introduction
The Triple Crunch
Australia, in common, with the rest of the global economy, is facing a ‘triple crunch’ of recession, accelerating climate change, and growing energy costs and insecurity. These overlapping phenomena threaten to develop into a ‘perfect storm’, the like of which has not been seen since the Great Depression1.
As jobs are lost at an increasing rate, decisive and visionary action by the state and federal governments is needed to guide us through this gathering storm and to take advantage of the opportunities that these unprecedented events present to us.
A way forward that is finding support in both Europe and the United States is the idea of a transformational policy program aimed at tackling growing unemployment and declining demand on the scale of Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s. This approach involves policies and novel funding mechanisms to substantially reduce the use of fossil fuels while also driving the creation of new ‘green collar’ jobs. This in turn will help us tackle climate change and cope with the energy shortages likely to be caused by peak oil in coming years.
This blog is an introduction to our paper, A Green New Deal for Victoria. It is a first attempt to articulate how we think Victoria can and should respond to the coming crisis. We have done this as a blog to invite your feedback and involvement.
Please feel free to read the report, either as a whole or the sections that interest you and post your thoughts. We will compile these and adopt the ones we feel we support, to produce our final version.
Please make your comments <!– @page { size: 21cm 29.7cm; margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } -by monday May 18.
Revision to be more widely readable (I think) with vy additions in brackets.
Barack Obama promised when he became US President, 20 January 2009, to “”finally spark the creation of a clean energy economy.” “We will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years. We will modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills. We will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced – jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain”.
Nicholas Stern formerly World Bank chief economist says that it is possible to have low-carbon growth and also overcome world poverty.
The Triple Crunch for Australia and the world . – recession, accelerating climate changes and exhausting resources. The results from these have never been seen before.
As jobs are lost at an increasing rate, the people as well as their governments must take advantage of the opportunities.
One way forward on the scale of Franklin D Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ of the 1930s, requires new policies and funding mechanisms to use far less fossil fuels and create the new ‘green collar’ jobs that are needed to tackle climate changes and cope with the coming energy shortages after peak oil.
We stand at a pivotal moment in history We must ensure that global temperature does not rise by more than 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. But time is rapidly running out. The industrialised countries must cut their carbon emissions by at least 40% by 2020, starting right now.
At the same time a global recessions is plunging millions into poverty.
The two crises share common roots. A world addicted to fossil fuel, driven by ideological obsession about letting the market rule has resulted in economic and environmental breakdowns.
There is no quick fix by creating some jobs and encouraging spending. This is an opportunity to restructure the economy to:
* be resilient to survive the coming changes of global warming and no more cheap fuel,
* a healthy sustainable ’steady state’ economy, that does not have to grow unstoppably.
Most people now realise that rich nations (also called the global North) have such relatively extravagant lifestyles and produce such high levels of waste, that there is simply not enough environmental space for all 6.7 billion people currently alive to all live this way. Our aim must be high quality lifestyles and strong, vital economies working within ecological limits.
The bushfires that devastated much of Victoria over the past summer will lead to changes in how and where we build in fire prone areas. The responses to bushfire must be fully integrated into the broader response to recession and resilience in climate changes.(Even burning-off to prevent bushfires may prove to b environmentally unsustainable, as it increases pollution and loses irretrievable nutrients in smoke, with only temporary rejuvenation from the ashes.)
Your blog is so interesting! I have subscribed on rss and I will read it regullary/
Awesome blog! Subscribed on rss. Regular will read it. Good job.
Excellent blog! Very interesting themes. I will regularly read it.