To come to grips with the pressures of an ageing population — estimated to be about at about 35 million in the late 2040s — Treasurer Wayne Swan’s Intergenerational Report this week cited fiscal restraint, higher productivity, higher participation, tax and health reforms as keys to sustainable growth.
Growth is good is the dominant world view. Endless growth is not sustainable, and makes little sense. Growth for whose benefit, and for how long? Humans are the most remarkable species (language complexity, ability to manipulate the environment, to organise complex and sometimes massive tasks; travel and communication urges). We need to come to a dynamic balance with the remnants of nature. Let’s call these planning world views “the old way” and “the new way”.
We understand the old way because we are in it — part of the cultural momentum of the past 100 years, which provides us with so much. But the old way is unsustainable — the world, resources, soils, water, low-impact energy and particularly petroleum — are most finite. The old way bets on human prowess to wring more and more out of less and less; the productivity increases demanded of our intergenerational slide into increasing numbers of older Australians.
The argument for high immigration of young and energised people is as appealing as the cigarette advertisements of the 1950s — smoking sooths the throat and eases coughing. The immigrant young will in turn grow old.
Australia is the driest inhabited continent, with the oldest surfaces on earth, home to the oldest continuous human cultural practices. We are brittle; we are fragile and need a new way of planning, where our values are placed as the key engine for what we should do. Values for sustainability have been thrashed out internationally over the past 30 years: Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD). Those values, as a start to sustainability implementation planning generate principles, which when locally applied, lead to local practices (Goudie 2009).
Local water, energy, food and needs-meeting is the mantra of the new way. New planning weds needs-meeting with home location. Putting social, cultural, economic, environmental and long-term needs and knowable realities such as peak oil ahead of “growth at any cost” means the cessation of urban fringe growth now. It is embracing the approach of Rob Adams, Melbourne, in placing increased population in 5-8-storey, low energy, high livability apartments around transport nodes and existing transport corridors.
Australia cannot take many of the 90 more million people on the planet each year. We do not have the intrinsic, life-sustaining resources to build and satisfy an extra Canberra worth of roads, pipes, cars, shops schools (insert your own very long list) year after year after year.
Our ageing demographic? Live more simply, use less; consume less; share more. Cut waste; reduce our carbon/ecological footprint.
Reconfigure government to a rational national approach in defining values and principles for the long term. Use science. For example, refining waste water for drinking uses half the energy of desalination. Make decisions on good science; on good sense and try to minimise wastage from inept “self protection and power gain” embedded at the heart of most large organisations.
Open the most frightening of “E” debates: full-functional-prior-consent euthanasia. This should be a high moral debate, listening to the end-users; the key revolution of “the new way” of planning: Listen to the end-users, listen to those there already.
Reference: Goudie DD 2009. The emergent science of engineering a sustainable urban environment. Water, Air, & Soil Pollution: Focus. VWA & SP. 9/5-6, 469-484. SpringerScience+BusinessMedia, LLC.
Dr Douglas Goudie is a lecturer in Sustainability Planning at James Cook University, North Queensland
Oh no! It’s another godless leftie who wants us to stop having children and kill our old people! But who are you to tell me to deny me my god given right to have as many children as I want? Who are you to make me kill my granny with your government death panels and your communist conspiracies?
I demand growth for ever! For ever and ever and god will make it all okay with his magic.
/rapid SUV departure featuring screeching tyres
Once again, the dodgy “Peak Oil” argument makes its way into crikey….I could launch into my disagreement, but most of you already know my opinion on this.
I would like to speak of economic growth however. Economic growth has been shown to have a direct correlation to high living standards, increased health, increased education and reduction in social disruption (like crime, civil war etc). When a country’s economy is growing, the country’s people are living longer, are smarter, richer, and dare I say it happier. It is the silver bullet.
So for the author to suggest that we should forsake this to live simpler and consume less (when consumption makes up 70% of GDP and employs the vast majority of people), I think is short sighted. Increasing productivity of resources (both labour and material) and reducing waste are worthy goals, but economic growth should still be the long term aim of this country’s political leaders.
@Scott
Afew clarifications need to made when using the term ‘economic growth’ and what its actually measuring. Deforestation(= growth in forestry industry), river pollution (manufacturing is growing using the environment as its dumping ground), air pollution (congestion of our roads leading to higher fuel consumption and thus higher household consumption of fuel and higher fuel refiners and retailers profits). The System of National Accounts framework that determines how economic growth is calculated rewards all this unsustainable activity, when in reality, our environment supports life, and economic growth dependends on it, but serves to plunder, waste and dispose of precious resources.
Furthermore, it inadequately measures health and education. Because most of these activities are usually the domain government and outside of the market, they are valued only in terms of how much is spent, not the true benefits of investing in these areas. In other words, it measures the short-term expense, rather than the long term benefits.
All economic growth figures really serve is do is estimate how much profit is being made by industry without any concern with how much degredation is involved. That was its original purpose decades ago. It is an utterly useless figure to use when measuring progress in health, education, living standards or happiness. This progress still happens despite economic growth, not because of it.
Finally, I’m really getting tired of this ‘populate and perish’ argument put forward in this article. The objective of sustainability is to ensure that future generations can live in a world that still supports life. If the object is to stiffle population growth then who what is the point of sustainability if there is nobody left to live (given we need to make babies to sustain the human race).
Whilst I strongly believe that economic growth should be only pursued if it occurs within a closed circular ecological framework: what is extracted from the environment should be reused, not wasted (which could still guarantee economic growth), this percular notion that we should end the human race in order to be sustainable is perplexing.
“It is an utterly useless figure to use when measuring progress in health, education, living standards or happiness. This progress still happens despite economic growth, not because of it. ”
Not true. There are many studies that have found a link between economic growth to increases in health and education outcomes, if only through increased Government spending in these areas. The Government can’t just spend money. Its needs revenue to fund its activities. Increased economic growth means increased tax receipts which means more funding for education and health which equals better education and health outcomes for the citizens.
As for living standards, well the definition of standard of living is GDP per capita.
If people are to be housed to higher density we need architecture and social behaviours that protect folk against disturbances that reduce the quality of life – loud music, dog barking, and all the other reasons that make life unpleasant for many others. How we can achieve higher standards of consideration for neighbours and their quality of life is important to any attempt to increase residential density.
Economic growth need not necessarily cause environmental degredation. We need to grow our exchanges of goods and services towards quality of life rather than by increasing consumption of scarce resources with polluting consequences for example: more education, better health, greater access to the arts, literature, and creative expression. Perhaps we do need to recalibrate the measurement of economic growth to increase emphasis upon high quality but sustainable activities.
Dr Goudie’s article is very rational, though obviously not all will agree with its arguments, but sadly our political system is not all that rational. We will meander to our destruction goaded by populist taunts using words and phrases like tax, thin end of the wedge euthanasis, big government etc. Our political system is too vulnerable to populist manipulation, we need a better system, but what?