Affluent lifestyles harming climate

Stephanie Peatling
December 7, 2006
SMH

AFFLUENT lifestyles are producing more waste, using more water and energy and relying more on cars with damaging effects on the environment.
The State of the Environment report, produced every five years and released yesterday, warned that most of the threats reported in 2001 were still present and, in some cases, had worsened.

The past decade had produced higher incomes and lower unemployment, the report found, but the higher consumption rates this brought had affected the environment.

"Realising a sustainable human environment requires a reduction in net consumption and waste," the report found.

"This will involve greater population densities than currently is the case, significant increases in building and material recycling, the capture and use of stormwater, the recycling of wastewater and biological waste, and improved urban form and urban structures.

"It also requires changes in behaviour by individuals."

The chairman of the report committee, University of Queensland Associate Professor Bob Beeton, said "business as usual is not an acceptable model". "We have got to plan to live in this country," he said.

A different approach was needed to get people thinking about their impact on the environment and changing their lifestyles, Professor Beeton said.

"The shock-horror approach is not working," he said.

"If you scare people with something they can't fix they switch off."

Some environmental programs were having unintended consequences and he warned against assuming that market-based approaches would solve natural problems.

The Federal Government will announce a taskforce soon to look at carbon emissions trading and its potential impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

It is also pursuing a national water trading market to help prevent water shortages.

The Minister for the Environment, Ian Campbell, said the Federal Government was "the best friend the environment had ever had".

Spending on environmental programs had increased in the past decade, he said, and the Government was near to its target of planting 1 billion trees.

But the Opposition's environment spokesman, Anthony Albanese, said despite the billions of dollars spent, most environmental indicators were going backwards.

"On John Howard's watch, Australia's greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and our vital waterways are deteriorating," he said.

Mr Albanese released a discussion paper raising the possibility of combining land, water and biodiversity programs to cut back on bureaucracy and increase the amount of money spent on environmental protection.

"Labor will establish national targets for environmental improvement, take immediate action to help avoid dangerous climate change and will put 1500 gigalitres per annum back into the Murray River within 10 years," Mr Albanese said.

The Greens senator Rachel Siewert said the report attempted to "greenwash the severe environmental crisis".

"The report acknowledges that increasing demand for water is placing significant pressure on Australia's inland water systems and notes that the impact of wetlands has been dramatic," she said.

The executive director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Don Henry, said: "Our greenhouse emissions continue to rise, the condition of vital waterways is deteriorating and the decline of important indicator species, including many frogs and fish, is reaching alarming levels."

UNDER THREAT
- Greenhouse gas emissions to increase 22 per cent by 2020.
- Rainfall in the eastern states has been below average for five years.
- 231 nationally significant wetlands under threat.
- Ocean temperatures have risen 0.28C since 1950.