The idea that poor people are excluded from the club of environmentalists who are able to 'take care of the planet' is absurd. Poverty is the primary qualification for belonging to that club. Every dollar we spend is attached to a precise quantity of energy, water and other consumable resources. Liz's $25,000 income means she uses only one quarter of the world's resources that someone on $100,000 does. She should be congratulating herself.

On the other hand, only a wealthy society can take the extra and expensive steps needed to mitigate the visible and damaging consequences of consumption, like the awful litter and the water and air pollution ubiquitous in the third world. That's the dilemma that Liz should be worrying about, not organic veggies and solar panels

Environmentalism is an activity for well-intentioned middle classes who don't think too deeply about the issues.

The poor are excluded through electricity costs, food prices, carbon taxes, car and petrol costs, etc.

It's also aimed at solving problems that don't exist or are insignificant compared to real problems.

A good well thought out Article.

My only comment is on this Statement

"I am a single mother with an income of less than $25,000 a year. While it makes me richer than many people in other parts of the world, it places me very near the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder in Australia"

Liz, $25K does not place you near the bottom wrung in Australia.

Anyone on a Government Pension and even most on a part Pension receive less than $20K. This includes the Age as well as Disibility Pensions.

Anyone on the Dole recieves less than $15K., the same as married Pensionersget each

Something near 20% of the Australian Population live on less than your $25K , Liz.

For them buying Green or Organic, is not an opion, as you have correctly stated. A small Garden is the best they can sometimes do.

The Latte Sipping Chatters from the inner Cities neither know nor care about this.

Brown would rather praise people , whom this Government is going to have to shell mout 100s' of Thousands of Dollars to recover, instead. He is so miffed over Julias' response to these expensive Idiots , that he has cancelled his weekly meetings with the PM.

The Greens , it's all about Politics, very little about Reality

Yes, environmentalism should encompass everyone but Liz's enforced lack of consumerism means she will be in a better position to cope with a future world in which most people will be poor. The coming oil crisis is likely to set off a recession in which people will be retreating to the country just to survive in a semi-subsistence manner. So good on you for spending $100 for your veggie garden - we all need to learn practical skills like gardening so that we might be fed.

I'm a poor battler, probably poorer than the writer of the article.

Want my perspective on environmentalism, though it will upset the lefties and their NGO mates:

I pay inflated energy prices, and through my taxes subsidize solar hot water and solar power systems for rich households. Though I live in public housing, I cannot get any of these. So I see the whole renewable energy deal as a system to save money for the rich constituents of major parties, and make the rest of us poor pay more for our energy use because we have no other choice.

People migrate here for economic reasons, sometimes describing themselves as asylum seekers (even though they pass through several countries where they could settle they choose us because of our wealth and lifestyle opportunity). When arriving here from poorer countries, their personal footprint, and global cumulative emissions, increase because you can bet all you have they are going to be unwilling to give up the opportunity of car ownership, using domestic air conditioning, taking up a consumption-focused western lifestyle etc.

We could keep emissions lower by reducing arrivals from poorer countries, because back home they use less fossil fuel (but hang on the powerful NGO industry benefits from mass immigration from the 3rd world and many greens constituents are in the NGO industry or public servants getting something out of this).

Environmentalism is a money making scheme foistered on those who can't afford it by those who can. It has little to do with the environment at all. Perhaps the author is beginning to see this, or perhaps not.

This fact is borne out by the observation that Gillard was prepared to introduce the Carbon Tax despite the fact it made no discernable difference to the environment.

Environmentalism was invented by overpaid public sector staff & academics. You know the type, the focus of the whole week is the dinner party they are hosting, or going to this weekend.

As the only thought in the heads of most of these is how to one-up their acquaintances, they found they had nothing to talk about at such dinner parties, so invented something meaningless.

They still don't have a useful thought in their heads, but can spend their time comparing the size of their donations to organisations who indulge in piracy to attract those donations, Oh, & how much improved is their new Prius to last years model they just traded.

I am afraid Liz your article comes across not as someone worried about anyone else. It says to me you are annoyed you missed the gravy train in your younger years, & are a bit p1ssed off about that, & those who got on it earlier.

Good luck with your present studies, they should provide some useful dinner party topics for you, if you catch up to that train.

The carbon tax is only due to be introduced in July! Little wonder it has failed to have a discernible effect? Environmentalists do seem to belong to an upper class we know best elitist club and disconnected from the common heard; and indeed, large parts of reality?
On the one hand they are there sharing every possible photo op, when a so-called organic, code for extraordinarily expensive, farmers market opens. [Scientific studies show that that you get very little for the extra money; except say imperfections and a little extra living protein in the salads etc?]
Yet, when discussing husbanding more of our most precious resource; water, so we can guarantee our own food security, they say we should import it. So we can return more water to the rivers.
Some of our posters would've been proud of my Great Grandmother; most of the male members of her family destroyed in the great war and out there in the height of summer heat; a prolapsed womb; and, barely able to lift the shovel; trying to create a sustenance garden for three dependant little girls. Food security is our most important security! The greens just don't get it?
Make it cost more, they say, and people every where will use less. How does that work, when like a single mum struggling to raise a family or an aged or disabled pensioner, you're economising at every turn; or, nearly dead from heatstroke, because you can longer afford to run the air-conditioner.
Look, if the best environment options were also the most economical; everyone would chose them? And they can be!
And surely we are smart enough to store some of our massive northern surplus water and divert some of it it south; in a win/win outcome, rather than allow many Sydney harbour's worth; to rush wastefully out to sea, and very nearly destroy our Dugong and Turtle populations? When I see Greens drinking Chinese milk or eating Chinese frozen food, I might believe a tiny fraction of what they say; rather than the plain as the nose on your face agenda?

Of course the poor have always died in their millions whenever an environmental catastrophe occurs.

How many millions of Irish peasants starved to death or were forced to go elsewhere if they could afford it, as a result of the failure of the potato crop.
Meanwhile of course shiploads of grain were being exported to England - the "market" rules OK!

How many millions of peasants starved to death in Bengal while rice was being exported - the "market" rules OK!

Thanks for the thought provoking piece Liz; you have hit the issue of 'sustainability of the planet' on the head. Yes most of the hype about environmental living is greenwash either to sell products or gently persuade the over-consuming middle- upper income class they should reduce their consumption. As an energy assessor I can say that the biggest footprint items are car and air travel, air conditioning eating meat and living in a big house with with few occupants. None of these are essential to a full and healthy life. It's simple - cut down or better still cut out any of these things and you're doing a good thing for the planet. So the poor are largely blameless when it comes to destruction of 'ecological capital'(clean air,oceans, water, forests etc); it's the rich and self indulgent who do the damage.

For those interested, you can download my carbon / energy footprint calculator from www.ghgenergycalc.com.au. By the way I too live on a low income, don't have air conditioning and have reduced my emissions to about half the Australian average.

PS Atman your statement that a carbon price will do nothing to reduce emissions is nonsense. What it will do is increase the price of polluting energy to that of renewables, thus enabling a change to renewable power generation. That will reduce emissions. Also, if fuel and electricity become more expensive, there will be an incentive to use it more efficiently. This is already happening with power going up from the absurdly cheap subsidized rate of 13c/ kWh to around 19c; it should be about 25c and fuel should be > $2.00/ litre; then perhaps we'd really get serious about not wasting it.

"While I certainly have nothing against environmental books being written by people who are well-educated - they're usually the people best qualified to speak on the topic - I have wondered whether they really understand the demands and limitations placed on those with little money. Sometimes it actually seems as though they don't even realise such people exist."

One wonders how the author has been influenced to think that the writers of environmental books are best qualified to speak on the subject. Perhaps she was brainwashed at school and/or university, or has acquired the bad habit of listening to and believing the supposedly-impartial ABC, or worse still she is a captive of the propaganda advanced by the Greens .

As very few of these educators, journalists and environmental activists have practical knowledge of how to manage the environment in a responsible economic manner, it is not surprising that they don't understand -- or don't want to understand -- the demands and limitations placed on those with little money. The passing of the carbon dioxide tax by a misinformed bunch of politicians who have been conned by environmental activists into believing that man-made global warming is real, is a case in point. All Australian industry will be adversely affected, which means that the living standards of working classes will be reduced significantly, and, sad but true, there will be no measurable benefit to the environment.

...How the real estate market contributes hugely to reducing the carbon footprint: Rent gouging! And of course the Undertaker; the end game in the carbon footprint: Two industries that should be congratulated for their relentless contribution to environmental protection. What a sick joke is “Gillard” with her ridiculous carbon tax, tipped to the extremes by Bob Brown and his “poofter” greens party, with a warped view of life in the real world!

...I wish to know where the new-age fetish with environmental salvation ends. The poor are definitely the compliant losers under “environmentalism”, not a doubt about that as a fact. And yet another winter on the horizon with a choice between eating and freezing (applicable to the poor only), made plain by obscene price rises in electricity bills, and the consequences of the new-age government “hate session” on coal fired power stations still to unfold.

...I notice the Iranians have invented a novel idea to deal with their nuclear threat, magnetic hand grenades! I believe the Iranian refugee intake into Australia has spiked, mmmm!

I suppose I have the wrong attitude, but I don't see why I should cut my already comparatively modest lifestyle and environmental footprint while those doing the lifestyles of the rich and famous thing keep on living it up. I reckon bring the wealthy demigods down to the level of us ordinary mortals, and then I'll be happy to match any further cuts or austerity measures they're up for.
Austerity measures for the poor while the wealthy lay back and laugh their heads off...no thanks!

It's like having a conversation with a pet parrot. Make it more expensive, make it more expensive, polly want a cracker? Then they'll use less; then they'll use less?
One thing we don't need is Guitar amps and P.A. systems; burning what most would use in a week, in an hour; or multi millionaire advocates, living in upmarket exec homes, telling us to use less!
If some of the less well off used any less; they'd be living in the dark cooking over camp fires!
18 cents for something that costs 3 to make and or 6 to deliver; is a 300% mark up. Price gouging that has nothing to do with environmental outcomes?
If it did it would be made locally for half the carbon output and one full third of the price. i.e. 1 lousy cent per kilowatt hour; from methane produced by digesting endlessly available biological waste!
Biological waste, biological waste polly, will we ever run out of it? Ceramic fuel cells silently turn this biogas to electricity on demand; and, produce free domestic hot water a a by product! even when the sun don't shine!
Oh yes; the more we pay for energy and everything dependant on energy dependant production and transport; the less that we have for discretionary spending; the more contraction we can engineer into the economy; the fewer jobs there will be, less taxes paid; the fewer services, even fewer jobs and on and on, with industry grinding to a halt and former industrial hubs reduced to rust belt wastelands.
Its a good plan and it very nearly worked in Germany, when the Greens there held the balance of power and the govt to ransom?
Sound familiar?
If you want clean green power at a price battlers and the economy can afford? Vote for those representatives, willing to buck the system; to get it to you? And for mine; it's none of the current crop of party political posers?

The author is correct in maintaining that environmentalism has morphed into a snobbish cause.

There are more educated people in Australia than there has ever been before. In 1900, university educated people comprised only 2% of the population, today it is 15%. But the question of what class status these educated people fall into, is an open question.

Many graduates are business people, doctors and engineers, and these comprise the sucessful business or profesional classes. These people are considered succesful and are clearly part of the Establishment. Then there are the Artz graduate types who flout convention and champion left wing causes.

What is resulting is a new class of people where bourgeois and bohemians are all getting mixed up together.

The defining attitudes of this new class therefore become a blending of two opposites, social climbing superiority mixed with Socialist Egalitarianism. It is now fashionable to appear lower class, as long as your attitides define you as upper class. Clothing is their uniform, and it is sort of funky prole. Designer stone washed clothing mixed with $50 Guggi T shirts and Sure Footed Sherpa hiking boots.

People like Julianthenutter and csteele are desperate to show their social superiority over the great unwashed, and to the patrician class as well. So, they adopt causes, attitudes, and artistic tasted calculated to get up the noses of both classes.

People like these two think that they are oh, so ferking clever and that their views are the height of moral and intellectual attainment. Unable to be defined by wealth or status, members of this new class are defined by attitudes. They are not just politically correct, but politically exquisite. Devotees of this new class affirm their membership by their continued devotions to "progressive" causes.

They can really get worked up over the environment, but they have raised the concept of racism into the Eighth Deadly Sin. Any heretic who breaks ranks over that one will see a social fatwa put on their heads like the mark of Cain, and they will be caste out into the lands of the unclean suburbinites.

...And Lego:-

...Here above you stated the case so eloquently; but I feel you only “half-stated” the overeducated miss-fit class and their contribution to Political insanity in this country. The other half of the equation hides under the unfolding banner of “neo-Humanrightst”, a banner under which all unattainable warped ends of environmentalism, will touch the free flowing ends of quasi-Human rights issues, and connect the dots of Yuppi-madness: A madness obviously helped along from too many hours sucking “Bongs” in the parlour with their like-minded mates.

Gandhi perhaps said it best:

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

You just need to look to this comment section to find plenty with an entitlement mentality (and a few decent comments)

Believing the science and decrying the continual environmental destruction I witnessed every day by "ordinary people" we made a definitive decision to make a change, going from a six figure income to a modest income (about the same as a pensioner) from prior investments 2 years ago.

We moved to a cheap rural area, are off the grid for electricity, water, sewage, generate all our own heat from an efficient slow combustion heater and solar hot water system and grow lots of our own veggies and meat. The time spent ensures our income is low, thus forcing you to further reduce consumption, brilliant. We go into town (60km round trip) once a fortnight (grocery bill is about $60 - $80 a fortnight for the two of us) and have so many activities at our front door to enjoy; hiking, camping, cycling, rafting, that all require little or no money. My partner works part time and cycles (20km round trip) to her work.

Here's a shining example using a more urban approach.
http://www.happyearth.com.au/

Shopping at a Supermarket designed to fleece those on a middle income has nothing to do with saving the planet and all to do with marketing.

We need icons like Henry David Thoreau lauded, rather then Steve Jobs and his ilk.

Thanks for the perceptive article, Elizabeth. The reality of the world we live in is that only the moderately well off and rich who can afford to change their lifestyles to reduce their impact on the planet. The best/worst example is PV solar electricity, where you needed a minimum of about $3000 to install a roof-top system that might save you $600 per year in electricity. That's not a particularly attractive pay-back period for people earning $25,000 a year or less as the article states. But there is so much that average and lower income people can do to reduce their impact on the planet - drive smaller fuel efficient cars, live in smaller better designed houses, install a solar hot water system and roof insulation, replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents, etc - but the messages aren't getting out to them because we have a federal government committed to almost meaningless 'big picture issues' such as the carbon tax while state govts want to be seen doing something that the media find 'newsworthy' such as raising then lowering their electricity rebates for PV power while ignoring the more basic but far more cost effective actions that just about everyone could implement with ease.
Unless being an environmentalist becomes affordable, little will change over coming decades regardless of whether we have a carbon tax or not.