if one were to consider that there would be on average 2.3 or 2.5 persons per household there would also be on average 1.2 or maybe 1.5 persons, given the modern society, in that house needing jobs immediately, the moment they turn up,” he added.

Being generous with the figures and taking on board other employment considerations, the mayor computes that there could be 500 people looking for jobs either short term or long term in that size of community.

And armed with more statistics, he argues that in that community of 1000 houses no more than 200 permanent long term jobs could be created. The short-term jobs were mainly in constructing the new homes.

“So there’s a discrepancy somewhere – perhaps somewhere between 200 and 500 jobs we just don’t have, we don’t create in the community. So that starts the ball rolling – what are you going to do to get employment for those people?” is the mayor’s rhetorical question.

“The first thing to do is to go and build another 1000 homes to keep those people in work. But really you need to build 2000 homes this time to also keep the extra people in work.

“For anyone who is arguing ‘continuous growth at any cost is good for the economy’ has no long-term view of the economy and a very short-term view of the industry.”

The mayor leans his impressive form back into his office chair and agrees it’s a simple but compelling argument from his point.

“In that scenario, not only do you not create the jobs that the people will tell us you are going to create, you also lessen the quality of lifestyle here because you increase pressure on all of those things that we want,” said the mayor.

“The time will come on the Sunshine Coast when you’ll have to pay for parking at the beach, like what’s happening at the Gold Coast now. It might be fine for the tourists, but the first thing that’ll be said here locally is that locals shouldn’t have to pay for it.

“However, the more locals we’ve got, the more reason they’re going to have to pay – because they’re going to have to share.

“So simple things like that we are not writing into the equation. A longevity equation of lifestyle, environment and economy are the things that drive me.”

As far as population is concerned, Bob Abbot is wondering where the tipping point is for southeast Queensland and especially for his Sunshine Coast bailiwick.

“What are the things that we need to know to understand to find out where that tipping point is and what are the things that create it?” he asks.

And in a pointed reference to Albert Einstein’s famous definition of insanity, he said: “My continued argument is that we can’t continue ‘doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’.”

He says we are at risk of losing the things that are important to us.

But does Bob and his councillors have the fight to try to get reversed what appears to be a State Government fait accompli on population targets? Without a good old-fashioned fight there will be no challenge to the top level pro-growth cabal and Bob will not be able to champion his community. In just a short time we will know which way Bob and his councillors go. Otherwise his lamenting will be just empty rhetoric.

Many people are relying on him to help save their lifestyles and their livelihoods. For some it is too late.

Related posts:

1. Time for a steady-state economy
2. South East Queensland Regional Plan: a ‘scary blueprint’
3. Bigger road networks or better public transport?

by Professor Ian Lowe

Professor Ian Lowe

I urge everyone to get involved with the public population/growth forums taking place in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast in the lead-up to Anna Bligh’s ‘Growth Management Summit’ at the end of March.

The decisions being taken in the next few months will literally shape our future. If we want to protect and improve our quality of life, we have to get serious about the population debate.

There are real questions about our capacity to supply services to a rapidly growing population. Serious analysis of the economic issues shows that an increasing population causes the overall size of the economy to grow, but wealth per capita does not increase much at all or might even decline.

So the rapid growth might not even be producing economic benefits to offset the social strains and the environmental costs.

The issue has been forced onto the political agenda by the increasing problems of Australian cities.

Already, there is a voter backlash as transport, water and power infrastructure struggle to keep pace with growing populations. Federal MP Kelvin Thompson has tapped into the public mood with speeches urging a goal of stabilising the population.
At the same time as Bligh’s summit, the Australian Davos Connection will be convening a two-day meeting in Melbourne to consider sustainable cities.

For years, our politicians have actively encouraged an unusually high rate of population growth, seeing it in simplistic terms as good for the economy.

Howard and Costello introduced financial incentives for women to have more children; Rudd and Swan retained and then increased the ‘baby bonus’.

Costello encouraged us to reproduce by urging couples to have “one for the husband, one for the wife and one for the country”, while Rudd was equally facile with his statement that he believes in “a Big Australia”.

Howard increased immigration to unprecedented levels and allowed the expansion of low-level training courses as a back-door migration path.

The Rudd government expanded immigration still further at a time when we struggle to find work for young Australians, but finally cracked down on the training racket.

Here in southeast Queensland there is genuine concern about the erosion of our quality of life. When the community have been consulted, they have made their feelings clear.

But the the State Government’s ill-conceived Regional Plan, will impose further rapid population growth on the whole of southeast Queensland, including the Sunshine Coast.

We should be particularly concerned about the loss of natural areas, the continuing spread of housing onto good agricultural land and the improbability of meeting responsible targets to slow climate change if the population keeps growing rapidly.
More people means more houses, more services, probably more roads and certainly more clearing of native vegetation. In terms of our quality of life, it means that the beaches and bush tracks will be more crowded.

If we continue to provide inadequate public transport, the roads will become more congested, creating pressure to build still more roads or widen the existing transport corridors.

The really big issue is the impact on climate change. The Bali Roadmap, agreed in 2007 shortly after Australia finally ratified the Kyoto Protocol and rejoined the international community, set out targets for industrialised countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

It said we should aim to be 25 to 40 per cent below the 1990 level by 2020. More recent science suggests that the targets should probably be strengthened to more like 50 per cent.

In fact, we are well above the 1990 level and our emissions are still growing. The Rudd government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme has been seriously compromised by concessions to the big polluters, while the Coalition are critical of even those modest charges that survived, branding it as a “great big tax” when it provides almost no economic incentives    for change.

Successive governments have even said that it is particularly hard for us to reduce our greenhouse pollution because of our growing population.

If the population of southeast Queensland doubles, all other things being equal, our energy use will double and our greenhouse gas production will double.

A responsible target of 50 per cent reduction if the population doubles means reducing per capita pollution to a quarter of the present level.  It is difficult to see how that could be done in a decade. It would be difficult enough with a stable population. It looks impossible if we start by encouraging rapid growth.

The slogan used to be ‘Populate or perish’.  We can now see that it is more like ‘Populate and perish’. A sustainable future has to be based on stabilisation of both population and consumption.

Are you listening, Premier?

Related posts:

1. Time for a steady-state economy
2. Bigger road networks or better public transport?
3. Population: perpetual growth is not the answer

As the population quickly increases, roads will be even more congested

Driving to work, going to the beach, going to the shops, taking the train – do you have the feeling you’re getting crowded out? Well, things will only get worse if Premier Anna Bligh has her way. So, welcome to Squeezeland, land of lost dreams!

But there may be some light because, at last, the planet’s most pressing problem – population growth – is being given an airing, even in mainstream media and on the floors of parliaments around the world.

And now the debate and discussion has come with passion to civic centres in southeast Queensland. In fact, there is a rash of forums dealing with this issue.

Some have already taken place while several others are planned for this month (March).

Both Queensland Conservation and the Sunshine Coast Environment Council, with help from other environmental groups, are holding separate public forums on the weekend of March 13-14 in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast respectively.

The need for these forums has been triggered to some extent by the State Government’s South East Queensland Regional Plan, which projects an increase in population of 1.6 million to 4.4 million by 2031, and by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s  call for a ‘Big Australia’ which would boost the nation’s population to 35 million by 2050.

It’s a wake-up call for concerned Australians, especially Queenslanders.

Many environmentalists, scientists, local civic leaders, social commentators, community leaders, business people and, indeed, many of the public have already voiced extreme worries about ‘unsustainable population growth’, and fear that plans to build 750,000 new dwellings in southeast Queensland will destroy extensive areas of farmland, open space and bushland as well as devastate hundreds of wildlife habitats.

There are also rational fears that our lifestyles will suffer with roads even more congested than they are now, mega motorway systems that concrete over yet more green space, beaches crowded out, and infill housing out of character with the present streetscapes and putting pressure on our communities.

Also, a degraded environment will be the norm and our health and education systems, which are already stretched, will continue to deteriorate.

Water and energy supply will become scarcer and more costly. But these two major forums are far more than talkfests.
Expert presenters from many fields, as well as exposing some population myths and vested interests, will show how community action can influence all levels of government to cooperate to address the problems of unsustainable population growth.

At the end of the month (March 30-31) the State Government hosts its own Brisbane forum ominously called ‘Growth Management  Summit’ which seems to indicate the Regional Plan’s projected population figures are not really up for debate. The talk will simply be about how to fit in all those extra taxpayers and business customers.

If the science continues to be spurned,  Anna Bligh’s forum will be no more than an orchestrated farce; yet another exercise in political spin and big business talk, determined to ignore the real and urgent call for common sense to protect our communities, lifestyle and environment.

It is increasingly apparent that the understanding of the carrying capacity of any system is being ignored and that we, as voters in a democratic process, need to exercise our power to influence the necessary and right outcomes.

If the State Government needs another reminder of the increasing community discontent, the recent Courier-Mail polls show almost 80 per cent of people are concerned at the way southeast Queensland is being destroyed by development.

Simon Baltais, from Sustainable Population Australia, believes decision-making on population needs to be based on science.

“The State Government is ignoring the findings of their own scientific reports, which reveal population is having a significant impact upon southeast Queensland residents and the environment,” he said.

“To say southeast Queensland and coastal Queensland has capacity to absorb more growth ignores the science.”

The State Government slogan of how it is ‘managing growth’ is just hollow and careless rhetoric according to Narelle McCarthy, manager of the Sunshine Coast Environment Council.

“Growth is not being managed and it is increasingly clear it is out of control,” she said.  Simon Baltais has a similar viewpoint.

"The government has been talking about managing growth for years to the extent that we have now exceeded critical mass and achieved a critical mess,” he said.

The latest South East Queensland Regional Plan attempts to lock in population figures for the next 20 years, aiming to have 4.4 million crammed into this corner of the state.

So, it is easy to understand why people are becoming more cynical of politicians.  The South East Queensland Regional Plan was brought forward and rushed through with limited consultation.  Now that it has become law Anna Bligh says we can now have a discussion on population.

Narelle McCarthy claims bad polling and not a genuine desire to address the problem is the motivator for the State Government’s ‘Growth Management Summit’.

“It is shaping up to be nothing more than  a talk fest,” she said.

So what can the government do to show it is listening and wanting to act on these concerns?

The population and dwelling figures allocated to each council under the South East Queensland Regional Plan need to be viewed for what they are,  population growth projections only.

They should not be mandatory and councils and their communities should have the right to determine the numbers for their own areas. This would involve not only ensuring the biophysical constraints were taken into account but also the character and amenity of an area.

The Sustainable Planning Act, which came into force late last year, supposedly governs the content and direction of planning in this state.

The stated objective of the legislation is to achieve ‘ecologically sustainable development’ something which it has clearly failed to do with the regional plan.

Supporting and parallel action must be taken by the Federal Government to urgently develop a rational or national (or both) population policy that recognises there are limits to growth. With 48 per cent of southeast Queensland population growth being fuelled by overseas migration, this needs to be a priority.

Related posts:

1. Time for a steady-state economy
2. South East Queensland Regional Plan: a ‘scary blueprint’
3. Populate and perish

image: greghardwick.com.au

Anyone who has attended meetings will know -- the greater the number of people, the less chance there is of obtaining an outcome.

Therefore the outcome of Copenhagen should come as no surprise. Governments from wealthy countries know that voters are easily swayed by economic arguments. Poorer countries want more for their people. While we all argue about money, man-made climate change will worsen.

As our planet's human population increases we face a growing problem. The wealthier we all become, the more we want and the more we consume. More people consuming more of the earth's finite 'resources' leads to only one outcome - less for everyone.

The science of climate change has taught us two things. Firstly, we need to be smarter, be prepared for change and focus upon cleaner, renewable energy sources. Our very short love affair with fossil fuels is over and is not worth one tear.

Secondly -- many people do not like change, they use denial to avoid serious problems and know that many of us are swayed by fear. Radical politicians will seize on this and increasingly make promises they cannot deliver on.

The way forward is not something we are going to be given by our politicians. We are going to have to show our politicians what we are capable of. Great social changes have always been peaceful and well supported by the population. However, we will need to constantly remind our governments, and those seeking to be in government, that they serve us, and deceitful behaviour for the sake of claiming or clinging to power, will not be tolerated.

Now is not the time for blaming others for our woes or arguing whose way is best. It's all too easy to point out the wrongs of someone from a distant nation or from a group who you do not associate with. Throwing stones over the fence is easy when you don't see your victim, but stand face to face and it becomes so much harder.

In 2010 we need to stand face to face and unite everyone who wants a fairer, cleaner future. It is possible, if only we dare to try.

***

Do yourself a favour this Christmas. Turn the air conditioner off, put the mobile phone away and get outside and talk to someone new. See you at the Woodford Folk Festival!

Wishing you all the best over the Christmas break and we look forward to bringing you more eco news in 2010. Eco online will take a short break, before returning in mid-January.

Keep safe and look after one another.

Related posts:

1. Population: looking at the numbers with Bob Abbot
2. Populate and perish
3. Jamming us in

Inside this edition

• Woodford Folk Festival: the Greenhouse
• Cycling to the Woodford Folk Festival
• Denying climate change
• Exploring the Past
• Traveston Dam: looking behind the lens
• Up Close: reconnecting with nature
• Christmas reading list

Woodford Folk Festival: the Greenhouse

About the Greenhouse, interviews with: Hans Baer, Sohail Inayatullah, Andrew Wilford, Graeme Taylor, Jillian Rossiter. Read the interviews here. Brought to you by Brian Rickards.

Cycling to the Woodford Folk Festival

Find out how to make the most of your trip to the festival

Denying climate change

When faced with tragedy, atrocities or grief we humans, it appears, have a wonderful way of dealing with it. Denial. Read more.

Exploring the past

Another selection by Dr Deborah Jordan and taken from a newspaper cutting held in the Palmer Papers. This piece, Caloundra: reasons for being there was first published in the Brisbane Telegraph, 28 January 1928.

Nettie Palmer was born and bred in Melbourne and alive to the differences between the Sunshine and the south. She, too, was city reared so conscious in the process of attunement when she moved to Caloundra in 1925 with her husband and children. She like him, lived by her pen and wrote much about the region. Here she reflects.

Traveston Dam: looking behind the lens

It’s often said that a picture paints a thousand words. Photographs of faces of anguish after the initial announcement, beautiful natural scenes that were so close to being lost forever and finally faces of joy and relief after the simple word, ‘no’ echoed throughout the Mary Valley.

Arkin Mackay’s images made the issue personal. They spawned far more than a thousand words. They brought us face to face with the product of government decisions.

And most importantly they reminded us that although a river can physically divide communities, rivers can also bring people together in a way not often seen before.

Ian Mackay, Arkin’s father, proudly reminds us about the importance of her work. Read more.

Up Close: Reconnecting with nature

Paul and Sally Johnson have both had a long experience with nature through their personal and professional lives. Along with their two daughters, Elly and Jessie, they have been quietly and modestly working towards a sustainable existence.

In this edition we take an Up Close look at their lifestyle and why they decided to home-school their daughters. Read more.

Christmas reading list

Crunch Time: using and abusing Keynes to fight the twin crises of our era (Tony Kevin)

Sustainable Innovators: agents of change on the Sunshine Coast (Dana Thomsen)

The Clean Industrial Revolution: growing Australian prosperity in a greenhouse age (Ben McNeil)

See you in 2009

Thank you to all our readers, online subscribers and contributors. We hope you have a great Christmas and we look forward to bringing you more Eco news in 2010. Have a safe and peaceful holiday.

Related posts:

1. A time to unite
2. The Greenhouse: a very green conversation
3. The woman behind the greenhouse

Sustainability innovators: Agents of change on the Sunshine Coast
Author: Dana C Thomsen

Documenting the stories of ten people from the Sunshine Coast, who according to their peers and colleagues have dedicated considerable time towards sustainability, Dr Dana Thomsen, Lecturer in Sustainability Advocacy at the University of the Sunshine Coast acknowledges their dedication and leadership in her new book Sustainability innovators: Agents of change on the Sunshine Coast .

As Dr Thomsen writes in her overview:

“By choosing people that were widely recognised throughout the region, I hoped to involve people that were not only enacting sustainability within their own lives, but those that were also effective at encouraging others and notable on a regional scale. Almost immediately I had over 50 nominations - a testament to the significant number of people committed to sustainability on the Sunshine Coast.”

Bill Carter, Associate Professor for Heritage Resource Management at the University of the Sunshine Coast wrote, in a review of the book: “Their stories are not without frustration, but all reflect a positive outlook and faith in the human condition to respond to the sustainability challenge. Their insights will inform anyone who feels that more can be done, and highlights that the efforts of the individual can make a difference.”

Asked what motivated her to write the book, Dr Thomsen replied:

“I was motivated to write the book to provide a tangible and local source of inspiration for achieving sustainability. Talking candidly about their lives, each chapter presents an honest and engaging account of the struggles, successes and philosophies of individuals committed to achieving sustainability across the Sunshine Coast.

“All participants have an infectious enthusiasm for the Australian landscape and its people. Yet, each story is unique and reveals a diversity of backgrounds and approaches towards the common goal of sustainability. What stands out in these stories is the commitment to learning with others and through experience, the importance of building on individual capabilities, and the commitment to collective action.”

Quote from the book

“Media coverage of climate change has raised awareness of human-environmental interactions on a scale not seen in recent times where the general trend has been an ever-increasing disconnection with our natural surroundings. Certainly, human-induced climate change is an issue that threatens all that we have grown accustomed too and all that sustains us. Moreover, climate change is just one symptom of unsustainable human behaviours - over-consumption, pollution, deforestation, genetic engineering, and social inequality are just some examples of other related and pressing issues caused by inappropriate human activity.”

Featured local innovators include:
Ian Christesen (Sunshine Coast Environment Council), Sonya Wallace (Sunshine Coast Energy Action Centre), Phillip Moran (Noosa and District Landcare), Sandy McBride (Queensland Environmentally Sustainable Schools Initiative and the Maroochy Catchment Centre), Jo Turner (Eco-Design and Education Consultant), Cr Keryn Jones (Sunshine Coast Regional Council), Cr Vivien Griffin (Sunshine Coast Regional Council), Susie Chapman (SEQ Catchments Ltd), Justin Holbrook (Sustainable Urban Development and Technology), and Bob Cameron from Rockcote Enterprises Pty Ltd.

Published by: Post Pressed
Distributed by: eContent management

Related posts:

1. The Clean Industrial Revolution
2. Andrew Wilford: through the lens of sustainability
3. It’s Crunch Time

The Clean Industrial Revolution
Growing Australian prosperity in a greenhouse age
Author: Ben McNeil

The race is on to find ways to reduce our impact on the environment. Ben McNeil shows us how we can make the most of our natural advantages and how Australia businesses can benefit economically when adapting to the new environmental realities.

Description

“A passionate and informative demonstration of how mitigating climate change can be compatible with economic growth”- Professor Ross Garnaut, the Garnaut Climate Change Review

“Humanity' s greatest challenge is to minimise the consequences of climate change. With challenge comes opportunity. This book is about opportunity.” - Professor Peter Doherty, Nobel prize winner

“A fascinating and provocative insight into how business can make the most of the environmental challenge.” - Geoffrey Cousins, business leader and author

The world is in the midst of a seismic shift in the way we generate energy and grow economic prosperity. Since the first industrial revolution we've been burning carbon to run our lives, but climate change and dwindling supplies of oil are now forging a new clean industrial revolution which will end our reliance on carbon for good.

So where does Australia's economic future lie in this rapidly changing world? In this compelling book, climate scientist and economist Ben McNeil demonstrates the immense economic opportunities which will open up if Australia leads the new clean industrial revolution. He shows how investing, commercialising and exporting the new fuels, materials and technologies for the twenty-first century will boost economic prosperity as well as environmental sustainability.

In a world craving clean energy, nations and businesses who are clever and courageous enough to embrace the change will thrive. (source: Allen & Unwin)

Awards
Longlisted for the John Button Prize 2009

About Ben McNeil
Ben McNeil is a senior research fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW. He has a Masters of Economics in addition to his scientific training, and is on the executive of the prestigious Federation of Australasian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) and speaks regularly at corporate and scientific events and to media.

Available from:
The publisher - Allen & Unwin

Related posts:

1. It’s Crunch Time
2. What Rudd and Wong should take to Copenhagen
3. And the winner is … clean coal

The Greenhouse venue at the Woodford Folk Festival continues to be a mecca for many environmentalists. And it’s where the mainstream merges with the greenstream.

It’s a place where conversions take place, where ordinary festivalgoers with no previous environmental commitment to live sustainably suddenly see that lifestyle changes are necessary if this planet can continue to support us all.

Every year, the crowds grow at the Greenhouse. More people are concerned about climate change, extreme population pressures, our built environment, our forests, our food and the way we grow it, our resources, the greed, self-interest and over-consumption in western society as if there’s no tomorrow and the planet was an infinite resource, the loss of wildlife habitat, carbon emissions and the looming energy crisis, and peak oil.

They are asking how do we get out of this mess while governments and oppositions haven’t got the guts, the gumption or the get-up-and-go to do that for us. They will be asking how they can make a contribution.

At the Greenhouse they will find many answers and be able to meet the people with the brainpower, willpower and inspiration to make a real difference.

In the end, many say, it will be people power that will be the necessary force to turn the tide of self-interest, willful ignorance, complacency or plain numbskull indifference. In our supposedly democratic society, it seems votes are the only basic that politicians seem to understand.

That’s why the messages from the Woodford Greenhouse and several other venues are important and ones to be spread convincingly and with fervour to all corners beyond the festival, during and after the festivities.

At this year’s festival there’s a wealth of knowledge and wisdom on tap. Men and women with no axe to grind other than to save our planet for humankind and countless other species before it’s too late.

Over the six days of the festival there will be more than 60 Greenhouse stage speakers, many of them at the top level of their field of interest, taking part over 40 sessions. Added to that, the Greenhouse is the meeting place for bird and butterfly walks, bushfood walks and home for various information stalls and workshops.

Also, because the Greenhouse venue is not large enough, the Great Green Debate will be held at the Concert stage as will a major panel discussion called ‘Climate Change: the Science and the Politics’, starring Greens senator Christine Milne, Clive Hamilton and Greenhouse stalwart Professor Ian Lowe.

Greenhouse organiser Jillian Rossiter had glowing words for the professor.

“The one person that spreads the word the most and has been responsible for the credibility of the Greenhouse is Professor Ian Lowe.

“He has been part of the Greenhouse program from its beginning in 1992 and has a vast network of connections. He has assisted me enormously.”

Asked about this year’s program, Jillian said she was really proud of the line-up.

“It has variety, going right through the hands-on such as permaculture workshops to the more academic scientists talking about the heavy issues such as climate change,” she said.

Jillian also praised the festival organisers for their foresight back in 1992 when it was the Maleny Folk Festival and the Greenhouse venue was introduced.

“They were just so far ahead of any other festival and they still are,” she said.

Of course, the Woodford Folk Festival is far more than the Greenhouse stage. There are more than 20 venues offering a wide range of entertainment including song, dance, theatre, ceremony, circus, film, folklore, vaudeville, visual arts, the spoken word, indigenous acts, comedy, workshops of all kinds plus a long line-up of spectacular street theatre.

Making this all happen are about 3000 performers at nearly 600 acts over the six days. Added to this are the many food outlets, which include some great restaurant settings, plus a bevy of bars and other drinks outlets. And if you have time for shopping, it’s hard to go by the street stalls stacked with colourful craft and clothing in the village-like festival precinct.

Related posts:

1. To new horizons with Sohail Inayatullah
2. Graeme Taylor: made for change
3. The woman behind the greenhouse

Hans Baer earned a PhD in Anthropology at the University of Utah in 1976. He taught at ANU in 2004 and is presently at the University of Melbourne. Hans has published 16 books and some 160 book chapters and articles on a wide diversity of topics, including Mormonism, African American religion, complementary medicine in the US, UK, and Australia, and climate politics in Australia. Below is a question and answer session with this world leader in global warming research.

Hans Baer

Eco: What drew you into the field of anthropology back in your student days? Were you inspired by anyone. Please outline?

Hans: I worked as an engineer during the 1960s, a period of social ferment around much of the world. I wanted to understand what was going on and thus studied anthropology. My politicisation started in the corporate world and ever since I have moved ever leftward.

Eco: How urgent is your call to action regarding the affects of climate change on the health of the human species? Please expand.

Hans: I believe that a systematic program of climate change mitigation is extremely crucial, not only in terms of the fate of humanity and the planet up until 2100 but beyond. We humans have been on the face of this planet for some five to six million years. Climate change is the most profound problem that humanity faces and one that is related to many other issues, including the global economy with its treadmill of production and consumption, which is heavily reliant upon fossil fuels; the distribution of resources in the world; what we eat; how we house ourselves; how we get around; and our relationship between with other species and the environment.  In terms of health per se, I along with Merrill Singer in our book Global Warming and the Political Ecology of Health (2009) apply critical medical anthropology in addressing the role of anthropogenic or human-created climate change on health.

Eco: How do you respond to the challenges on your findings by the sceptics?

Hans: As far as I know, no climate sceptics have responded to our work. I do not purport to be a climate scientist. This would entail years of academic study, just as becoming an anthropologist takes years of study. While I have read several excellent overviews of climate science, I accept the general conclusions of the vast majority of climate scientists that climate change is in large part due to human-related activities. Indeed, many climate scientists, including Barrie Pittock and David Karoly in Australia and James Hansen in the US, argue that the observations in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report are on the conservative side and that dangerous climatic changes are occurring faster than predicted in the report’s worst-case scenarios.

Eco: What’s your prognosis for the planet if politicians and decision makers put the environmental concerns of most of the scientific community on the back burner?

Hans: While I do not want to be a doomsday prophet, if politicians and decisions makers put the environmental concerns of most of the scientific community on the back burner, the world is going to become a much nastier place than it already is. Unfortunately, the people who will be the most adversely affected by climate change will be the poor who have contributed the least to it. In addition to the loss of millions, perhaps even billions of lives, many who will seek to migrate to more developed societies. There is the strong possibility that the developed countries will develop an even more profound fortress mentality than they already have. The Pentagon and other security entities have issued reports that express concern about the impact of climate change on geopolitics.

Eco: What kind of negative health implications, in general and even specific in Australia’s case, are you discovering as the planet warms?

Hans: More frequent heat waves, particularly in urban areas, threaten the health and lives of vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and the sick. The estimated mortality of some 35,000 people during the heat wave of summer 2003 were associated not only from the high temperatures but also the fact that night-time temperatures have been rising nearly twice as fast as day-time temperatures. The lingering night-time warmth deprived people of normal relief from blistering day-time temperatures and the opportunity to recuperate from heat stress. Air pollution linked to longer, warmer summers particularly affects those suffering from respiratory problems, such as asthma. Heat waves in recent years in Australia have been implicated in 100s of deaths.

Climate change has also been implicated in the resurgence of numerous epidemics, including malaria, cholera, dengue (which has started to appear in Queensland) , and West Nile yellow fever. While climate change is not the only factor involved, it is estimated that there are 300-500 million cases of malaria in Africa alone, resulting in between 1.5 and 2.7 million deaths, more than 90 percent among children under five years of age. We can speak of the diseases of climate change. These include any ‘tropical disease’ that spreads to new places and peoples, but also includes failing nutrition and fresh water supplies because of desertification of pastoral areas or flooding of agricultural areas.

Eco: What kind of socio-political and other system changes do countries need to make to counter these health threats? Please give an outline of the remaining window of opportunity to address these real and potential health crises

Hans: Anthropologists have long recognised that social systems, whether local, regional, or global do not last forever. Global capitalism has been around for some 500 years but I believe that it must be transcended if humanity and other forms of life are going to survive in some reasonable fashion. These contradictions include the growing gap between the rich and poor within nation-states and between nation-states thanks for corporate globalisation and ongoing conflicts in many parts of the world. The latter can be related in part of various governments, led by the United States but including the United Kingdom and Australia, which are willing to do the bidding of global corporate interests. The treadmill of production and consumption associated with the drive for profits contributes not only to the depletion of natural resources but also to environmental degradation, the most profound of which is climate change. While energy renewable sources are crucial in climate change mitigation, ultimately humanity needs to start thinking about creating an alternative world system committed to social equity, democratic processes in all walks of life, and environmental sustainability. We cannot expect the system that created the problem to solve the problem with simple market mechanisms, such as carbon trading.

Eco: Please briefly outline the scientific processes you use to reveal these threats to humankind

Hans: Thus far, the physical sciences and mainstream economics, in contrast to political economy, have been privileged in terms of addressing climate change, but it is imperative that other disciplines be considered climate change. Thus the social sciences and   humanities should play a crucial role in elucidating the role of political-economic systems in creating climate change and how social systems need to be restructured not only in adapting to climate change but far more crucial mitigating it.

Eco: Describe briefly the early days of your anthropological studies and how it gradually developed into a mission to alert our society leaders to the present looming planetary crisis.

Hans: My initial work in anthropology focused on various U.S. religious groups  that sought in various ways to challenge social inequality, either class or racial or both, in US society. I also became quickly involved in medical anthropology and coined, with Merrill Singer, coined the term ‘critical medical anthropology’ which entailed bringing bring political economy of health into medical anthropology. I have for long been interested in alternatives to global capitalism and read a great deal about post-revolutionary societies, such as the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba. Based upon my reading and experiences in what was the German Democratic Republic, I came to the conclusion that these various post-revolutionary societies were at best transitions between capitalism and socialism that generally aborted in their efforts to create socialism for complex historical and social structural reasons, both internal and external. For me, socialism remains a vision that has not yet been achieved. While much of my initial research focused on issues of social justice and inequality, since the early 1990s I have sought to couple these concerns with environmental ones, both in terms of health issues and climate change ones.

Related posts:

1. To new horizons with Sohail Inayatullah
2. Graeme Taylor: made for change
3. Denying climate change: it’s a question of morality

Sohail Inayatullah is a man of vision, peace and good sense

Brainstorming with Sohail Inayatullah is an experience where you are taken on a journey to future horizons, to a limitless array of possibilities and social scenarios – whatever he can bring your mind to imagine.

To some people they might be mirages never to be grasped, for others with a different mindset it’s like a door being opened not only to the potential of real global change but also a ray of light on one’s inner self.

Sohail, only if you want him to be, is the gentle guide to changes for the better. This humble man with an aura of wisdom and peace opens up in the heads of his clients vistas for alternate, more sustainable futures. Some times the opening vista is featureless, requiring Sohail’s soothing encouragement to form a picture, to form an idea.

This engaging man who spent  the first six years of his life in Pakistan, then travelled the world, first with his family as a boy and then by himself as young man, studied at the University of Hawaii where he did a PhD in political science focusing on macro-history and the ‘grand patterns of change’. He also became deeply interested in the thoughts of Indian philosopher PR Sarkar, the founder of Ananda Marga..

He was especially taken by Sarkar’s theories of time, change and the future.

Because of his father’s work with the United Nations, he’d had an early grounding as a boy in global affairs, having lived also in the US, Switzerland and Malaysia. But that was just a taster for Sohail who beyond his early formal studies is now recognised as one of the planet’s great thinkers and futurists and is in demand worldwide with his ‘foresight workshops’, travelling widely.

In Hawaii, where like many other young men he found a love for the surf, he spent 10 years working with the justice system, looking at the future of law, future of mediation and the future of robotics. He also set up the court’s foresight program in one of his earlier challenges.

At that time he had not anticipated his own change, his own future. While travelling, a chance meeting in a Finland sauna with a QUT academic led to a working association where they held courses in Fiji and Thailand. But from that point he was destined to live in Australia and become an Australian citizen.

It wasn’t long after that  that a position became available at the Brisbane tertiary institution where he worked for nearly four years. But the old call of the surf was strong and in 1999 he moved up to the Sunshine Coast.

He now lives at Mooloolaba in a comfortable home with his wife Ivana, who he met in Barcelona in 1993, and two teenage children, just a two minute walk to the beach and, of course, the surf.

At first glance, his lifestyle would appear to be very laid-back, but this very fit 51-year-old guru of future thinking possesses a CV that is exhausting just to read, let alone enact.

Although Sohail maintains a massive workload, he seems to carry it effortlessly on his shoulders. There’s hardly a line on his face from contemplating future solutions at a time when the planet is in so much chaos and argument.

While meeting many groups from big business, politics and local communities who are either searching for real future answers or going through the motions of the exercise, he maintains an inner peace with himself, although he does admit that some unseeing people can mildly rankle him on a bad day. But in the big picture he can look past that.

In his long list of commitments, Sohail has one which is important to him and that is to attend this year’s Woodford Folk Festival. It’s a place where he sees some of his ideals in practice, where the stiff wall of formal protocol and business bullshit has been swept away with enlightenment, social acceptance, plain good fun, hugs and smiles – not to mention some great entertainment and the delicious dandelion drink that Sohail searches out.

Indeed, Woodford’s famous festival transports Professor Sohail Inayatullah back to his childhood and his place of birth.

“It has a Pakistani feel about it – village environment, people sharing, exchanging goods and ideas, a special colourful vibrancy,” he said while stirring the tasty smoothies he was making for us.

“Woodford is a great example in showing that play is important in creating a better society.

“In my formal work I try to bring in play. But in play there needs to be a structure. The foresight workshops people love the most involve scenarios and drama and where we find a way to play with ideas, to play in the space and see what emerges.”

At the festival, he will also be putting on his thinker’s hat, to get the Greenhouse house audience to consider the topic ‘Spirituality – The Quadruple Bottom Line’. He will also take part in a forum alongside intellectual and environmental heavyweights Clive Hamilton, Professor Ian Lowe and Dr Patricia Kelly. Their discussion, which invites questions from the audience, addresses the topic ‘Can Humankind Make the Change?’

His topic on adding a fourth condition of spirituality to a business’s triple bottom line of financial, social and environmental responsibility to make it economically sustainable should bring lively response.

“We have learned from the Green movement that you can’t talk about economic progress without Gaia as the base,” he said.

“At nearly every workshop come the questions ‘Why am I on this planet? What is my purpose?’ It all leads to a spiritual question – but I don’t see it as a religious issue.

“A spiritual issue is one of the social technologies which allow us, firstly, to be more inclusive; secondly; to allow us to create a better world in terms of justice; and thirdly, to lead us into more inner bliss that comes from yoga, prayer, tai chi, meditation etcetera.”

Sohail, says his role as a futurist is not as a planner or consultant dealing in detail, but as one with a sense of trends and with methods and tools that can help people make different and wiser decisions – to explore different pathways to different futures.

“At a time of global transition it’s hard for many people because there isn’t certainty and they feel insecure. It’s hard for people to make that jump,” he said.

“Our role, and the work at Woodford, is how to create the imagination first that makes a different world possible. Then it’s into conceptual theories and all the practical examples – real live things we can hang our hats on.”

In his work of finding alternate pathways to the future for any organisation, Sohail persuades people to look closely at their inner selves. In terms of ego there may be multiple sub-personalities in all of us, he says.

“There might be an 18-year-old self, a wise self, a hurt self and others all driving us,” he said.

“The first thing I do is get people to have a dialogue with their sub-personalities. Once I can find out what their inner story is and which of their inner selves is active we try to find ways to speak to the self that’s more future-oriented, that’s more wise and can think through the changes that are happening.

“A leader could be operating, not from their wise self but from an immature self .

“With those in leadership positions, it takes the successful pusher/achiever self to get there, but in doing so it disowns other selves such as the emotional self, the child self, the creative self, the spiritual self. This disownment process and the lack of integration within the mind can lead to bad effects

“If you look at the past 500 years the collective world ego nature has been disowned. Now it’s fighting back as global warming.”

So Sohail always asks leaders what they have disowned.

“Hopefully, what they’ve disowned will come back in a positive way and help them change, but if they’ve totally disowned it, it could come back in pathological, evil way and strike them on the head,” he said.

To bring about positive change, Sohail says it requires firstly a conversation of selves then a conversation of outer scenarios.

“With any group, it’s how to integrate different sub-personalities and use that integration to create a different future. If there’s not that inner questioning of the future, the questioning of oneself, it’s the same old default future, the unquestioned future,” he said..

“The core of my work is questioning the future so we can change the present.”

Sohail says that in his foresight workshops he gets people to first consider their inner story, the shared history from their particular community and try to create a map for its future and how it might look, what are the trends and drivers.

The next part is to consider how that map might be disturbed by a range of inputs, such as climate change or even artificial intelligence. Out of this, more robust maps are created and a rescripting for the desired future.

“Once we’ve done that we do scenarios for alternate futures and then do a closed-eye visualisation of what they want the world to look like. It’s very personal, emotive, whole brain stuff,” he said.

“Once we can define the vision, the last question I ask is ‘what happened to get there?’

“I don’t do strategic planning, such as saying it’s now 2010 and what three things need to happen to get to your 2020. It’s more like you are in 2020 in your preferred future, what does it feel like, what does it look like? Now tell me the three things it took to get here.

Sohail said he was not looking at a masterplan approach, but back casting to find ways to achieve a vision.

Into his own future, he hopes to continue linking the global and personal.

“My vision is to continue to ?play a role in creating a different planetary future,” he said.

This man says he tries to live up to his first name which means ‘from the star’ and his second name which means ‘one who gets the benefits of God’; implied expectations but which he readily and generously passes as gifts to the future.

Professor Sohail Inayatullah has been and continues to be in great demand worldwide. As well as holding a number of academic positions such as adjunct professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast, professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan, and visiting academic at QUT.

He has authored/edited twenty nine books, journal special issues and cdroms.He has held countless ‘foresight workshops’ with major business, political and community groups around the globe.

Related posts:

1. The Greenhouse: a very green conversation
2. Hans Baer: health impacts of climate change
3. Andrew Wilford: through the lens of sustainability

Professor Andrew 'Wilf' Wilford

Andrew Wilford is a professor with a passion, a really clever bloke, but he prefers to be known simply as Wilf.

Wilf, who lives with his wife Rosie in an oasis-like, three-level hill-hugging home in Brisbane, at one time had a sharp haircut and wore an air force uniform before he flew higher and eventually into the complex world of big business at Boeing Australia.
It’s been a long flightpath full of incident for Wilf who has ended up making a steep tight turn into the greener world of environmental sustainability, a place where he is able to apply and teach much of the conceptual knowledge and wisdom he has gained as a project management guru working with complex systems.

He was responsible for setting up the F-111 program for Boeing Australia, principally a defence contractor in this country. While Wilf says he is ‘not really an aeroplane guy’, he still has an afterburn of affection for the military aircraft that invaded and took over his personal universe for a long time.

He draws many parallels between his present endeavours in providing answers to save a threatened planet and that of his experience in enabling and introducing what he calls safety-critical, mission critical management systems for the swing-wing F-111.

But now he is in a larger theatre of war, a war of minds and action, where victory for him would see the earth on its way back to environmental recovery but where defeat could eventually cast the human species into oblivion.

So Wilf has important messages to put out. Now, as an associate professor at Bond University on the Gold Coast, a position he has held since 2007, he has a different way of dealing with the dangers and, as you might guess, it’s very systematic way.
At Bond he has the chance to pass on his acquired knowledge, get students thinking on a new level and to add new voices to the ultimate campaign – to save the planet while confronting the problems of climate change.

“I’ve been asked to set up a new subject that I’m going to call either ‘The Principles of Sustainability’ or ‘The Principles of Sustainable Development’,” said Wilf.

“You start with exposing students to the concept of systems – how do systems work. In the process of that I develop a new definition of sustainability and I stay away from the green stuff and talk about how any system relates with its environment and regulates its own affairs or activities to promote enduring health in the whole system. A very different approach – it comes from a systems lexicon.”

Wilf has a Svengalian way about him, but he has good rather than evil in mind. Unlike many academics, he has a hypnotic, energising effect once he gets fired up. What was supposed to be a short interview turned into a full-on discussion/debate/mini-lecture lasting nearly three hours. So necessarily, this story has to be an encapsulation of what Wilf said.

Wilf , who was born in Barnsley in the UK said he came from good pit stock. His grandfather worked as an explosive expert in the mines.

“I’ve got coal in the blood and I’m trying to get rid of it,” he joked.

“It was my grandfather who first came to Australia, working on highway projects out of Sydney. My father followed him out and we set up home in Campbelltown to Sydney’s south west.”

Wilf’s early education at Campbelltown North Primary led him to the unique and highly-acclaimed Hurlstone Agricultural High School.

“It was just a great immersion into understanding the land,” said Wilf who was a day student at what he called a ‘public selective agricultural quasi boarding school’.

“We got exposed to all sort of facets of agriculture. It was fantastic.”

It was at this time that the young Wilford, coming from what he said was a ‘pretty challenged socio-economic environment in Campbelltown’, learned quickly how to mix with different people, especially as Hurlstone was a place for many sons of the well-heeled set and all boys wore blazers and ties.

“I’d like to think that some of my growing up, my formative years of dealing with lots of different people has been really helpful in developing my character and being someone who likes to integrate things,” said Wilf.

“Not that I recognised it  at the time, but clearly there was a calling for me to get involved in dealing with complexity.”
Wilf did well enough at Hurlstone to be selected for a university scholarship.

Having a father who had been in the British air force, the RAF, helped steer him into winning a cadetship in effect to go to university. The air force paid for him.

“At the time, in the early 80s, the Australian Defence Force recognised it had insufficient aeronautical engineers to cope with the next round of new aeroplanes coming into the Australian air force’s fleet,” said Wilf.

So Wilf, who had done well at maths, physics and chemistry at school, ended up at the West Australian Institute of Techonology (which became Curtin University) doing an engineering degree in electronics.

“It was hard. Many of the concepts that you needed to grasp were quite abstract, so you had to play with things that you couldn’t touch -- complex engineering, mathematics, control systems and the like,” said Wilf.

“While I was immersed in technology, my main interest was in the application of technology. It was a great environment for learning and in hindsight the subjects I did well in have maintained a common thread through my entire career and through my life.”

Wilf translates that time, when he learned to work at uni with other people on complex technical devices and systems and lived in an air force environment that encouraged creativity, to the present.

“All along I’ve been a very people orientated person, and in my current employ at university  --  I love the teaching environment – to provide students with an opportunity to see the world through a different set of lenses that might help them better understand, then make good decisions,” added Wilf.

Wilf, on attaining his degree, was soon into proper air force life as a young officer and his first posting was to Richmond near Sydney, where he was involved in looking after the C-130 fleet on maintenance, engineering and technical management

“My background has come more from the technical management side which is looking at systems and understanding how to manage. I have also learned a lot from concepts of supportability and preparedness which applies in the broader sustainability field,” he said.

Wilf’s next moves in managerial roles included taking him closer to the inner engineering sanctums of Qantas and Air New Zealand which were doing maintenance and engineering work for the RAAF.

After working in New Zealand for seven years on air force projects and later in commercial aviation he had a phone call out of the blue. It was an invitation to set up the F-111 program for Boeing in Australia.

It was one of several major life-changing calls for Wilf. It provided a great challenge.
At the peak of the $500 million F-111 program in Brisbane, Wilf had a staff of 450.

While it was a rich and challenging learning curve for him, it was also a trajectory to burn-out because of the intense stress and working hours involved.

While in that Boeing hot seat, Wilf was dealing with an array of complex projects – being, in effect, director of project management capability across the company, covering things such as looking at all the communication architecture for the entire defence force and creating systems for managing air warfare and integrating air warfare, land warfare and marine warfare.

He remembers those times well and his attachment to that special F-111 plane.

“These days I use it as an example to demonstrate the systems principles of sustainability. I’ve learnt a lot from this aeroplane,” said Wilf. “ I come at sustainability from a very different perspective to most people. It allows me to show how we get people engaged in supporting complex endeavours.”

In that three-year stint with Boeing, Wilf was sent to Canberra for three months to help the defence department develop its project management capability.

In the process, the work he was involved with was ‘profoundly important’ and led to the development of a competency standard now a universal benchmark used by many of the biggest companies in the world.

Another spin-off was the establishment of the International Centre for Complex Project Management for which Wilf helped write the strategic plan.

But it was also the time during which he had a serendipitous moment that refocused his life and led him eventually to some greener connections, to academia and eventually to Woodford.

On a plane trip back from Canberra, Wilf found himself seated next to man named Andy Lowe.
It turned out that Andy was an associate professor at the University of Queensland working in their biology area.

“He said he was an interpretive biologist looking at the impact of climate change on plant ecologies, in particular food crops,” said Wilf.

“I am just thinking this is serious stuff. We’d better understand that we have more than 6 billion people to feed. I then told him that I was involved in working on ‘complexity’ and systems engineering.

“After a while we realised, ‘hang on, we could work some stuff here’.”

Professor Lowe was in the process of moving to Adelaide University to work as the director of the herbarium and to also work on a new initiative, to set up a research institute in climate change and sustainability, which was the brainchild of environmental activist Tim Flannery .

So began a dialogue that went on for months before Wilf was invited down to Adelaide to provide an input on project managing such an initiative. Even though Wilf helped them, their bid was unsuccessful and the facility became a consortium of several other universities headed by Griffith.

All of this was happening while Wilf was still with Boeing and using leave time to wing his way into other areas. When he had finished the assignment with Defence and returned to Boeing, he found his seniors had not recognised or understood the strategic importance of what he had been doing.

“By this time I’d had a gutful,” said Wilf.

But it was also the time when he ‘had been taking an active interest looking at the bigger frame of reference for sustainability’.
“I started getting invited to talk at conferences. I was invited to a conference in Sydney and I spoke on ‘leadership and emotional intelligence in complex project management’,” said Wilf.

There were about 150 people there, mainly engineers and the controversial nature of his talk had everyone fired up so much that his talk went far beyond his timeslot and into lunchtime with question sessions.

It was that presentation that drew admiration from a significant audience member who invited Wilf to have coffee with him the following morning. It eventuated that this was man ultimately became Wilf’s new boss, but at Bond Uni.

“He said ‘We’d like to see whether you’d be interested in taking an adjunct professor’s role at Bond. Your industry experience will easily stack up’,” said Wilf.

For Wilf it was an opportune offer, especially as things for him had started to fall apart at Boeing and he had lost his enthusiasm.

As they say, the rest is history.

At Bond he is teaching project management ‘through the lens of sustainability.

“We are living on a planet where every living system is dying. We urgently need people who can manage projects effectively.”
Wilf’s final days at Boeing were preceded by a time when the work pressure was intense and he was having to handle the situation when a government decision was made to retire the F-111s. The government was looking for cuts in costs and Wilf was given the job of reviewing the entire program.

At that time in 2004 he and Rosie were planning to get married and life was full-on with working hours more than 90 hours per week. The writing was on the wall soon after they returned from their honeymoon and Rosie treated him to a session at a yoga retreat.

“I hadn’t done things like this before. We did a lot of meditating and I really switched off,” said Wilf.
At one session Wilf said he ‘disappeared off the face of the universe’, and they had to wake him up because he had started to convulse because he had been so wound up.

“The release of that was phenomenal, I didn’t realise how significant that was,” said Wilf.
He was soon back at work where he found that everything he had left behind had only got worse.

“After 10 days back I was rat shit. I imploded and ended taking three months off work. Boeing didn’t know what to do with me.
“But when I returned I realised the Boeing hadn’t done this. I’d allowed it to happen. At that point freedom came.”

That’s when Wilf started reading more and turning his mind to the complexities of saving Planet Earth. Part of that mission is winging in to the Woodford Folk Festival to spread his message. And it’s a festival that has won him over.

“It’s the ideal social laboratory. It’s an example of how we could all live if we wanted to. It’s a quantum leap towards the humanity that’s worthy of us,” he said.

“For me, from here it’s to try to engender that vibe in everything I do.”

He thought the Woodford project management was pretty good, too.

Words of Wisdom

TAKEN FOR GRANTED: These days I have lots of discussions with people who take for granted systems that we have in western society – quite happy to jump on an aeroplane but not really understanding the complexity, the layering, the interdependencies of all of these systems that come together to ensure a level of technical and operational airworthiness. In other words safety and risk management. All of my career has been involved around this sort of stuff.

TEACHING TROUBLES: At a time when every living system on this planet is in decay, I think most tertiary education needs to step up to the mark. Many students arrive at university knowing bugger all about sustainability. In order to practise something in an applied way you need deep conceptual understanding.

BIG PICTURE: We need to take a whole systems view. I always come from the biggest picture view I can before I start going to the detail. For instance – what are the pattern of dynamics in the system? Is it moving in the direction of pathology or towards a state which is promoting health in the system?

MARS BOUND: If the universe had its way in its expansion phase it would turn the earth into Mars or Venus – that’s its driving force, to dissipate energy and matter. This is a pattern dynamic called entropy.  The only thing that is forcing that back, as far as we know, is life. Life is pushing back on that entropic engine. Without life on this planet, the universe would drive us to Mars.

LOVE LIFE: Life has capitalised on every niche you could imagine – holding back the tide of the universe. So while we’re here let’s try to maintain a set of operating conditions on the planet for life to continue. It’s my view that it’s our highest responsibility as human beings to cherish life, not just human life, but all life.

KEYSTONES: When it comes to resilience systems there a several characteristics. One is diversity, another is modularity which means you can take something out of a system and the whole system doesn’t fail. There are things you can take out of an F-111 and for it still to operate. And there are things you can’t take out. Also, in an ecologies perspective there are things you can’t take out – they might be a keystone species for instance. You take that species out and the whole ecology suffers.
When we look at planes we understand its tree of functional building blocks. Through modelling, durability and damage tolerance tests before we even go and fly an aeroplane we determine what the consequences would be if any part breaks in terms of a safety-critical, mission-critical system. What if that breaks before something else or the other way round or if they break at the same time. We use all that stuff as a set of baseline information to see if the plane is getting healthier or less healthy. A hell of a lot of stuff that we can use and transfer that knowledge in an ecological sense.

CATASTROPHES AHEAD: Whether natural or whether caused by an inability for people to understand what we’re doing and in a world where resources become more scarce – we only have to look back in time to see what our natural behaviours are. To find a big stick!

FLESHING IT OUT: Going back 150 years, if we had gathered all of the planet’s mammalian flesh in a big pile, weighed it and then worked out the proportion of it from human and domesticated animals and pets, it would have amounted to 15 per cent.  If we were able to perform that exercise now the figure would be about 90 per cent.

TIGHT CONTROL: The operating conditions that have been around since mankind has grown from a few to a lot of us have had some variability but within a fairly tight control band.

WATCHING PATTERNS: While, as an engineer I am interested in numbers, I am much more interested in looking at the pattern of systems and saying ‘if this pattern continues where does it take us’. Very few people do that. Most look at the numbers. Are these patterns of behaviour converging, what are the potential futures that will result from that. Are they futures that are worthy of our highest humanity or are they actually taking us to places where we have no other option but to fight.

FOR HIGH FLYING POLITICIANS: You jump on an aeroplane knowing, or may not even know, that the guys up front are the biggest danger in aviation. It’s not technical failure, it’s complacency in the guys up front. They should be one step ahead of what could go wrong, you’re not flying now, but in five minutes time. For someone with a career in aviation it’s in their subconscious. They also train in high-fidelity simulators where instructors throw problems at them, a sequence of failures imposed on the aeroplane, and debrief them over what could have gone badly wrong in a real life scenario. We need that sort of stuff at the top level of our country – especially when we’ve got issues like climate change, energy, food, water, social unrest all at a time when the population is rising.

SUMMIT’S WRONG: At a recent Queensland climate summit I soon realised it was more an economic summit about climate change, not about climate change. It was irking me. No one was talking about the super ordinate system pattern dynamic, and that is to get as many people in here to keep the economy crunching. The over-arching system is growth and we’ve not done any work, any fidelity about carrying capacity. It’s like getting on an aeroplane without knowing the fatigue load, sticking more passengers on, not knowing how much fuel you’ve got and just go. This is wrong.

RUNAWAY MACHINE: The political response out of the summit was to find ways to get ‘good, green infrastructure’ to catch up, catch up because we have got more people than the infrastructure can deal with. And so on – building more infrastructure to catch up. And what does that do. It creates more debt. So more debt, and how do we pay it off? We’d better get more punters in to pay more rates to pay off the debt. Now we’ve got more people, more infrastructure – oh dear, more debt, need more people – this is a perpetual runaway growth machine.

POPULATION PUZZLE: Australia’s endemic population growth is low, so where is the balance of the extra 13 million (government population target by 2050 at 35 million) coming from. Obviously,  from immigration and primarily from third world and developing nations. We’ll give them an opportunity  to make a go of it here, but if they had stayed in their countries and procreated there, per capita many of those countries consume less than a planet’s worth of their ecological footprint share. They come to Australia  where the figure is 4 to 5 times planet’s worth per person. We’re bringing them up to a standard of living that we’re all quite happy to live with. Very tough personal things in all of this stuff as well, because you have to look at yourself. It’s pretty hard. We are taking here is a person who will be have 10 times his previous impact on the planet. So Australia maximises its own prosperity at the expense of the whole system which is the earth.  That’s dumb. From a systems view of it, that’s wrong. It’s accelerating the collapse. As we continue to bring ourselves up at the same time, all we are doing is liquidating our natural capital and consuming all of the natural income derived from that natural capital. It’s not sustainable. I use those big systems dialogues, get on the white board, paint them, show them, have You Tubes and explain this is where we are going.

FEVER: This idea of 2 degrees C -- what does it really mean? Let’s not go beyond 2 degrees C above over pre-industrial average global temperature. Let’s look at another system – the human body is a system – it has its own thermal engine, our own body core. It has the capability for oxygen transfer, and to convert glucose so we can operate as human beings. We have an average core body temperature of  37 degrees C. The average surface temperature of the earth is about 15 degrees C. For analogous purposes, if we increase our core body temperature to 39 degrees C and keep it there, we get incredibly sick with serious fever – on the road to death. That’s more than a six percent increase. Adding 2 degrees C to the planet’s average temperature is more than a 13 per cent increase and proportionately much bigger on a varying finely balanced system. What if with our patterns of behaviour on the planet, with our use of resources, our inability to step off the growth and energy intense ways in which we live plus the earth’s climate inertia etc, we have induced in the system not a 2 degrees C but a 4 degrees C increase. Raise the human body’s core temperature by 4 degrees C and you’re dead. On the planet, 4 degrees C would represent a 25 per cent increase and it’s on a very tightly balanced system where there’s great sensitivity in all of our living ecosystems and our terrestrial, atmospheric and marine ecologies. The 2 degrees C is just an average figure – at the poles there would be an increase of 6 or 6 degrees C. So once we take this bigger systems frame of reference and see where our behaviours and our ideas, which we hold so dearly, are taking us. Is that where we want to be taken? I don’t want to be taken there so I try to be as outspoken as I can to ask the deeper questions about our systems.

DEALING WITH SCEPTICS: I would take them through a systems dialogue using F-111 systems analogies. I talk about uncertainty, and the ultimate safety-critical system (our planetary conditions) and challenge them though a systemic critique. I also carry around in my bag four coloured whiteboard markers and I say ‘ OK, here are the pens – draw up how you reckon this works, and then have the discussion’. I tell them they’re picking little bits out of the system and taking a scalar view rather than a systems view. Then I say ‘Write it up, draw it, show me how you think it works and then let’s examine the logic in it and the ethics in it’. As a starting point I come from a place of biophysical reality.

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1. Sustainability Innovators
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3. Graeme Taylor: made for change

Graeme Taylor, author of Evolution's Edge

Canadian-born Graeme Taylor used to be an emergency paramedic before he found his way into academia and later becoming an award-winning author.

Whatever he does, he does it with passion. You hear the urgency in his voice as if there’s no time to lose. It’s probably always been his way.

But saving accident victims lives is nothing compared to looking after his latest patient – the planet. If Graeme had his way, it would be rushed immediately to the solar system’s intensive care unit. There’d be red lights flashing and sirens wailing while our Earth was prepared for major surgery.

Graeme, who lives almost spartanly with his wife, in a unit overlooking the Brisbane River and Queensland University at St Lucia, is also a social activist, having been involved in a host of issues since the early ’60s when he was working with social justice and peace organisations.

But his latest task is not small for a man who lives relatively humbly. He’s helping to organise an international coalition to prevent total environmental catastrophe and to restore the planet to health by creating an economically and culturally sustainable world system.

He believes the world’s hundreds of thousands of different yet responsible non-governmental organisations, large and small, should have one voice in the fight to fix climate change.

Graeme Taylor on climate change deniers: "They don't have a right to destroy my future amd that of my family, to kill the planet and kill my kids' future. I care and I'm pissed off -- it's so tragic!"

One of the world’s leading environmentalists and mover and shaker for social change, Paul Hawken, has written a book called Blessed Unrest which explores the diversity of the largest movement on earth, a movement which has no name, leader or specific location and is emerging to be an extraordinary entity that gives creative expression of people’s needs globally.

This has been part of the inspiration for Graeme who is lead author for a manifesto being put together with the World Transformation Initiative, a forum for the Great Transitions Initiative which is a growing international network of scholars and activists.

When we met in late November, Graeme was working on an introduction to that manifesto which would set the ground for this grand coalition to take effect.

“These groups from every country in the world are working on every conceivable issue, from taxation to aboriginal rights, stopping deforestation, preserving species right through to climate change,” said Graeme.

“These people are not coordinated. We’re not taking all this energy and putting it together in a common direction to ensure that we rapidly change the planet and put it on a constructive course instead of a destructive one,

“You only get listened to if you have numbers and if you have a clear voice.

“For the vast majority of the people on the planet, it’s not in their interest to have it polluted, to create wars, to let people live in slums. It’s only in the interest of a very few to continue with the suicidal policies we have.

“But those few, those big corporations are able to hire lobbyists able to manipulate the media. Unfortunately, it’s their voice that gets heard.”

Graeme, in his book Evolution’s Edge: The Coming Collapse and Transformation of Our World, is not all doom and gloom. In fact, many critics say it is the book ‘Most likely to save the planet’.

The only problem is getting the right people to read it.

He says the type of transition we need is to turn from ownership to relationship.

“We have to make a shift from having to being. Having more things doesn’t make you happy. We should start looking at the quality of life rather than the quantity. You can be a very lonely billionaire,” he said.

“You can cut down trees,  pollute your air in the short term. You can have bigger houses, faster cars and more gismos, but in the long term process you’ve had no time for your family and you’ve helped destroy your environment. No happiness or good health out of that – you’ve just accelerated your own destruction.”

Graeme has also taken himself out of the Christmas-time commercial rat race. At one time when his kids were young and he had a full-time job he’d spend big time on Christmas.

“One year I was buying presents for 60 people and thought ‘this was insane’. I was spending money on buying stuff for people who quite likely didn’t need it and already had their homes stuffed with things,” he said.

“So I decided there and then that in the future I would do something different – write stories. I wondered whether they’d ever talk to me again, but they actually liked them.”

At Woodford, Graeme will appear at the Greenhouse on the Monday to talk about ‘Growing Crises: Growing Opportunities’. He’s just the man to give oxygen to the growing campaign to save this precious planet.

Author Graeme Taylor is a PhD candidate at the Griffith School of Environment in Brisbane and an honorary research adviser to the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict studies. Since 2003 he has also been coordinator of the BEST Futures project

Related posts:

1. Hans Baer: health impacts of climate change
2. To new horizons with Sohail Inayatullah
3. The woman behind the greenhouse

Avid gardener: Jillian Rossiter also looks after a special greenhouse where ideas grow and minds are fertile. Image: Brian Rickards

The woman behind the Woodford Folk Festival’s Greenhouse program prefers to be the quiet, effective achiever in the background, rather than spearheading campaigns.

That woman is Jillian Rossiter – she’s not exactly a shy, retiring person but she does respect her self-imposed limits and does brilliantly within them, working hard to bring people together to discuss and act on the environmental challenges facing us all.
Jillian, who began he working career as a teacher, is well-loved and admired both within and outside the circle of Woodford activities as she embodies a strong spirit and optimism while others might wilt in the ‘war’ to save the planet.

Her interest in the environment was awoken when she was a young girl and visited her aunt Jill who lived in north-east Victoria on part of a family property handed down from Jillian’s great grandfather.

Aunt Jill, a very independent lady and ‘self-funded’, was a field naturalist and an activist who wasn’t averse to writing the occasional scathing letter to neglectful politicians. She and her cousins were also interested in conservation; some of the farming land was even given away as National Park.

“My aunt and I got on really well together. She was an activist in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. She also started a wondrous garden from seed,” said Jillian who has also become an avid gardener, nurturing nature on her hillside home at Buderim.

“Back then activists were more focused on conservation, conserving trees and wildlife, stopping natural vegetation being ripped out for pine forests, saving National Parks. Today it’s more about environmental issues – pollution, climate change and so on.”

Although the youthful Jillian, who was born in Melbourne, had maintained an interest in things green, her focus in life later changed upon getting married, raising a family and then helping run her ex-husband’s business. Indeed, matters green turned to amber as she began pouring beers and running the office at the pub they ran.

“We owned the Beerwah hotel and had been in the hotel business since 1975. Before Beerwah we had the Landsborough hotel,” said Jillian.

But Jillian eventually split with her husband, retired partially from the business and was looking for new horizons.
But the trigger had already been pulled when she was working in the pub back in the 80s.

“I had learnt in the pub about some trees coming down. Our customers were the fellows who were clearing this native vegetation in the area called Caloundra Downs. They were clearing it for contractors, to plant pine trees – they piled it up and burnt it all,” said Jillian.

“So I went out there and they showed me the devastation. I saw a link-up of six D9s with chains between them. They just pulled the vegetation down. I saw a bird flying back trying to find its nest – it had been in those trees. That’s how quickly the vegetation is cleared.

“It was heart-wrenching. What had taken 200 to 300 years to grow had been destroyed in five minutes.”
That moment was seared on Jillian’s mind. It was a turning point. She was determined to do something. She started joining conservation organisations.

“I joined quite a few – the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Australian Natural Society and the Sunshine Coast Environment Council,” said Jillian.

As she was leaving the pub business she found she had the time and opportunity to use more of her energies elsewhere.

“At that point I wanted to do something for the community which had been good to us, to put something back in because I had become financially secure. So I was able to volunteer,” she said.

It was no surprise she chose environment because she had already joined some of the organisations.
So Jillian became more active, especially from the time she was introduced to SCEC.

“When I joined SCEC, all my children were grown up by then and I was free to follow the path I had really wanted to follow,” said Jillian.

Her work as a ‘green’ volunteer took her into new areas, firstly in SCEC’s environment shop, and then to acquiring new skills in the office and becoming secretary on the committee. In 1992 a position arose when somebody left SCEC and she found herself editing its magazine Eco Eco.

“It was known as the ‘Green voice of the Sunshine Coast’ and I went on to edit it for 10 years,” said Jillian.

“The thing about working as a volunteer is that there are no expectations and you’re empowered to have a go at something you really perhaps not wholly skilled at and you have to teach yourself on the job.

“However, Bill Hauritz, now the director of the Woodford Folk Festival, was then able to give be some help, showing me how to use the computer and other things. Putting out Eco Eco was a wonderful way of giving voice to some of the wonderful environmentalists on the Sunshine Coast.”

It was a job that brought new connections in the environment cause and laid some of the some of the path that eventually led her to Woodford’s Greenhouse.

It was Des Ritchie, the Irish inspiration and elder of the Queensland folk scene and supporter of SCEC, whose gentle persuasion led Jillian to the Woodford (then Maleny) Folk Festival.

“I’d only been at SCEC for a few months and Christmas time was coming up and Des said to me ‘are you going to the festival’. I said ‘what festival?’. So I went with my daughter for a day, walked inside and both of us fell instantly in love with it,” said Jillian.

“The next year I went for the whole time and have done so ever since.”

But Des did more than introduce Jillian to the festival. He became her inspiration.

“He also empowered me to do all the things , develop all the skills I’ve developed and given me confidence. In everything I did in the environment movement he gave me confidence. He was not only a great empowerer of me, but also for many other people.”

The move from the hotel scene, which Jillian describes as ‘male-dominated’, to the SCEC environment was dramatic.
“They were two different worlds. When I went to SCEC I was stunned that women were regarded equally. When I first arrived project officer Mark Ricketts offered me a cup of coffee. From then I thought ‘I love this’,” said Jillian.

Now, Jillian is also one of the ‘green’ leaders, but she’s pretty humble about her Greenhouse role.

“It’s probably because I stayed a long time at it. There are many others who have achieved far more by actually make a change,” said Jillian.

“I have stuck with the environment council and then through the Woodford Folk Festival and the Greenhouse. I’ve been there a long time more in an educational role and perhaps changing people’s consciousness rather than actively being an advocate of change as a campaigner.

“I have always felt it an absolute privilege to do the Greenhouse because it’s unique. It has the ability to touch ordinary people who would normally not go to a talk by an environmental expert or a scientist.”

Jillian, who describes her younger self as having been a ‘fairly little feminine girl, a good girl’, said her schoolteacher mother (Mavis) was her early inspiration.

“She instilled into me a sense of social justice. We used to discuss all kinds of subjects at the dinner table  -- right from when I was young enough to be aware of global issues,” said Jillian.

However, Jillian admits, even though she has been a teacher, that it’s not easy for her to speak in public.

“I had to force myself to do it when I became president of SCEC. Really, I’d rather be behind the scenes organizing,” she said.
So when it comes to designing a successful Greenhouse program, what are the essentials?

“The subject matters. I try to bring something fresh. Perhaps focus on an expert in a particular topical subject and to find enough people to make a forum session.” said Jillian.

“Some times ideas come to me in the middle of the night. I also keep a notebook with me and go to as many speaker events as I can to head hunt and talent spot. I look to see if they are able to present well to an audience”

As for the future Jillian hopes to see the Greenhouse venue employ new video technology to link festivalgoers instantly with overseas speakers.

“I would like for us to be able to tap into people such as David Suzuki. Then we can be more green and not have people actually travel. Also, by then I would like to hand over to a younger person,” said Jillian.

As far as changing the minds of sceptics, Jillian says they have  to have an epiphany themselves and that Woodford is a great place for that.

“For instance, they might try a permaculture workshop and discover some realities in the principles of sustainability,” she said.

“I hope we get the people who are ready for change – where their consciousness is at a tipping point.

“I don’t have the courage or the abilities to get to the sceptics. I’m just the facilitator of the Greenhouse – not necessarily the one to make change. I just provide the stage for those that can.”

This woman with the big smile, gentle humility and a heart full of passion for this planet still believes there is hope. It seems her quiet determination has as much power as anything in the quest for success.

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3. Graeme Taylor: made for change

Letter to the Editor

By now it would seem beyond doubt that global warming is a reality and a serious problem. Precisely how much of it can be attributed to human activity and how much to natural causes may be open to debate. There is also mass starvation and violent aggression, manifesting in our part of the world as increasing road rage, glassing incidents and drunken parties that deteriorate into public brawls, and one can also think of various reasons and remedies for these.

But we are refusing to see the obvious -- that six billion human beings cannot continue to foul, decimate and exploit the planet the way we are doing without causing dramatic and disastrous consequences for it and ourselves. Precisely what those consequences might be is also open to speculation and debate, but keeping in mind that the six billion is expected to be nine billion by 2050 and twelve billion soon after, the real problem should be obvious.

Global warming, and so many of our other problems are but symptoms of the HUMAN POPULATION EXPLOSION, which is beyond any doubt or debate, and until we face up to and tackle that, we are wasting our time and effort by treating symptoms and not the cause.

Dmitri Perno
Buderim

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Penelope Ward, reporting from Copenhagen

Excitement and nervous energy turned to frustration and angst as thousands waited outside the Bella Centre, with NGOs, IGOs, media and official party delegates all swarming around the centre to get to work. With the heads of state of 192 countries arriving this week, security has been tightened and any forms of unrest are quickly suppressed.

Over 100,000 protesters fill the streets of Copenhagen with life, colour and noise. “A large, colourful and beautiful showing of humanity, of people’s desire for climate justice,” says Brianna Cotter spokesperson for the AVAAZ Action Factory.

After a weekend of cultural activities galore including the Flood Copenhagen march of over 100,000 people through the city’s heart, climate concerts, film festivals and flash actions filling the city with a new energy. Snow began to fall across the city yesterday, but just as the temperature drops, things are just starting to heat up inside the Bella Centre.

Inside the centre, the Australian Youth Delegation met with Penny Wong in Australia’s head office, with a warm and encouraging reception by the Climate Change Minister. They asked how the government planned to protect vulnerable communities against climate catastrophe, and whether Australia would be ready to take a leading role -- the Minister answered carefully while giving little away. The Minister took a more realistic line, “these are negotiations, not a supermarket”, and indicating compromises were inevitable.

Minister Wong did recognise the time had come for “more actions than words”, and said the government was conscious of viewing climate change “through the prism of disadvantage”, inflicted on the most vulnerable Australians and Pacific Islanders.

The Australian Youth Delegation tell leaders to “wake up”, in their bed-in action outside the plenary hall on the anniversary of John Lennon’s death singing, “all we are saying is cut greenhouse gas, all we are saying is give youth a chance”.

The youth presence has been reduced this week however, with numbers being restricted to 15,000 for “security reasons”. While last week saw hundreds of spot actions including a Sleep-In, Candle Vigil with Desmond Tutu, Freeze Protest, songs and chants and other creative actions, the Bella Centre this week has been flooded again with suits, laptops and rich foreign  accents.

Outside the centre, ‘climateers’ are continuing their fight and raising their voice louder. With anti-riot powers under new Danish legislation in full force, police say they will not make unnecessary arrests but warn protesters to engage in peaceful activities as much as possible.

The vibe in Copenhagen changes constantly. From hopeful optimism in the lead-up to unyielding resilience in the days following, to gradual disenchantment -- people are now hoping the arrival of the heads of state this week will see some serious moving and shaking in the negotiation chambers. The intensified security levels certainly suggest something big is coming.

The AVAAZ Action Factory is looking at increasing the level of large, colourful and vibrant actions to keep leaders on their toes.

“This week we are focusing on drawing attention to vulnerable communities and developing countries, by way of rapid-response creative actions,” says Brianna Cotter, media spokesperson.

“We want to provide some translation between policy and humanity”, she said, by focusing on the humanitarian aspects of the crisis, of the stakes if a fair, ambitious and binding agreement is not reached this week.

So what should we expect to see this week? Well, we can await the media frenzy that will come with the arrival of political celebrities including Kevin Rudd, and Barack Obama. The most important meeting of humanity this century? Quite possibly.

All seem to recognise a need to prevent or correct an irreversible climate crises. An effective meeting of the minds by humanity’s leaders? Only time will tell. As Penny Wong says, we must await for this exchange of words to be followed by concrete actions by states.

I overheard a quote in passing yesterday, “nature cannot negotiate, we must negotiate on its behalf”.  And today (Dec14), the games officially begin. Let us hope that amid the power-play and media frenzy of it all, it is nature who wins at the end of the day.

Other Copenhagen related news

Local action starts as Copenhagen talks continue

Copenhagen: delegates urged to be visionary, courageous

What Rudd and Wong should take to Copenhagen

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