Frank Nicklason
Restructuring the tax system can create a means of realistically pricing ecological services.
In 2001 Oystein Dahle, former Vice President of Exxon for Norway and the North Sea observed: “Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.”
The need for tax shifting, that is lowering income taxes while raising levies on destructive activities has been widely endorsed by economists (including 8 Nobel Prize winners).
Restructuring the tax system can create a means of realistically pricing ecological services.
Forest ecologists, for example, can estimate the value of native forest stands in terms of flood protection and carbon sequestration as well as the cost of clearfelling. Clearfelling leads to soil loss and loss of water yield when a thirsty regrowth forest replaces it.
In Europe and the U.S, polls indicate that at least 70% of voters support environmental tax reform once it is explained to them.
It is clear that full accounting of the destructive effects of the Gunns pulp mill have not been accounted for. Providing even more public funding for the project (The Mercury 3/3) is most unlikely to be popular with a voting public which is aware of the implications of global climate change for food and water security.
Nor is it likely that the future voters inheriting our mess will thank us.
Frank Nicklason
West Hobart
