Dick Smith's Wilberforce Award

Dick Smith's documentary, and his subsequent announcement of his Wilburforce Award, has made population an issue in its own right. Like his daughter said, we have been looking at solutions to human-induced global warming, but very few of us have looked at solving population growth as part of that solution.

In primary school, I remember learning about renewable resources and finite resources, but very little was taught about the results of running out of those finite resources. In high school chemistry, I learnt all about the millions of products that come from crude oil. Yet I still didn't 'join the dots', as Dick Smith would say.

I wasn't until I was introduced to the phenomenon of Peak Oil a couple of years ago that the dots connected for me. The future, if we do not revert to more sustainable lifestyles, is very bleak without oil. We need to keep what remains of the oil for the important medicines that a produced from it, rather than wasting all the oil on plastic packaging for our food, and replacing our electronic devices every 6 months (without recycling the old ones).

Whilst I was reading up on Peak Oil, I read about a permaculturalist who said that the solution to the world's overpopulation for that everyone in the world should eat someone else - instantly halving the population and solving some of the food shortage problems while we're at it! I actually bought the book 'Overloading Australia' around the same time, but it's sat on my bookshelf until now.

Now Dick Smith has brought population growth to my attention, as an issue in itself.

On another tack now ... I recently studied micro-economics. The subject focused on our use of finite resources and balancing that against human demand (which is infinite). It talked about the efficient use of resources (including human resources), improving technology to improve efficiency, and sustainability.

So, I'm going to develop a policy. I'm in the process of doing more research, especially in relation to economics. Here's some beginning:

- zero net immigration, focusing mainly on refugees

- get rid of generally baby bonus, and pay a higher baby bonus to working couples for their first child

- capping the rate of the family tax benefit a two children (so if a family has more than 2 children, they don't get any more financial assistance than if they only had 2)

- a focus on educating our own population, filling the gaps in our 'skill shortage'

- establishing a federal urban and rural planning department, and taking those decisions away from local government, to prevent urban sprawl

- further encouragement for individual sustainability, like growing our own food, and perhaps setting aside small plots of land for community gardens

So watch this space ...

Sustainability in economic difficulty

Climate change, carbon neutral and sustainability are all terms we hear a lot nowadays and the move to live and buy “green” has gained more awareness and interest from individuals and businesses over the last few years.

Most recently however the main topic on everyone’s mind seems to be the economy and an impending recession. This raises the question, “have these latest economic issues now caused climate change and sustainability to have a lower priority on our agenda?”

I really hope not, because by spending an initial investment on sustainability, operating costs will generally be less in the future.

Here are some tips on office sustainability:

- Dispense with disposable coffee cups. Over its life, a mug will be used about 3,000 times, resulting in 30 times less solid waste and 60 times less air pollution than using the equivalent number of cardboard cups.

- Cut down on paper use. The paperless office remains a futuristic fantasy, with about 10,000 sheets of A4 paper being used by every single Australian worker every year. Most of this paper comes from native eucalypt forests and is cholorine-bleached, a process that produces toxic dioxins. Minimise your paper wastage by setting your printer and photocopier to default to use both sides of the paper. Recycle your waste paper, and print only what’s necessary.

- Use recycled paper – a business is not truly recycling unless it buys recycled products. Recycled paper uses 90% less water and half the energy required to make new paper.

- Turn off lights; log off and shut down computers; and don’t leave chargers plugged in – they continue to draw energy even when the device isn’t plugged in.