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.

A man of his times who would have been a man of our times

My dad would have been a man for today.



The late Alec McLean
 - my dad.

 Dad, however, died about 20 years ago, sometime before the ideas of climate change, conservation and sustainability had been subjects of discussion, although clearly understood by some.
Re-use, conservation and sustainability were simply a way of life for dad, an ideal learned as he lived the lessons ingrained by the so-called Great Depression of the late 1920s.
Dad was in his 80s when he died, and although cautious of romanticising his life, I have memories of him having never having new clothes or for that matter, anything new, except a small, new, utility he bought before he died.
He did his best to dress with some dash for important family moments and as the State president of the Victoria Apiarists’ Association he sometimes had new shirts to accompany his suit for that body’s formalities.
His career as an apiarist (beekeeper) was built around second-hand everything from vehicles, clothes, screws, bolts, nails and anything else imaginable.
Our home and cement toilet in Echuca had been carted by dad, personally, from what was to become the Port of Echuca, his huge shed was built from used materials and was covered with metal stamped out and painted for kerosene tins, second-hand naturally, but unused.
Much of what was in our house came from auction sales as did some of my Christmas presents.
Loo paper was originally old newspapers until dad fell upon boxes of docket books at a clearance sale and so for many years a former Echuca dry cleaners had a new role in the McLean household.
Soon after my wife and I were married, we had mum and dad for meal of chicken and having cleaned the bird of all its meat, my wife was about to throw away the carcass, but dad asked for what was left arguing he could get three meals from it – he did!
Old furniture from auction sales fuelled our wood fires and in some instances became “bottom boards” on dad’s beehives; nails were carefully removed, straightened and stored for future use.
Dad’s times had made him a man for our time, before his time.