Comments on: Will Wall Street kill the climate debate? http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2008/09/30/will-wall-street-kill-the-climate-debate/ Nourishing the environmental debate Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:24:09 +1100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: A Future 62-Year Old’s Views on the Economy & the Climate - Rooted http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2008/09/30/will-wall-street-kill-the-climate-debate/#comment-18 A Future 62-Year Old’s Views on the Economy & the Climate - Rooted Wed, 01 Oct 2008 06:15:01 +0000 http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/?p=9#comment-18 [...] start off on a solid foundation. So I’ll turn to the serious business of the economy, building on Sophie Black’s post [...]

...] start off on a solid foundation. So I’ll turn to the serious business of the economy, building on Sophie Black’s post [...

]]> By: averagejoe http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2008/09/30/will-wall-street-kill-the-climate-debate/#comment-12 averagejoe Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:38:47 +0000 http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/?p=9#comment-12 the reality is obvious - it was all well and good to look at these kind of luxury issues when the economy what humming along. But now we're heading for troubled waters, the will of the people to sacrifice will be greatly reduced. Its like telling a 3rd world country they need to minimise green house gas - they are still concentrating on getting food on the table. the reality is obvious – it was all well and good to look at these kind of luxury issues when the economy what humming along. But now we’re heading for troubled waters, the will of the people to sacrifice will be greatly reduced.

Its like telling a 3rd world country they need to minimise green house gas – they are still concentrating on getting food on the table.

]]> By: Matteo http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2008/09/30/will-wall-street-kill-the-climate-debate/#comment-6 Matteo Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:54:23 +0000 http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/?p=9#comment-6 It always seemed to me that "The Economy" has long been advantaged in its ability to enter the public pysche than "The Environment". This advantage largely stems form the fact that The Economy is endlessly measured from every direction by a vast industry obsessed with staring at its own navel. What is largely a series of abstract concepts surrounding money and value all these numbers help to make the economy concrete in the mind of the public. Alan Kohler can then deal out a couple of graphs each night from his endless deck. Paradoxically, the very real biosphere on which we all depend and refer to The Environment is relegated to an abstract place somewhere outside of the metropolitan area. Modern living is super efficient at detaching us from the world that sustains us; who cares about the temperature outside when we have climate control inside. So we're left with a situation where it is easier to convince people that the events and actions on Wall Street will have a greater impact on our lives than the environmental degradation and pressures caused by over-consumption in every direction. We need to give Alan Kohler for a Tim Flannery who can let us now how many tonnes of CO2 was spewed into the atmosphere today compared to last year; how many hectares of forests were cleared; the extent glaciers melted in this quarter or that quarter; a nice graph with a blue line showing the energy use of Australians compared to Americans/Europeans/Ethiopians/Chinese/etc in red; and so on, and on. It always seemed to me that “The Economy” has long been advantaged in its ability to enter the public pysche than “The Environment”. This advantage largely stems form the fact that The Economy is endlessly measured from every direction by a vast industry obsessed with staring at its own navel. What is largely a series of abstract concepts surrounding money and value all these numbers help to make the economy concrete in the mind of the public. Alan Kohler can then deal out a couple of graphs each night from his endless deck.
Paradoxically, the very real biosphere on which we all depend and refer to The Environment is relegated to an abstract place somewhere outside of the metropolitan area. Modern living is super efficient at detaching us from the world that sustains us; who cares about the temperature outside when we have climate control inside.
So we’re left with a situation where it is easier to convince people that the events and actions on Wall Street will have a greater impact on our lives than the environmental degradation and pressures caused by over-consumption in every direction.
We need to give Alan Kohler for a Tim Flannery who can let us now how many tonnes of CO2 was spewed into the atmosphere today compared to last year; how many hectares of forests were cleared; the extent glaciers melted in this quarter or that quarter; a nice graph with a blue line showing the energy use of Australians compared to Americans/Europeans/Ethiopians/Chinese/etc in red; and so on, and on.

]]>