With the world's governments proving inept towards combating the climate crisis, it's up to us to change our ways of life to save the planet, writes Ben Laycock.
IN HIS NEW BOOK, Juice, author Tim Winton is acutely sensitive to the world around him and the damage the climate crisis is doing to it. His writing has an awesome ability to awaken our latent sensibilities.
Unfortunately, no matter how deeply we feel the anxiety and frustration, it will not change the situation on its own. We must come to understand the complex mechanisms that have stymied our attempts to deal comprehensively with this crisis in the 30 years we have been painfully aware of our predicament.
Blaming the fossil fuel merchants and venal politicians just won't cut the mustard. We must dig deeper to find the underlying reasons they get away with “murder”.
Unfortunately, governments around the world refuse to cut back on fossil fuel consumption because that would mean a cut in the consumption of consumer items. There would be an economic slump and that government would be replaced by something even worse.
Some governments are doing their best to produce more green energy, but it does not lead to a commensurate drop in fossil fuels — it just means we use more green energy and more fossil fuels because the economy must never stop growing.
As the climate crisis accelerates, ever more “natural disasters” will destroy lives and infrastructure. It will become less and less possible to maintain economic growth. All our energy, resources and wealth will be consumed just restoring society to how it functioned before the latest calamity.
Maybe it is time to start thinking about a post-growth scenario.
Growth is dependent on ever more discretionary spending.
To rein in our emissions and give the planet a chance, we must reduce our energy use to the point where it can be satisfied by renewable energy alone. Obviously, we are really struggling to do that whilst wasting so much energy on non-essential spending.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian households spend around 60% of their income on basic necessities of living: housing, food, fuel and power, medical and health care, and transport. Then we spend another 40% on “God knows what”. Bear in mind that we are living in lean times. Our discretionary spending is usually even higher.
One of the biggest no-nos is flying all over the world in aeroplanes — something we just love. It takes our minds off the worry of the climate crisis, ironically enough.
Plus there is an awful lot of room for discretion within the areas labelled “essential”. We could use our discretion to live in smaller houses, drive efficient cars and eat less food, especially meat.
Now let’s try to imagine what we could do if we used our discretion to redirect some of our abundant excess wealth to more needy causes, such as the victims of our wasteful ways, renewable energy, adaptation to climate change, rescuing endangered species from extinction and other vital projects.
Our total annual GDP here in the Lucky Country was $2.5 trillion last year. So assuming 40% of that is discretionary spending (a bit simplistic, but you get the idea), that means we have a spare trillion to spread around every year if we so choose.
If we restrict the use of our precious energy to maintaining the basic well-being of all who share this Earth, surely we could make enough renewable energy to do that. If we ever do achieve that Herculean task, we can give ourselves a well-earned pat on the back.
Maybe then we can start thinking about indulging in a bit of discretionary spending, like maybe a chocolate biscuit with our cup of tea in the morning.
Ben Laycock lives in the bush in a small hamlet called Barkers Creek. He writes about almost everything, with a focus on climate change.
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