The lazy consensus

Ben Quin Dear Editor,
THERE appears to be a lazy consensus emerging that we cannot take action on climate change, nor implement an emissions trading scheme, during the global financial crisis. We must challenge this vigorously in public debate.

The global financial crisis has caused us to re-assess our place in the financial world and our economic foundations. Laymen now understand the terms “asset price bubble” and “deleveraging” in the financial economy. How much longer before the penny drops that these same concepts are alive in the natural economy and we re-assess our place in the natural world?

Many millions of years ago, our ancestors emerged from the sea and adapted themselves to living in the atmosphere. We developed lungs to replace our gills, legs and arms in place of fins, and better brains of course. Even so, it seems that we remain largely unaware that we live in the atmosphere and depend upon it for our survival. We continue to use it for leverage to expand our global economic bubble.

Less than 50 years ago, we woke up to the idea that the oceans were not an infinite space and that we could not leverage them endlessly as a dump for our toxic and biological wastes. The global waste-water treatment industry emerged, based on novel technologies, and is now a trillion dollar global industry and a widely embraced component of our modern industrial and social fabric.

If we are really searching for a vision of Tasmania’s future, we should lead-off in making the economic and technical adjustments required to significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution of the atmosphere. I am sure Mr. Rudd would support a pilot trial of his ETS in Tasmania ahead of its roll-out into the broader Australian economy.

Yours sincerely,

Ben Quin

Triabunna