Antinuclear

Australia’s relentless growth is destroying Australia’s environment

We’re losing the natural places and things that make Australia Australia. And we’re losing our ability to get out there, to notice and to care about that.

Next year let’s give the environment its first proper slice of the Budget pie.

Crumbs not enough for our environment, The West.com.au Charlie Sherwin   May 17, 2012, “……….In this day and age do we really so desperately need another coal mine, or another surge of urban growth?  Enter the pesky greens, so that now it’s not just the wildlife getting in our way, but the environmental regulations that stop us taking more habitat and growing our bottom line.

The COAG business forum, the Premiers, the Government and the Opposition are right now ganging up to protect the bottom line by “streamlining” regulation and reducing the Federal Government’s role in environment protection.

It’s a global economy, and after a couple of hundred years of this we’ve grown and used a quarter of the Earth’s natural energy, half of its freshwater run-off and two-thirds of its habitable land surface to feed our unrelenting growth.

So we’re displacing other species. Australia’s landscapes, bush and wildlife are paying for our growth.

I grew up with myths and images of Australia’s wildlife. With the
muddle-headed wombat, the gumnut babies and the tale of The Magic
Pudding full of cranky kookaburras, peevish parrots, thieving possums
and proud penguin heroes.

The Magic Pudding was published in 1918 and kids have more options
now. There’s stuff like flat screen TVs, computer games and iPhones to
stare into. Bigger houses with smaller backyards are another measure
of our growing wealth, and if you live in the cities (as most do now)
it is harder and harder to fight your way out for a family trip to the
bush or the beach. So city kids are becoming short-sighted, less fit
and less apt to play outside.

Even on holidays it’s harder and harder to find a camp site or a bit
of beach that’s unspoilt and tranquil where you can remember
Australia, the country, in the sense that Aboriginal people (and most
country people) use the term, as opposed to Australia the nation, the
economy, the jingo and the daily grind.

We’re losing the natural places and things that make Australia Australia. And we’re losing our ability to get out there, to notice and to care about that.

To borrow from The Magic Pudding, our motto in this gluttony of growth
seems to have been “Eat away, chew away, munch and bolt and guzzle —
never leave the table till you’re full up to the muzzle”……
maybe with better funded community education and engagement programs
we could grow our connection to country, to special places and to
Australia’s native plants, birds and animals.

They have paid enough for our growth. Next year let’s give the
environment its first proper slice of the Budget pie.

One that’s big enough to change the negative trends in every national
State of the Environment report so far.

One that’s big enough to see on the chart. http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/opinion/post/-/blog/13710926/crumbs-not-enough-for-our-environment/

May 19, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, history