Following is an extract from my speech to the Timber Communities Australia Conference in Launceston, Tasmania:
“It is a fact of life that if you don’t have your own clear plan, your own vision, you will likely be recruited into implementing someone else’s plan.
Organizations such as WWF and Greenpeace don’t undertake much tree-planting or grow any organic food themselves. These organizations exist to recruit others to implement their plans, their vision of what is best for the environment.
The Federal Coalition Government has been bankrolling these organisations to promote their vision. For example the federal government provided grants to WWF of over $15 million during the period 1996-2003.
We need a new vision. We need a new environment organisation within which we can start discussing and debating the principles I have outlined.
And there is a new environment group just starting up, and working from a radically different value-set than the established groups. The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) has just formed and embraced the following 6 values based on my five principles:
1. Evidence – policies are set and decisions are made on the basis of facts, evidence and scientific analysis;
2. Choice – issues are prioritised on the basis of accurate risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis;
3. Technology – appropriate and innovative technological solutions are implemented.
4. Management – active management is used when necessary, acknowledging that landscapes and ecosystems are dynamic;
5. Diversity – biological diversity is maintained;
6. People – the needs and aspirations of people are balanced against environmental issues.
Working logically from these basic values and from my principles, could result in some radical outcomes. For example, if we value evidence, and if we are concerned about reducing our ecological footprint, then it logically follows that it is actually better to buy GM than organic. It might actually be better to support the Australian timber industry than to import timber from Malaysia and Indonesia.”
For more information on AEF and its soon to be launched website watch this web-blog.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Unless the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment 1992 is repealed, all levels of government upon all of Australia’s states and territories are bound by the precautionary principle, intergenerational equity, conservation of biological diversity and ecological integrity and improved valuation, pricing and incentive mechanisms.
The values listed, if constrained by the aformentioned policy principles, would so substantially differ from the anti-socialism of previous approaches that it might just relieve Australia of the bitterness and counter-productivity of divisiness.
Anti-socialism of previous approaches? Antisocialism means rejecting the Lenins, Stalins, Hitlers, Maos, Che’s, Fidels, Dear Leaders, Pol Pots of this world, to mention a few.
Since when has any government been bound by the precautionary principle?
And what on earth is meant by inproved valuation, pricing and incentive mechanisms?
The latter is easy to dispose of – prices are part and parcel of the market economy – no market economy, no prices. Socialism, in which no one owns anything, also cannot have “prices” of things because in the act of buying and selling, one is in the action of selling one’s own property to another, but since private property does not exist in social democractic states, this too means that buying and selling cannot occur in such social systems.
Except by dictate of course, where vallues, prices and incentives are prescribed.
Oh forget it, this could end up being a soliquey………
Just the obvious errors.
It is not better to buy GM over organic.
In the world’s largest study into sustainable agriculture, Jules Pretty, professor of environment and society at the University of Essex (UK) analysed more than 200 projects in 52 countries over many decades.
The highest yielding agricultural method was organic.
It is important for the many billions of people starving, and for future generations, that correct scientific information is used when discussing food production and distribution issues.
Hi to ig56,
How do you define ‘sustainable’ and do you have a link to the study you reference?
I thought all agricultural methods were organic, and those from synthetic plants, er, inorganic?
Perhaps antisociality would have been a less provocative word, but insofar as Australian environmental policy is bound by statute (and this confers upon improved valuation, pricing and incentive mechanisms) environmental factors should be included in the valuation of assets and services and environmental goals, having been established, should be pursued in the most cost effective way, by establishing incentive structures, including market mechanisms, which enable those best placed to maximize benefits and/or minimize costs to develop their own solutions and responses to environmental problems.
Wordy, I know, but consistent nonetheless with the principle of social organisation that places the environmental responsibility into the hands of the local community.
Previous approaches contradict the principle through displacement and are therefore anti-social.
Louis – you have a very black and white view of the world. Medicare is a socialist policy. In a pure free market world there would be no medicare. In Australia we have a sensible mix of socialism and free market policies that work well and that does not have to change. Most of the people you mentioned are dictators that have no more relationship with socialism that Hilter with free markets.
What is needed is mechanisms to get the environment into the balance sheet. Right now all environmental costs are externalised. The Earths resources are considered infinite as is the Earths capacity to absorb our waste. It it therefore a zero cost to economics.
THe fact that this premise is obiously false does not stop huge agri-businesses from buying up millions of acres of land and then unsustainably growing crops with no regard to the long term viability of the land. The only quest is profit.
When farmers were family smallholders then there was concern for the land as it was presumed that it would be passed down through generations. Therefore the long term land viability was considered over profit because the farmers were in for the long haul.
Now with agri corporations owning a majority of the land the only motivation is profit. If the land becomes infertile because it just cannot absorb any more fertilizer or it becomes saline then the agri business will just move somewhere else. It has no loyalty to the land or any regard for its future.
Corporations need to be forced to consider the environment in their bottom line. If this is socialist then so be it. It has been proved time and time again government regulation is the only way to bring them to heel as they will not do it by themselves.
Ender,
here we have your approach – “Corporations need to be forced…..”.
This is nothing but out and out Eco-dictatorship no different to any other dictatorship.
In anycase companies are abstractions – what we are really dealing with are people, so cutting to the chase, it is clear that the Greens really want a totalitarian state to achieve their goals.
As for profit Ender, I don’t think you understand it. Every cent you save in your bank account for a rainy day is “profit”.
No modern agricultural company is going to mistreat its land as you imagine it – to do so would be to wreck their business for the long term.
In fact private ownership guarantees it will be looked after. Public ownership means that no one owns it and therefore no one looks after it.
No ender, socialism means totalitarianism – no thank you.
Loius – eco-dictatorship what a stupid thing to say.
Read this from a lifetime coal miner – you can read the full article here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/23/214849/506
Corporations are structured with return to shareholders as their legal object. To get them to consider the social and environmental cost of their activity they have to be regulated to government. Are you really suggesting we end all government controls on corporations???
Anyway read the article – I don’t think that you would call this person a rabid greenie.
“The coal industry has done all those neat things. They’ve made it safer. Made it cleaner. Reclaimed the land. Why did they do it? Because we friggin’ made them do it, that’s why.
Actually, I’ll give them a good deal of credit on the safety front. They figured out that keeping their employees alive was all around good for business, and the companies generally have much more stringent safety standards than the government. But on every other issue, they didn’t move an inch voluntarily.
That “forbidden zone” around my childhood home? That’s the “pre-law” land. As in the “before the surface mine reclamation act made us put down a huge cash bond that that we can’t get back until we fix everything” land. Before the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. If mining companies had not been required to essentially put themselves deep in debt every time they mined, and only get their money back when things meet the standards, they would have happily left more open pits and acid pools.
Those nice statistics on reduction in pollution? That’s the Clean Air Act at work. If the government hadn’t stepped in to tell them to stop, they would have never even heard the word “scrubber.” Every move they made – from mining lower sulfur coal to the sophisticated steps put in place to cut down on particulate emissions – was done directly to meet the mandates of the Act. If the numbers on that graph look good to you, note that on average the industry has done exactly as it was required to, and not one bit more.
Every evidence is that they can mine coal safely, they can mine coal without destroying the land, and they can clean up emissions. They can make a profit at it, too, as the major companies are breaking all records while meeting these requirements.
But they won’t lift one damn finger unless we make them. Without regulation, they would backslide in a heartbeat, and without more regulation, they won’t take another step.
Ender,
Coal deposits and their mining are totally controlled by the various Australian State Governments.
Coal companies are not free agents but totally controlled by government.
It is your freely elected state government that is the problem, not the coal companies.
Therefore you should send your concerns to either Peter Beattie (QLD), Bob Carr (NSW).
And Ender, if it is profitable for us to do so, we will. We might even sell our souls to the devil if it increased profits and thus increased your dividend cheque
Ender,
one extra comment about your “But they won’t lift one damn finger unless we make them. Without regulation, they would backslide in a heartbeat, and without more regulation, they won’t take another step.”
What makes you think we like living in environmentally awful places?
Ender says “In Australia we have a sensible mix of socialism and free market policies that work well and that does not have to change.”
Deregulation has been a constant ongoing process with the free market bringing efficiencies and profits unheard of by socialist schemes.
Banks were once Govt owned and regulated – look at how easy it is to access finance today compared to 50 years ago.
Profit is not a dirty word it is the measure of sustainability and enables personal freedom.
I saw Jennifer Marohasy in action at the Timber Communities Australia Conference in May. She had the passion to change the environmental agenda in Australia. Alarm bells should be ringing for Bob Green and other mainstream environmentlists. At last in Australia is the genesis of an environmental organistaion (AEF) which is based on principles of commonsense which will hopefully result in REAL outcomes (as opposed to political fixes) that will benefit us all Australians now and for generations to come. If there is any environmental organisation worth supporting this is it.
Sure rog – try to get a loan in a country town where they have closed the branch. I am sure the people here would agree with you. Rising debt from easy finance are major problems. Also look how bank fees have increased – it is not all rosy.
Profit is not a dirty word – only when it is the only word overriding all other concerns.
how dare you suggest that anyone who cares about a future is moral crusading. you and your milk the environment organisation will be stood up against. your 6 points based on your own bigoted commercially driven principles are shameful.it is blatantly obvious that you care for nothing but unbridled expansion of commercial interests over long term human health and stability. it is disgraceful that you try and look like an organisation that cares about the environment.
shame heaped upon shame on you.
jennifer, you go on about truth in the debate over the environment in your introduction above, and then, you inform the public that greenpeace, like wwf is bankrolled by the federal govt.
greenpeace is totally self funding. it is not, and has never been bankrolled by the federal government or anyone else for that matter.
did you stop to consider how absurd your statement looks in a world where governments everywhere consider groups like greenpeace to be mortal enemies.
duh!