Category Archives: Economic Growth

How have gullibilists got the ear of government on climate change?

Climate Change, Economic Growth, Environment, Future Prosperity, Science

I have recently returned from a brief overseas trip, visiting Berlin and Beijing. I arrive home with a very uneasy feeling.

Memories of the trip are fresh in my mind, most of all the science. The guest across the dinner party table in Berlin who turned out to be the CEO of a science park – home to 1,000 companies, 15,000 employees and an annual turnover of 1.6bn Euros. The bullet train from Beijing to Tianjin; all (but two) motorised two wheelers seen in Beijing being electric powered; and Beijing hosting the inaugural Formula E race – Formula I with electric race cars. (It goes next to Malaysia, and on to South America, the US, Monte Carlo, Germany and the UK. No race in Australia is planned.)

Back home, I watch Australia’s Chief Scientist, the current Boyer lecturer, the 2012 Young Australian of the Year and two Nobel Prize winners on Q&A. They field questions which mostly circle around the lack of respect and support for science from our current government, most sharply in relation to climate change. The Chief Scientist frankly admits he was offended by comments about imminent global cooling made by the Prime Minister’s Business Advisor. They all look embattled. Continue reading How have gullibilists got the ear of government on climate change? →

We need to talk about growth. (And we need to do the sums as well.)

Climate Change, Economic Growth, Environment, Future Prosperity, Philosophy, Science, Sustainability

We need to talk about growth. (And we need to do the sums as well.)

In my opinion, the greatest scandal of philosophy is that, while all around us the world of nature perishes – and not just the world of nature alone – philosophers continue to talk,sometimes cleverly and sometimes not, about the question of whether the world exists.             Karl Popper, Two Faces of Common Sense

1. Why should we talk about growth?

Growth is a big issue, and getting bigger all the time, but not one that yet generates serious discussion in the community. Nor has it been the subject of mainstream political critique. That economic growth is good is a view unchallenged by any major political party in Australia, with the exception of the Greens – and more than anything else it is their questioning of growth that has seen the major parties condemn the Greens as a fringe political movement.

No doubt there are deep philosophical – or at least ideological – reasons for this, but the problem might also be explained by our simple failure to understand the mathematics of growth. Continue reading We need to talk about growth. (And we need to do the sums as well.) →