Building has a life of 200 years, but is it renewable?

Tony Abbott makes his prognostications from a building in Canberra designed to last at least 200 years.

Australia's new parliament house
 - under construction in the eighties
 and designed to last 200 years.

The PM’s predictions, even considered generously, might apply to the next 20 years; just a tenth of the life of our “new” Parliament House opened in 1988 in Canberra.

Architect Romaldo Giurgola faced constraints in creating Australia’s new administrative home, among them that the building must remain viable for 200 years; an idea deserving applause and one, you would hope, would apply to decisions made by the occupants.

The ideas, policies and processes they consider need to be arrived at and seen through the lens of the long-view; that is they need to look far beyond the damaging limitations of the electoral cycle and plan for a future far exceeding the limited horizon of modern politics.

Writing in the “Clock of The Long Now: Time and Responsibility: The Ideas Behind the World’s Slowest Computer”, Stewart Brand discusses ideas that go well beyond the 200 years mandated for our 1988 parliament house.

He argues that we should all, and that includes politicians, be thinking thousands of years ahead.

The Shepparton-based group, Slap Tomorrow, has its ideas and hopes clearly rooted in today, but are sharply aware that tomorrow is going to be decidedly different place in that it will insist in on a fresh approach to living.

Conscious that energy in all its forms allowed for the creation of what exists today, but understanding traditional forms of energy are finite and in serious depletion, Slap Tomorrow is organizing a public September forum at which energy will be discussed.

The keynote speaker for that event will be the associate professor from the University of New South Wales, Mark Diesendorf, who presently teaches environmental studies and was the author of “Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change” published last December.

Writing in his new book, Prof Diesendorf, who like the Slap Tomorrow group is conscious of existing societal dynamics, said that without credible visions of a sustainable future and strategies to achieve them, it will be impossible to avoid devastating, irreversible changes to earth’s climate.

Discussing the transition to an ecologically sustainable, energy secure future, Prof Diesendorf said there will be “winners and losers”

“Jobs in fossil fuels will decrease, while jobs in energy efficiency, renewable energy and public transport will increase,” he wrote.

He discussed the need for government policies to ensure a socially just transition away from a fossil fuel-based society to one relying on renewable energy.

“Unfortunately,” he wrote, “some governments articulating the dogma of ‘leave it to the market’ appear reluctant to make any effort to smooth industrial transitions”.

Parliament House will be there long after Mr Abbott has left the building and we can only hope that somewhere in his legacy is a flicker of renewable energy.