Our carbon tax is too little, too late, but should be applauded

Creation of a sustainable Australia begins with the introduction of the country’s new carbon tax.

The intellectual, political and ethical dithering surrounding debate about the tax has resulted in the decision being too little, too late.
Such a tax should have been should have been a working part of the Australian landscape some 20 years ago with subsequent modifications preparing us, individually and generally, for a decidedly different, but not necessarily worse, future.

Paul Keating (left) and
 Bob Hawke should have
 introduced Australians to
 the idea of sustainability.

Ideally the Bob Hawke Labour Government, followed by his successor Paul Keating, would have introduced Australians to the idea of sustainability and then, with more than a decade at the country’s helm, former Prime Minister, John Howard, should have guided us to living with a smaller ecological footprint.
Adherence to such a time scale would have positioned Australia perfectly to address world-wide emerging difficulties as detailed in The Club of Rome commissioned book, “The Limits to Growth”.
The book with Donella Meadows, who died in 2001, as the then lead author was first published in 1972 and has since been updated three times with a forth update coming.
Changes to the book’s broad message have been subtle, but the essence of its message is substantially unaltered – humans have, and are, eroding earth’s resources and subsequently the pressures we are putting on the earth’s various sinks, those places that for centuries have absorbed mankind’s wastes, are causing near irreparable damage.
When first published, the book alerted us to the dangers associated with the maintenance of our behaviours and now nearly 40 years later it is obvious we have not only not listened, rather have engineered a situation bordering on calamitous.
The outcomes of the Gillard Government’s carbon tax are inconsequential compared to a do nothing, steady as she goes alternative that ignores the science and the consequences of our lifestyles, a lifestyle that can only be maintained through the exhortation of business as usual.
Meadows and her fellow writers warned repeatedly of the collapse awaiting the human experiment if we continued on an unaltered trajectory.
In assembling the 2004 edition of The Limits to Growth, the authors looked beyond the science and searched for human values that would ensure mankind’s survival – they were: visioning, networking, truth-telling, learning and loving.
Five seemingly innocuous concepts that at first blush appear to have little to do with a carbon tax, but in reality are the essence of the legislation.
It takes vision to instigate such an idea and its realization rests with our vision; its success hinges on networking; we must tell the truth about the detriment our lives have on the world; each of us must learn much, much more about the world’s ecology and then; illustrate our love for the world and our fellows.