Lutz
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Australian Politics
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Greenhouse Gases, Rising Sea Levels & Australia's Economy
There's a lot of debate on this matter, particularly rising sea levels, it's very emotive. There is one thing that is true without question, and that is it doesn't make sense to pollute the environment we live in. It's a “No Brainer”. So for this reason, if no other, we should endeavour to reduce pollution. I think anybody who is a reasonable person can agree with that much.
In Australia and other parts of the first world, the strategies toward this aim that have been common recently, such as a carbon tax or similar, is intended to incentivise industry to reduce levels of pollution and therefore clean up the environment. Sounds fair doesn't it? This is on top of existing heavily regulated environmental controls with the same aim, to reduce pollution.
Unfortunately, this approach has not and will be unlikely be adopted internationally There will always be a country somewhere in the world that is available and happy to introduce manufacturing to improve their economy and most likely without too many environmental controls. What does this really mean in an economic sense? It means it's cheaper to produce in countries where these sort of strategies don't exist.
Have a think about what we hear on the news every few days? Another industry is moving their production out of Australia. Toyota, Ford, Holden, Metal Industries etc etc. Of course, this production is being moved to countries without carbon taxes, excessive power prices or heavy environmental controls. Usually also cheap and sometimes impoverished labour is another draw card. In effect we are converting clean efficient production into dirtier inefficient production.
Corporations are pushing production offshore to cheaper and less environmentally regulated countries. They appear (in their actions) not to be concerned about the environment or the low living standards of their new employees. They may even be forced into this move to survive in their own right against their competitors who will make the move.
What does this mean for the environment? Well, given that consumption remains the same and production is “dirtier”, the total carbon and greenhouse gas emissions are increasing for the same amount of product, thus further increasing total world pollution.
Whilst the increased environmental damage is bad enough, the “side effect” of course, is that Australians are heading for the dole queue in larger numbers while we have an ever shrinking manufacturing base and a fast shrinking economy with less basis for wealth. Meanwhile governments, state and federal are busy selling off public resources to mask the effect of their reduced tax revenues. This further stresses future revenue streams after the funds from the initial sale of public assets are spent on fat politicians and their short term interests. Obviously, eventually we'll be dead broke and picking cotton on farms until we become the next cheap labour source.
Folks, it's time to wake up, look, hear and see what's happening. When you do, consider this;
It's time to implement a carbon and standard of living levy on imported goods. For example, goods produced in country's with poor environmental controls and or poor standards of living, according to an accepted international standard and rating system, would incur a levy. Goods produced in country's with strict environmental standards (that are adhered too) and good standards of living for employees would be rewarded and have a lower levy and thus “levelling the playing field”. This would have the effect of taking away the incentive for large corporations to pollute the planet and take advantage of people in poorer countries.
This should not to be confused as a simple across the board “Tariff” that used to be applied on imported goods, every country can reduce their levy by implementing sensible environmental controls and rewarding their workers fairly for their efforts. The end result being a cleaner environment and fair conditions for workers.
If this sort of approach is not implemented very soon, the planet's environment is doomed and so is our economy.
Thanks for reading... By the way, these are my personal opinions and are in no way the opinions of my employer, the local butcher or anyone else.
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