Aussie Enviro
An Australian community for everything from your backyard to beyond the black stump.
🐢
Topics may include Aussie plants and animals, environmental, farming, energy, and climate news and stories (mostly Aus specific), etc.
🐧 Want a news or information source? Try one of these links below!
News
The New Daily
(Life, Sci, Envt)
John Menadue
(Pub Pcy/Climate)
National Indigenous Times
(Envt)
Science
Online Library.Wiley
(Srch Earliest)
Conservation
Australian Conservation Foundation ACF
Biodiversity Council
(Stories)
WWF, World-Wide Fund for Nature
WWF, World-Wide Fund for Nature
(Blogs)
Nature Conservation Council for NSW
Queensland Conservation Council
(Blog)
Environmental Defenders Office
Education Institutions
University of the Sunshine Coast
University of Technology, Sydney
Queensland University of Technology
University of Southern Queensland
University of New England
(Connect)
University of Western Australia
Misc
Takvera (J,Englart)
(Climate Citizen Blog)
Australian Youth Climate Coalition
🐫
Trigger Warning: Community contains mostly bad environmental news (not by choice!). Community may also feature stories about animal agriculture and/or meat. Until tagging is available, please be aware and click accordingly.
🪲
Aussie Zone Rules.
- Golden rule - be nice. If you wouldn’t say it in front of your ~~grandmother~~ favourite tree, don’t post it.
- No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. You are allowed to denigrate invasive plants or animals.
- Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here. Except invasive plants or animals.
- No porn. Except photos of plants. Definitely not animals.
- No Ads / Spamming. Except for photos or stories about plants and animals.
- Nothing illegal in Australia. Like invasive plants or animals. Exotic microbes and invasive fungi also not welcome.
- Make post titles descriptive with no swear words. Comments are a free for all using the above rules as a guide. Fuck invasive plants and animals.
🐝
/c/Aussie Environment acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present.
view the rest of the comments
This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how economics works. Economic growth doesn't mean we are producing more stuff or using more materials. It means there is more productivity. So, for example, if you write some software that allows small business owners to do their taxes with less effort, that is economic growth. In fact, over the past decade or so, economic growth and resource use have become increasingly decoupled.
Anyway...
While politically the solution to climate change is hard, it is quite simple. Carbon Taxes. Climate change can't really be blamed on "the corporations" because the corporations are, by and large, pumping carbon into the atmosphere to create things people want to buy. Tvs, cars, food, toys, gasoline, bubble gum, medical supplies, sexy underwear, etc - it all requires carbon, and the people who buy these things span the economic spectrum. Some of these things are necessary. Some have better alternatives. Some could be manufactured in cleaner ways. Some are completely extraneous, but may be personally meaningful to many. How do we decide what people should be able to buy and what should be banned? We don't. We leave those choices up to individuals and the companies which manufacture the products they buy.
Instead, we disincentivize the use of the thing we actually care about: carbon. Overall, there are not that many sources of carbon, and they are relatively simple to enumerate. The government can then deploy actuaries to determine the actual carbon output of, say, a gallon of gaseoline or a pound of ground beef, and apply this tax at the point of manufacture or import. Manufacturers will pass the cost of these taxes on to consumers, and the effect is obvious. More carbon-intensive products will cost more money. This will drive consumers to alternatives.
Unfortunately, this sort of sceme is regressive, since it is essentially a sales tax. This is why most propositions for a carbon tax come with another measure: the dividend. Once the tax is collected, it is redistributed equally among citizens of the nation. The diviend means that this scheme becomes progressive. Poor people, who already spend as little as possible (and thus contribute little to climate change anyway) get more money from the dividend than they pay in taxes.
The result is a massive influx of cash into the hands of average people, who are all incentivized to spend it on removing carbon pollution from their lives as much as possible.
As time goes on and the economy adjusts, increase the tax rate. Keep increasing the tax rate until the economy is carbon neutral or carbon negative.
we had it, we voted them out and removed it
Australians up in arms over carbon tax
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f2trZC0nkk