Many otherwise sensible people unwittingly believe it is better for the environment for us to waste more rather than less natural resources.

For example, I once read that in India they recycle even a single thread from a piece of fabric, which sounds very conservationist, doesn’t it?

But imagine that an Australian public official were to be given the job of doing that: typically with a carpeted heated office, a desk, chair, computer, telephone, a kitchen to make a cup of tea in, a car, a salary of average weekly earnings, tax and super and so on.

You can see that the economic activity to produce all those conditions of employment would consume more natural resources than would be saved by recycling single threads from fabric, wouldn’t it?

This means that whether recycling something is worthwhile from an environmental point of view, depends on the living standard of the people doing the recycling. The higher their living standard, the more their recycling will waste rather than conserve natural resources.

Take another example. Suppose for the sake of argument that energy from a source environmentalists don’t like, such as petrol, costs $1 for a given unit of energy; and that energy from a source they do like, such as solar, costs $2 for the same amount of energy. Environmentalists want government to subsidise solar by paying the extra dollar. Then we will have ‘environmentally sustainable’ energy.

But that is to look only at what is seen, and to ignore what is not seen. The government doesn’t get the $1 from a moonbeam. It gets it by taking it from the surplus produced by people, such as farmers, miners, manufacturers, and photocopying office workers, who have to consume natural resources in order to make the dollar. In fact because of the $1 taken in tax, they have to engage in even more productive activity, and consume even more natural resources, just to stay in the same position.

For some reason, many people seem to have enormous difficulty grasping this simple concept.

Can anyone explain why?

Peter, in my experience over three decades of ‘greenieism’, most fellow environmentally-oriented people just don’t have an understanding of the economics or the true value, or lack thereof, of reducing, reusing and recycling, or other apparently environmentally beneficial activities or principles.

I’ve met lots of people who have got hung up on recycling every little thing that can be recycled, and left it at that, thinking that this is all they need to do to be a good environmentalist.

Lots of others have taken it one step further and reduced their electricity consumption by turning lights off religiously whenever they leave a room, and perhaps got on their bikes and reduced their car usage, and perhaps bought recycled goods such as paper and clothing and perhaps purchased a solar hot water system and put insulation in their roof to reduce the use of fans and air-conditioners, etc, etc

But just about none of these people, and I used to be very much involved with this ilk during the years that I was active in the North Queensland Conservation Council, gave the slightest hoot about our rapidly increasing population and economic system that is predicated on rapid continuous growth and hence the rapidly increasing consumption of fossil fuels and other non renewable or potentially renewable resources and the concomitant environmental alienation and massive threat to our future wellbeing!

This has always stood out to me as being the ultimate bizarre contradiction.

So I can understand why some people can’t appreciate the simple concept that you are talking about, given that most environmentally concerned people haven’t been concerned enough over the years about rapidly increasing consumption with no end in sight to have bothered to put even the slightest bit of effort into addressing it beyond their personal level!

Because Peter your argument is flawed. Energy is a huge sector and creates the majority of carbon emissions. Coal is the most highly polluting and carbon emitting form of energy.

Even if the $1 came from the wages of those in other emitting occupations (albeit smaller) the effect of reducing carbon emissions would still be greater with a reduction in burning coal.

The $1 subsidy is also derived from lower-emitting occupations not only those who use photocopiers. The photocopier is working whether you take the $1 out of the tax revenue or not, in this case the $1 is now working to reduce highly polluting coal emissions.

"For example, I once read that in India they recycle even a single thread from a piece of fabric...But imagine that an Australian public official were to be given the job of doing that: typically with a carpeted heated office, a desk, chair, computer, telephone, a kitchen to make a cup of tea in, a car, a salary of average weekly earnings, tax and super and so on."

One cannot judge until the energy involved in making a new thread from a piece of fabric is compared with recycling the old one. Why do you suppose that manufacturing a new piece of thread won't also involve an office, a cup of tea, telephone etc. Clearly it would and more besides like growing the cotton and particularly if the cotton is grown in an unsuitable climate affecting not only energy consumption but scarce water resources (eg. Cubbie station).

"Even if the $1 came from the wages of those in other emitting occupations (albeit smaller) the effect of reducing carbon emissions would still be greater with a reduction in burning coal."

How do you know? If the wages came from those who were burning coal, how do you know that the negative effect of burning the extra coal wouldn't be greater than the positive effect of the subsidy?

And that is to consider only the negative environmental effects from emissions. But what about the other negative effects from using natural resources to produce the extra dollar, from mining, ploughing, clearing, fertilising, driving to work and so on?

You are assuming that the photocopier would be going anyway. For a dollar, maybe. But to pay for subsidies generally, clearly people would need to engage in a whole lot of extra productive activity to pay for it, whether it was in primary, secondary, or tertiary industry.

"One cannot judge until the energy involved in making a new thread from a piece of fabric is compared with recycling the old one. "

That's fair enough but the fact is, there's no way of knowing it, except to do a detailed study in each case of recycling the old and making a new, and then how far back up the line of production do you go? So we still haven't got to the stage of establishing that the recycling is actually uses less total natural resources, while there is reason to believe that it wastes more resources than it conserves, otherwise people would do it without a subsidy.

In environmental economics, there are several mechanisms for contingency calculations i.e. environmental goods and services that have an intrinsic values that are difficult to quantify in dollars(eg clean air, water etc.).

Unfortunately, like most of modern academia, one can write a report saying it is really good or really bad depending on who is footing the bill. Big projects generally have a discount rate included, which is like the reverse of compound interest, but there is no rule for what the rate should be in the proposal. Of course it could get uncomfortable when the Japanese realise they could do the same thing to gain support for whale hunting...

Peter

Why does it have to work the way you say? Many people believe that a straight tax on carbon use is far more beneficial than a subsidy for solar etc. Your example of $1 coal vs $2 solar would be much better solved by increasing coal to $2 or even $3 and using the money gained to remediate and prevent the damage done by excessive carbon emissions.

Living standards are the key and I am afraid that many of us will have to curb our profligacy and waste, our consumption and disposable lifestyles. If the whole world were to live like Australians there is no doubt that the earths capacity in resources like water and clean air, energy, land, food etc etc would never be able to cope and collapse would be inevitable.

I am beginning to realise that it makes no difference whether you levy a carbon tax, have an ETS or just subsidise the power stations to
either rebuild or install carbon capture if it will work.

No matter how you charge there is only one person who will pay; everyone !
It will come out of our pocket, whether by tax or higher electricity taxes. The ETS is the one that does worry me in that the financial
"whizz kids" will get into it with their derivarives and skim it off.

This is a great subject Peter, for me the key words you used were 'Standard of living'.
This is the centre of the problem we all have with the environmental debate and real economic reform to a low carbon economy. We all have to realise that nothing good will be achieved without sacrifice and the first to go will be standard of living.
This does not mean that our quality of life must suffer, this is why we fear a drop in standard of living so much. For that matter the standard need not change much either if we are prepared to do the little extras to make a difference. I have three children and more or less all the mod con's. Despite this our power bill is on average 1/3 that of my neighbours. I achieve this with simple means, solar hot water, switch everything off, keep lighting to a minimum and of course the big one, no airconditioning. These are skills i learned when living on solar only for 8 years.
We all need to use much less energy and it can be done without great cost just a little effort. Real reform to the carbon consumer economy will take time as consuming less and using less will mean less jobs though out the economy and less wealth in the super sector. This is what we really fear, higher unemployment and less personal wealth, you know the "ME" generation issues. With a little courage we might be able to lead the way and create an industry in some forms of renewables that can supply the rest of the world while they catch up, but only if we have the courage to lead.

Peter Hume,

You are correct in stating that the WAY (method)we CURRENTLY attempt to nullify pollution etc. is in many case and under current thinking is often simply moving the problem (not actually removing it.)

I put it to you that the issue THE WAY we're going about things.
The problem is the majority of people are locked into the view that what we have is essentially the only way things can be done given current structural systems. The logic then goes that the only options available are 'jury rigged manipulation' of elements within current or near structural systems. Any alternative thinking is regarded as the equivalent to modern day heresy ( opposing conditioned quasi religious beliefs).

Conversely we should be looking at it in mechanistic problem solving manner.
The questions should be What do we want for the world and us?
What do we need to do to make it happen?
And not get stymied at the first hurdle protecting vested interests.

No this doesn't mean eating bean curd and playing flutes or other versions of backward living. We simply look for the low hanging fruit rather than planting the orchard.

I agree in part Peter that recycling is not always better sense where the carbon output is higher to do so, but as you said you would need a study across all aspects of the production chain. On the face of it though I think the cotton thread argument would fall on the side of re-using but that is because there is not much carbon output compared to manufacture and agricultural processes.

The fact is our standard living has in some ways appeared to increase but in other more important ways decreased.

We have more 'stuff' but we also have more debt, many can no longer raise a family on one wage and the big backyard with vegies and chooks have been sacrificed for McMansion style houses with handkerchief backyards. That might suit some urban dwellers and that is fine but for many it is a backward step.

There is no doubt our standard of living has changed but it has not always got better depending on your viewpoint.

There is no doubt that some aspects of our consumer society will change under a low carbon economy and priorities will shift if it means accepting our share in a global effort for economic equity. Wealth and power are now in the hands of the few rather than shared and wage disparity reflects that state of affairs.

Examinator is right we do have to ask the questions about what it means to be prosperous as 'prosperity' is a word that is bandied about but never really defined except in the broadest of economic terms, but not really encompassing individual and community wellbeing. And wellbeing cannot be expressed always in economic outputs.