Transcript Environmental Politics - Whose Job Is It to Build A Good Future?

Environmental Politics Who’s Job Is It To Build A
Good Future?
David Risstrom
Why Are We Here?
 You?
– Degree, status, expectation, security, don’t know, absolutely
certain.
 Me?
– Asked by Darko.
– Different hats.
 Barrister, ACF Councillor 1999-2005, 2004 Victorian Green
Senate candidate, ICLEI Vice President 2003-4, Melbourne City
Councillor 1999-2004, BA, LLB, BSc(Hons), Director of social
housing, purchasing and waste companies
– WASE male who doesn’t expect to be here forever
– I want you to make a difference
Do you have opinions?
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Questions are OK
Discussion is OK
I have been wrong before
My former partners can confirm that
 I would rather you thought than listened
I’m doing architecture, not politics
 Architects help to structure our future
– You will be unelected arbiters of people’s choices
 We all help to construct architects
 Whose decisions lead to people living in:
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A MacMansion in Narre Warren?
A 1 bedroom unit in Docklands?
A 1984 Ford Falcon station wagon?
A grass hut in the Amazon basin?
Ecopolitics, Green Politics,
Environmentalism
 There are different forms of environmental
politics
 They all are based on how humans interact
with other species and their environment
 The majority of modern political thought and
understanding assumed humans were capable of
controlling their environment
– Liberal thinkers emphasised individual freedom and
liberty
– Socialist thinkers saw individual freedoms creating
practical inequality and loss of potential
 Modern political ideas were built on a confidence
that influence over the environment constituted
control
 Humans are a powerful species
 We have had great success in modifying the
environment to our purposes
 We are all involved with life and the battle with
entropy
 Combating entropy requires energy
– In hunter gather societies, limited by hunting
success
– Agriculture allowed better nutrition, bigger
brains
– Industrial revolution allowed huge increase in
productivity
– Agricultural ‘Green revolution’ hoped to combine
both
Environmentalism
 1960s identified by many as catalyst of modern
environmental thought
 The world is less functional than we think
– Rationalism and functionalism challenged
 Cheap energy assumed to be relatively limitless
– Coal, oil, nuclear, hydro and solar.
 Effectively no limits to growth
– Growth is good. More is better.
 1970s Limits to Growth debate crystallised
 OPEC oil shock
 Loss of confidence in nuclear age
 Environmental degradation
 Sustainable development
 Climate change
 Current era:
– “We are all environmentalists now”
– Unlimited economic growth still seen as normal
– Inequality increasing
– Population limits a political ‘no go’ zone
– Increasing recognition humans rely on a healthy
environment
– Limited willingness to live sustainably
– Uncertainty about the future
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Population
Consumption
Peak Oil
Climate Change
Water shortages
Loss of productivity
More may bring ‘Affluenza’
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Findings
What should we do?
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We don’t know
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Biggest political problem in thousands of years
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Successes and difficulties in gaining political
power
– 2004 Federal election
Who has the power to secure
sustainability?
 Who?
 Why?
 Can they?
 Do we want to?
 Conflict between individual gain and public
goods
– The Tragedy of the Commons
 The Boiling Frog Principle
– Largest mass extinction in 65 million years
– 10 million species. May lose half
– Our main concern is if humans are one of them
– I like frogs
Who has the power to secure
sustainability?
 Do we need to give up any choices or
freedoms to live more sustainably?
– Debatable
– Denied
– Uncomfortable
– Pessimistic?
 Living sustainably creates more freedoms
 More generous view of life
 Intergenerational equity
 Green politics still primarily emphasises
democracy and participation
Natural Environment
 Alpine National Park
– Tourism, cows and cattlemen
 Recognition of Wilderness as a Land use
– Wasteland
– Terra nullius based on utilitarianism
– Urban areas under higher demand
Urban Environment - Melbourne
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Residential energy saving project
Attempt to introduce 5 star rating in 1999
60L
Commercial Buildings Partnership
$5M Sustainable Melbourne Fund
Triple Bottom Line Assessment
Green Purchasing and Building
Energy Demand Management
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2020 Zero Net Greenhouse Gas Target
Queen Victoria Solar Panels
Melbourne Principles for Sustainable Development
Solar Cities
Bringing Sustainable Living Fair to Melbourne
Green Map for Melbourne
Bagging Melbourne (in a nice way!)
Growing Green
‘Watermark’ Water Campaign
A Privileged One in Six Billion
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You are among the most powerful people on Earth
Think about how your assumptions influence you
Empathising is useful
Decide if you want to make a difference
My suggestions are at www.davidrisstrom.org
Do something about it
Do what you think is right!
Thank you