Shaping Australia's Future

Eco-innovation: building and sustaining momentum

2011-04-06T16:26:00.000+10:00

Media release issued today 6 April 2011 by Professor Richard Hames, President, Australia21.

Australia has a choice – to see climate change as a threat to its industrial base, or to see the value eco-innovation offers - in financial gain, joint ventures, skills development, employment, and research & innovation opportunities.

There are huge openings for Australia to participate in the trillions of dollars being spent in China, the US and India on green technologies over the next few decades.

‘But there still is much work to be done in Australia to support an innovation and entrepreneurial culture capable of taking advantage of these technology opportunities’, says Professor Richard Hames, President, Australia21.

Australia is yet to develop a national approach that would see it become a global leader in resource and energy innovation.

Prof Hames noted that, ‘a major challenge for Australia is the lack of coherence between and within government departments and industry – which impedes the development of the cross-disciplinary approaches required to develop a national eco-innovation strategy’.

Yet, effective strategies for eco-innovation need to include a diversity of portfolios including: environment, science & technology, industry, transport, competition, and energy. Successful policies also require a mix of diverse tools and initiatives, from support for research and development (R&D), to market creation and export promotion.

A new OECD report, Better Policies to Support Eco-Innovation, 2011 has found that: making mature technologies more market-friendly is as important as producing new knowledge; technical and non-technical innovations matter equally; and capturing innovations originating in non-environmental domains opens a large spectrum.

Currently there are few business or deployment models that allow us to take innovations no longer protectable by patents to build entrepreneurial, equity financed ventures to bring green technologies to market. Professor Hames says that ‘what we need is to innovate our business and social structures to bring solutions already here into use’.

One such model is the Global Innovation Commons (GIC) which promises to spur a strong new wave of technological innovation through the sharing of new ideas rather than through exclusive, private control of them.

Professor Hames confirmed that Dr David Martin, founder of the GIC, and a speaker at an upcoming Australia21 conference, will make the point that patents often serve to impede innovative technologies and make them unaffordable—at precisely the time when all countries need to adopt cutting-edge energy technologies to reduce carbon emissions.

An Australia21 conference will explore all these issues and discuss solutions on 14 April 2011 at The Australian National University.

More Information contact:

Prof Richard Hames, President, Australia21, m) 0419 851 523

Dr Lynne Reeder, Executive Director, Australia21, m) 0431 608958

Registrations at - http://www.australia21.org.au/conference_April_2011.html

Putting expired patents to work in novel ways

2011-04-03T17:50:00.001+10:00

This post written by Richard Eckersley, posted by Paul Barratt

Putting expired patents to work in novel ways – Australia to lead on new innovation models

Ross Garnaut, head of the Garnaut Climate Change Review, recently noted that successful Australian innovation effort will encourage the effective and early use of technologies developed in other countries, as well as the discovery and application in Australia of globally new technologies.

But beyond new technologies, a wider “innovation literacy” view, including use of existing or expired patents, provides for a more comprehensive picture of the drivers of the rate and direction of innovation, and of the impediments that can prevent successful innovation.

Such an approach has been developed by David E. Martin, an intellectual property activist based in the US, who works with many developing countries. David argues that a great many green technologies are already in the public domain and are ready to be developed. They just need to be identified and put to use.

Dr Martin is founder of the Global Innovation Commons (GIC) - a massive interactive archive of energy-saving technologies whose patents have expired, been abandoned, or simply have no protection.

The GIC encourages entrepreneurs and national governments to query the database on a country-by-country basis to identify helpful technologies that are in the public domain. Once identified, these technologies for energy, water, and agriculture are prime candidates for being developed at lower costs than patented technologies.

The World Bank is a partner on this project, along with the International Finance Corporation's infoDev unit. The World Bank has estimated that the technologies in the GIC database could save more than $2 trillion in potential license fees.

The Global Innovation Commons essentially seeks to bring the advantages of the open-source software development model — open participation, faster innovation, greater reliability, cheaper costs — to technologies that are claimed to be patented.

In the Global Innovation Commons, hundreds of thousands of innovations have been assembled, which are either expired, no longer maintained (meaning that the fees to keep the patents in force have lapsed), disallowed, or unprotected in most, if not all, relevant markets.

This means that, as of right now, steps can be taken into a world full of possibilities, not road blocks. Whether it’s clean water for China or Sudan, or carbon-free energy — it’s likely to be in the GIC.

Martin argues that patents often serve to impede innovative technologies and make them unaffordable — at precisely the time when all countries of the world, rich and poor, need to adopt cutting-edge energy technologies to cut carbon emissions.

In touting "open innovation," Martin takes the tradition of free software and digital commons to exciting new frontiers. The Global Innovation Commons promises to spur a strong new wave of technological innovation through the sharing of new ideas rather than through exclusive, private control of them. As Martin puts it, "What we do is trawl documents for their true meaning. But what we care about are basic human issues. In this case, it's to show what belongs to the big guys and what belongs to society."

Which brings us to the real challenge and opportunity offered by climate change – that of the chance for Australia to evolve as a global leader in resource and energy innovation that benefits the whole society and not just a few large corporations. New energy technologies will play a substantial role in both the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.

The urgency of the adjustment task shouldn’t be underestimated, and the change in incentives derived from carbon pricing can justify a large transitional increase in public support for innovation related to low-emissions technologies.

Fresh thinking, new business models, wiser leadership and continuous strategic innovation, are needed if Australia is to design and enact a low-carbon, steady state economy. The end point is not to undo industry but, on the contrary, to reinvent it as a viable force for sustainable living that comprises efficient practices and zero waste.

Clean-tech industries are a target for development under China’s next five year plan, and provide a major opportunity for Australia to leverage its expertise in green technology. China’s green energy market is estimated by investment funds such as Peony Capital, to be around $1 trillion.

Creating and developing global alliances in low-tech will not only assist Australia in improving its innovation performance; it will position Australia to reduce emissions for the larger polluters, such as China and India.

The implications for Australia of this new approach to innovation are clear:

- In every key environmental technology sector more patents are abandoned and expire into the public domain than from all currently enforced commercial platforms. The solutions for everything from distributed power, to fuel cells, to intelligent batteries, to wind, solar, water energy and purification, hydrogen fuel, and much more are available in the Open Source commons

- Most of what we call invention and innovation is nothing of the kind. Most of it is incremental and serves only our current addiction to unsustainable growth

- The majority of innovations today arise not from individual genius, but from networks. It is the fusion of contributors to these networks, linked to markets, which is the core of enterprise creation

- Networked, open-source, innovation provides broad social and cultural benefits rather than just short-term unsustainable growth at any cost

- Australia is well-placed to review government policies in order to liberate and recycle innovation. In doing so it could lead the world in developing a new innovation literacy - applying it directly to reconstruction following natural disasters.

David Martin, a partner in The Constellation, is speaking at an Australia21 national conference Innovation – Driving Resilient Energy and Economic Futures on Thursday 14 April 2011 at The Australian National University.

Hear an introductory video of Dr David Martin speaking about the Global Innovation Commons here.

Find further details and register for the Australia21 Conference Innovation – Driving Resilient Energy and Economic Futures, Australian National University, Thursday 14 April 2011, here.

Jigar Shar to present at Energy Futures Conference

2011-03-28T12:58:00.000+11:00

Jigar Shar, CEO, Carbon War Room, is now confirmed to present at the upcoming Australia21 conference, via video link to Washington.

The Carbon War Room was formed to ‘harness the power of entrepreneurs to implement market-driven solutions to climate change’, and was set up by Richard Branson, José María Figueres (former President, Costa Rica & CEO, World Economic Forum), and others.

Dr David Martin, Founder, Global Innovation Commons, USA will be presenting in person, along with John Hewson, Richard Hames, David Miles, Andrew Lawson, Will Steffen, Anna Skarbek, John White, Anthony Bergin, Tony Coleman, and others who will focus on the prosperity opportunities that climate change can bring to Australia.

Innovation – Driving Resilient Energy and Economic Futures a one-day conference will take place Thursday 14 April 2011 at ANU. Further details here.

Media release: Need for a resilience framework

2011-03-14T21:08:00.000+11:00

Following is the text of a media release issued by Australia 21 on Saturday 12 March.

Billions of dollars at risk by not having a resilience framework

The recent Queensland floods and the terrible Japanese earthquake illustrate how major environmental disturbances can throw lives, infrastructure, and governments into chaos. How they recover is a sign of their resilience.

‘One thing we know’, says Prof Richard Hames, the newly appointed President of Australia21, ‘is that the future will surprise us. We don’t know how, or where or when.’

Pressure is mounting from the impacts of environmental and community upheaval from environmental turbulence. ‘We don’t have to wait doing nothing until the next disaster strikes that would be foolish’.

‘A resilience framework will allow for a more considered approach to dealing with these issues,’ Prof Hames stressed.

There is an urgent need at federal, state, and local levels for a resilience policy framework to target investment for both human capital and infrastructure so as to optimise the recovery of communities and local economies.

There is a serious danger of undermining resilience by going back to the way we were and not proactively addressing resilience issues.

Prof Hames said we must ask the question how the Senate can pass the flood levy without a resilience framework.

Consideration of resilience and complex systems dynamics will increase our opportunities of finding durable solutions to natural disasters.

Building a more resilient nation will require developing resilience tools, such as strength and speed of feedback mechanisms, diversity of ideas and resources, and a strong capacity for self-organising.

Australia21 is hosting a national conference examining energy and economic futures through a resilience and innovation lens. The conference discussion will help shape the way we as a nation prepare for a climate change future.

The conference will be held at Australian National University – conference details at: - http://www.australia21.org.au/conference_April_2011.html

For more information contact:

Prof Richard Hames - President, Australia21 - m) 0419 851 523

Dr Lynne Reeder – Executive Director, Australia21 - m) 0431 608 958 w) 02 6288 0823

Richard Hames takes the helm at Australia 21

2011-03-14T20:02:00.000+11:00

Friday 10March saw Australia 21 celebrate the tenth anniversary of its foundation with dinner in the Great Hall in University House at the Australian National University.

At a meeting of the Australia 21 Board during the day, Australia 21’s Foundation Chairman, Professor Emeritus Bob Douglas AO, stepped down from the Chair and was succeeded by Richard David Hames, who becomes the body’s first President.

In appreciation of his decade of service to Australia 21, the Board appointed Professor Douglas, who will remain on the Board, Founder Patron.

Richard David Hames is a corporate philosopher, author and knowledge designer. Working at the interface between organisations and society, he is widely considered to be among the world's most influential intellectuals and strategic futurists.

An Australian citizen, educated in Europe and domiciled in Thailand, Richard has been honoured with numerous awards including a French Government Scholarship, a Leverhulme European Fellowship, the Mondadori Professorial Fellowship and the inaugural Lord Attlee Fellowship.

Richard is Founder and Honorary President of The Hames Group (a globally distributed think-tank and strategic design laboratory); Director of Thoughtpost Edge; and Distinguished Professor and founding Director of the Asian Foresight Institute at Dhurakij Pundit University in Bangkok.

For more on Richard’s background and achievements, see here.

Australia21 conference on energy and economic futures

2011-02-21T22:54:00.003+11:00

Following on from its highly successful National Conference on Resilience in February last year, Australia21 will be convening another national conference at the Australian National University on 14 April, on the theme Innovation: Driving Resilient Energy and Economic Futures.

We have an outstanding speakers list – full details below. We hope we will see you there.

To register, visit our website here and click the registration button. There is a student concession, and an early bird discount for registrations received by 28 February.

INNOVATION – DRIVING RESILIENT ENERGY AND ECONOMIC FUTURES

14 APRIL 2011, ANU

‘At the centre of this Government’s approach to climate change is economic reform’

‘Innovation is critical to our economic competitiveness’

The Hon Greg Combet, MP Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Nov 2010

Session One - 9.00-10.30am

Welcome Paul Barratt AO, Director, Australia21

Chair – Molly Harriss Olson NBLF

Dr David Martin, CEO, Founder and Chairman, M·CAM, Inc. (via Skype)

Topic - Intergenerational equity and Global Innovation Commons

Speaker – Anna Skarbek, Executive Director, Climateworks Australia

Topic – Curbing Climate Change and Sustaining Economic Growth

Speaker - Prof Richard Hames, Chair, Australia21

Topic – Innovation – a networked phenomenon

Session Two 11.00-12.30

Chair – Dr John Hewson, Chairman, Global DC

Panel Session – Policy and Market Incentives & Impediments to innovation and commercialisation in energy businesses

Brendan Dow - Ceramic Fuel Cells (tbc)

Andrew Lawson- mbdEnergy (Biofuels)

Paul Verschuer – Carbon Markets, Westpac

Dr James Bradfield Moodie – CSIRO (invited)

Session Three – 1.30-3.00pm

Prof Mandy Thomas – PVC (Research) ANU

Topic - Innovation in carbon capture

Speaker: Dr John White

Topic – Community Engagement on Climate Change

Speaker- Prof Graeme Pearman

Topic – Investing in innovation for low-carbon technologies

Speaker - David Miles, CEO, Innovation Australia

Session Four – 4.00pm- 5-00pm

Chair – Prof Bob Douglas, Director, Australia21

Topic - Implementing sustainable and inclusive solutions to climate change

Speaker - Prof Will Steffen, ANU

Topic – Communicating the policy impacts of climate change – recent insights

Speaker – tbc

Dinner Speaker

(tbc)

Australia 21 tenth anniversary dinner

2011-02-21T22:34:00.000+11:00

This year is a very special one for Australia21 as we move into our tenth year of operation as an independent, non-profit organisation that facilitates multidisciplinary inquiry on issues of strategic importance in the 21st century.

In March Professor Bob Douglas, Inaugural Chair, A21 will step down and Professor Richard Hames will take over in that role.

To recognise these milestones Australia21 is holding a dinner on 11 March 2011 and we’d like to invite you to join us.

Prof Glyn Davis will give the keynote address on knowledge and innovation for Australia’s future, and accomplished Australian cellist David Pereira will present a recital of music inspired by our natural world.

It should be a wonderful night as Bob Douglas looks back over ten years - and Richard Hames looks forward – and you enjoy great music, food, drinks and inspired conversations.

Reserve your table by 21 February 2011 by completing the attached dinner form.

Date Friday 11 March 2011

Time 6.45 for 7.00pm-10.30pm

Venue Great Hall, Uni House, ANU

Cost Single $120; Couple $220; Table of 10 $1,100

RSVP Complete the attached form and return to - office@australia21.org.au

Vale Michael Ward

2011-01-02T22:15:00.002+11:00

Australia 21 mourns the loss of one of its foundation directors, Michael Ward, who died in a hospice in Sydney in the early hours of New Year’s Day after a six year battle with cancer.

Our feelings are best expressed in a message our Chairman, Bob Douglas sent yesterday to Directors past and present, to our research leaders and all the Australia 21 family:

Dear Australia 21 "Family"

I am saddened to pass on the enclosed report of the death of Michael Ward at 3:20 AM this morning. Michael was one of the six founding directors of Australia 21 in 2001. He has fought an amazingly determined fight against tonsil cancer for the past six years.

Michael's contribution to Australia 21's development was immense. Always a provocative and at the same time, a constructive thinker, he brought to the discussions on the board a freshness and amazingly diverse experience from a career in public health, the Republican movement, IT administration and CEO of an Eco-consulting firm.

Michael's determined battle with cancer was the subject of a series of newsletters which he shared with his many friends, first entitled "the tumour times" and subsequently, "sacred times".

In recognition of his stunning personal resilience, Australia 21 joined forces with The Menzies Institute at The University of Sydney during 2009 to hold the Michael Ward symposium on Health and Resilience.

We express our deep sympathy to Michael's two children, Irene and Max and to his close family who have provided heartwarming support during his nightmare illness.

We have lost a dear friend and colleague.

Bob Douglas

Board Chair

In spite of his great ordeal, Michael made the most of the hand that fate had dealt him. He received visits from family and friends right up to the end, saw out the fireworks on New Year’s Eve, wished the staff who were looking after him so well a happy new year, and a few hours later passed away peacefully in his room.

We shall continue to miss him, his ever cheerful countenance, and his wise counsel.

Climate change: Ross Garnaut’s Cunningham Lecture

2010-11-13T16:27:00.003+11:00

On the evening of 9 November 2010 Professor Ross Garnaut delivered the 2010 Cunningham Lecture to the Academy of Social Sciences. In it, he laid out an update case for action on climate change.

Most of the paper is a technical economic discussion about discount rates and their interaction with uncertainty and with the relationship between Australian and global mitigation. As such it is not an easy read, but it well repays close study.

Garnaut concludes his lecture by asking in very persuasive terms, “What if the mainstream science is right?”

I will conclude the lecture by answering briefly a simple question: what if the mainstream science is right? What if the science supported by the overwhelming majority of scientists who are qualified in the various disciplines related to climate, is broadly right? What if all of the Academies of Science in all of the countries of scientific achievement, are not deluded, or enticed into error by the availability to their members of certain types of research grants?

If they are broadly right, we would probably see a threat to our prosperity rather larger than any of the issues that do the rounds of public discourse on long-run economic development. The threats would manifest themselves in large problems in a few decades, and as the dominant problem well before the end of this century. The challenges beyond this century are difficult to reconcile with continuity in modern human civilisation.

If the mainstream science is broadly right, later in this century we will probably not be squabbling about whether a 37 per cent reduction in allocations to Murray-Darling irrigators is too much; but rather working hard to improve the chance of there being any water at all to allocate.

If the mainstream science is broadly right, defence and immigration would probably have radically different contexts. Probably, because there is uncertainty. It may be worse than this, or better. There is no reason to think the chances of better are higher than the chances of worse.

We should think about it, because there’s a chance that the mainstream science is right. When we think about it, those of us who are not climate scientists would need reasons beyond the current state of knowledge to think anything except that they are probably right. Certainly more likely to be right than people who have not spent the months and years and decades learning the subtleties of this complex area of knowledge. I hope that we here at least — members of this other learned academy that takes seriously the development and testing and accumulation of knowledge — can agree that there is enough of a chance that the mainstream physical and biological science is broadly right, to invest in understanding the implications for human society. After all, ours is the Academy that Australians look to for knowledge on how the immense pressures that we are in the process of placing on our societies may change human life on earth.

If we thought about the respective credentials of those who line up with the mainstream science, and those who are prepared to take their chances with information from other places, we would think that this issue was at least one of the fateful public policy matters of our time.

Nevertheless, as Professor Garnaut observes earlier in the lecture, notwithstanding the strong basis of community understanding and support, when push came to shove, the private interests seeking to block, blunt or slow down action prevailed over well developed community views. As he observes in the concluding phase of his remarks:

If there is to be success in the second attempt to introduce efficient, economywide approaches to substantial reduction in emissions, there will need to be a stronger and clearer message from the independent centre of the polity.

Australia21 book launch and forum

2010-10-18T23:21:00.000+11:00

Resilience & Transformation: Preparing Australia for Uncertain Futures is a new Australia21 book published by CSIRO, which provides key trends and actions related to resilience in areas such as Organisations and Economics; Governance and Security; Energy and Settlements; Health and Education; Environment and Society; and Disaster Preparedness and Recovery.

Australia21 is holding a forum on Thursday 28 October 2010 to examine the important implementation aspects of resilience theory. It will be held in the Weston Theatre, Crawford School of Economics, ANU between 2.30pm-5.00pm. Registration cost of $80.00 includes a free copy of the 205 page book. A reception and book launch will take place immediately after the forum. The book will be launched by The Hon Mark Dreyfus QC, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Registration and forum program at: http://www.australia21.org.au/resilience_forum.htm

Australia21 seeking to broaden its support base

2010-09-06T14:10:00.000+10:00

Australia21 is an independent, non-profit organisation whose core purpose is multidisciplinary research and inquiry on issues of strategic importance to Australia in the 21st century.

We depend for our funding upon private donors - we do not receive grants in aid from government or donations from large corporates. We are seeking to expand our network of grassroots supporters to help fund our ongoing work on matters ranging from youth wellbeing to understanding the value of the services we receive from the ecosystem.

Many small donations is what we need, and they are tax deductible to Australian taxpayers. Visit http://www.australia21.org.au/ to find out more about us, and make a secure donation online if you wish.

Fiddling while the earth burns

2010-08-28T15:56:00.002+10:00

The following opinion piece by Australia 21 Director Richard Eckersley was published in The Age, Friday 27 August 2010. Access the original here.

Fiddling while the earth burns

No more 'politics as usual' should mean having enough courage to tackle the sickness of mindless consumption.

Nearly every decade from the 1970s has been declared a decade of reckoning, the time when we must deal decisively with looming national and global environmental crises. And as each decade passes, we postpone the deadline another 10 years. With the failure of the Copenhagen conference on climate change last year, the 2010s are now the critical decade of action.

This means the environmental ''emergency'' will have lasted half a century, or two generations. It is not just climate change that we must address, but also land and water degradation, food security, peak oil, population and biodiversity loss. And it is not that nothing worthwhile has been achieved; it is that our responses have failed to match the growing magnitude of the problems.

We have to accept that we cannot meet these challenges with ''politics as usual'' approaches, which seek to offend no one, yield to vested interests, and require no ''sacrifices'' in our way of life.

Beyond the election commentary about political executions, spin, negativity, leaks, botched or boring campaigns, risk aversion and lack of policy substance, we need also to acknowledge the systemic failure of our politics to deal with our problems. This deep current is largely ignored, while politicians, commentators and analysts focus on the swirling surface eddies.

The failure to act on climate change hurt Labor. But its shelved carbon pollution reduction scheme was a lemon anyway, an inadequate response. Also, it is unclear whether the key to voter disillusion was concern about climate change or the reneging on a core ''moral'' commitment. Both dimensions are important: climate change is a real threat to our future, but it is also an emblem of the wider challenge to our quality of life.

Mental health is another example of systemic political failure. Yes, mental health made the campaign agenda, but the whole focus of debate was on services. There was no consideration of why we face a crisis in mental health.

This is a Western problem, not just an Australian one. New US research suggests a fivefold increase since the 1930s in the proportion of college students experiencing psychological problems, and that more than half of young Americans today suffer a clinical mental disorder by the age of 21. If such findings are true, how are we to respond?

From a deep-current perspective, all these issues - environmental, social and economic - have their source in a world view that sees the central purpose of our society as pursuing ever more material enrichment in order to allow us to consume more. Not only does this put pressure on resources and lead to the financial excesses that produced the global financial crisis, it ultimately lies behind the crisis in mental health.

Evidence suggests rising mental illness, especially in the young, is the result of the cultural emphasis on materialism and individualism, manifest in changes in the family, work, the media, religion, education and diet. One specific factor is a shift towards defining ourselves in terms of our extrinsic achievements, in the external trappings of the successful life, including wealth, status, recognition and appearances.

The shift emphasises goals that distract us from what is most important to our well-being: the quality of our relationships with each other and our world, which contribute to a sense of intrinsic worth and existential certainty. As Goethe warned, things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.

Fixing this situation goes beyond politics; it requires leadership at all levels of society. But politics has a role to play. Politicians and the electorates they serve must have the courage to enact sweeping policy changes that shift the course of the deep current, not just stir up the surface eddies.

It means recognising that economic growth measures progress very imperfectly, that the content of growth is more important than its rate, and that we need to direct economic activity away from consumption for short-term personal gratification towards long-term investment in the social transformation necessary to address all the challenges of our century and ensure our future.

And that will mean radical reforms, such as limiting or banning political donations by corporations and other vested interests, making polluters pay for greenhouse gas emissions through effective carbon pricing, abolishing tax deductibility for advertising to ease the pressures on us to spend and spend, and creating jobs where they are socially needed and useful, not where confected demand dictates.

Neither politicians nor citizens fully grasp the size of the gulf between political priorities and social realities. In an Australian National University poll late last year (when Labor's stocks were high), 70 per cent of Australians said they were satisfied with ''the way the country is heading'' (a political question), but only 24 per cent thought quality of life in Australia was getting better (a social question).

It makes for a volatile situation, revealed these days in how quickly our political leaders disappoint us. The results of the election, with the shift in power to independents and the Greens, might shake loose the rusted shackles of the political status quo and make deep change possible. The Prime Minister has acknowledged that the Australian people want something different from ''business as usual''. Can we achieve something different enough, in both process and policy?

Richard Eckersley is a director of Australia21, an independent, non-profit research company, and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University

Ian Dunlop on our great strategic error

2010-08-28T15:44:00.000+10:00

On 20 August 2010 Australia 21 Director Ian Dunlop contributed the following piece to the ABC News website The Drum. The original piece plus posted comments can be accessed here.

Our great strategic error

"Management", according to the late Peter Drucker, the renowned US social ecologist, "- is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things". So how does Australia measure up in these terms as we contemplate the leadership we deserve prior to the election?

We have had a dream run since World War II, built on our natural wealth. Despite the occasional hiccup, our economy has expanded year after year, with increasing prosperity. Understandably we are proud of being world leaders in agriculture, mining and processing, and we have created a strong and vibrant society in many other areas.

Despite periodic cock-ups, we can claim to have done well, excelling at doing things right, and doing the right things, albeit within a rather narrow, resource-dominated, vision. That is until about 15-20 years ago when the world began to hit the environmental and resource limits that will dictate the evolution of society through the 21st Century.

Our resource base is formidable and expanding. But that bounty is fast becoming our Achilles heel. Our exports and domestic energy systems are carbon extensive; our per capita carbon emissions are amongst the highest in the world. Our most vulnerable point is oil; we are around 50 per cent self-sufficient, declining rapidly unless new discoveries save the day, which seems unlikely. But peak oil, which may well mean a 20-30 per cent reduction in oil availability by 2030, is not even on the agenda of the major political parties.

If the world now moves rapidly to a low-carbon footing due to the need for an emergency response to climate change, whilst facing increasing oil scarcity due to peak oil, many of our traditional advantages turn into major strategic risks; that is risks beyond our control which have the potential to fundamentally change our way of life, and undermine our economic strength .

Our raw material exports will not cease overnight, but a shift toward low-carbon alternatives will seriously disadvantage Australia's current business model as carbon sequestration technologies inevitably fail to match their over-hyped expectations. Similarly, we will not find it easy to secure the oil imports we require; conversion of coal, and to a lesser extent gas, will be expensive and environmentally damaging.

Such a scenario, of rapid climate change combined with the onset of peak oil, whilst becoming part of mainstream thinking overseas, is still regarded as extremism in Australia, and certainly not part of the "official future" of the major parties.

Meanwhile the resource sector, buoyed by bullish forecasts of coal and gas demand are forging ahead with fossil fuel developments; doubling coal exports over the next twenty years, expanding LNG exports and establishing a coal seam gas industry with major investment in mines, railways, ports and processing facilities - but with no proven means of sequestering the associated carbon emissions.

So Australia ends up in the worst of all possible worlds. Science is clearly indicating the need for radical emission reductions. Vested interests ignore these calls, continue to undermine any sensible reform and, by special pleading render ineffective even the minimalist reform proposed in the interests of short-term advantage. Lack of certainty on a carbon price stunts the growth of fledgling alternative energy industries, stifles consumer behavioural change and, combined with conflicting regulatory measures, leads to non-optimal short-term decisions, while both main political parties lack the stomach to take on the vested interests. So we fall back into the comfort zone of our dig-it-up and ship-it-out high carbon mindset. In so doing, we are making arguably the greatest strategic error in Australia's history.

For whilst Australia is moving backwards on climate change reform and ignoring peak oil, the rest of the world is vying for leadership of the low carbon economy. A decade hence it is likely that the incremental demand for our high carbon products will have evaporated. At that point we will be left with a large inventory of stranded assets, minimal investment in low carbon alternative energy, little resilience to weather the impact of both climate change and peak oil and strident calls to bail out companies that are "too-big-to-fail".

The irony is that Australia has some of the best resources and greatest opportunities to benefit in the low-carbon world, which we seem determined to ignore - renewables, new generation nuclear, and innovative technologies we have never even thought of which will come out of the woodwork once a clear strategic direction is set.

There are also far wider benefits in moving away from the domination of fossil-fuels. A complete reappraisal of our lifestyle, which is long overdue, becomes both inevitable and desirable. It is not just high oil prices and climate change, but the very question of the sustainability of humanity on the planet as population rises from 6.5 billion people today to 9 billion in 2050, all aspiring to an improved quality of life. New technology will undoubtedly come to our aid but that will not be enough - our values must also change. Conventional economic growth in the developed world will have to be set aside in favour of a steady-state economy where the emphasis in on non-consumption and the quality of life rather than the quantity of things.

There will be far more focus on local food production, opening up new opportunities for rural areas, cities will be re-designed using high-density sustainability principles to avoid urban sprawl, and integrated with public transport to minimise energy consumption. Work centres will be de-centralised. Rail, powered by renewable energy, will become a major transport mode for both freight and high-speed passenger traffic. Air travel will reduce unless new technology develops jet fuel from, for example, bio sources, and even then emission constraints may limit its use. The internal combustion engine will disappear in favour of electric vehicles for many applications. Cycling and walking will become major activities for both work and pleasure - obesity and diabetes will decline!.

The challenge is enormous, but it is the greatest opportunity we have ever had to place the world on a sustainable footing, for what we are currently doing is not sustainable. We must not waste this opportunity, but it needs far bolder and broader thinking than we are seeing at present.

In Drucker's terms, we are becoming ever better at doing things right, but failing miserably at identifying the right things to do. A triumph of management over leadership, driven by nonsensical short-termism. The time has come for a radical re-think of our strategy for the 21st Century.

These are the issues that our potential leaders should be debating before we have to choose. In particular, serious discussion on what a sustainable population really means.

Ian Dunlop is a Centre for Policy Development Fellow and a contributing author to their recent publication, More than Luck: Ideas Australia Needs Now.

Ocean changes accelerating

2010-08-22T15:45:00.000+10:00

The first comprehensive synthesis on the effects of climate change on the world's oceans has found they are now changing at a rate not seen for several million years.

In an article published on 18 June 2010 in Science magazine, the authors reveal that the growing atmospheric concentrations of man-made greenhouse gases are driving irreversible and dramatic changes to the way the ocean functions, with potentially dire impacts for hundreds of millions of people across the planet.

The findings of the report, The impact of climate change on the world's marine ecosystems, emerged from a synthesis of recent research on the world's oceans, carried out by two of the world's leading marine scientists, one from The University of Queensland in Australia, and one from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in the USA.

Read the University of Queensland’s media release on the findings here.

Sustainability of indigenous hunting

2010-08-22T15:35:00.000+10:00

In an opinion piece on the Australasian science website ScienceAlert, Dr George Wilson, a Senior Fellow at University of New South Wales Institute for Environmental Studies, examines the question of whether current Indigenous hunting practices are sustainable, and argues for greater science support for Aboriginal practice:

Despite the importance placed on it by Indigenous people, land and wildlife management is a minor component of current Australian Government resource allocation for addressing Indigenous need. Redressing this situation is urgent because Indigenous wildlife use and hunting in Australia, as it currently practiced, is often unsustainable. Our investigations which have been published in the CSIRO journal – Wildlife Research, examine the opportunity for greater science support for traditional Aboriginal practice.

In pre-colonial Australia, adherence to customary law maintained wildlife species Indigenous Australians wanted. Today the long-term sustainability of Indigenous wildlife harvesting is threatened. Where Indigenous communities lack leadership and other social problems exist, the capacity to apply customary land-and sea-management practices and to operate cultural constraints on wildlife use is reduced. In addition, increased hunting pressure follows human population increases and modern technology such as vehicles and guns.

Read Dr Wilson’s full opinion piece here.

The full paper published by Dr Wilson and his colleagues from Australian Wildlife Services may be found in CSIRO Wildlife Research; Volume: 37; Issue: 3; 10-17.

Penny Sackett’s Next Big Question

2010-08-11T14:54:00.000+10:00

Professor Penny Sackett BS MS PhD is a physicist by training, an astronomer by profession and an educator by inclination. She is a member of several international astronomical societies and the Association for Women in Science. Her career also includes journalism and policy advice on several national science advisory panels. She was appointed Chief Scientist for Australia in November 2008.

Penny's next big question is "Can humanity mobilise the talent and resources needed to find and implement sustainable solutions to climate change?" (12.5Mb).

For more about this project see The next big question.

Cash for clunkers

2010-08-11T14:41:00.000+10:00

Frank Jotzo, Deputy Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute, and a participant in the Joint forum on climate change convened at the ANU on 12 July 2010 by Australia 21, Universities Australia and the National Business Leaders’ Forum on Sustainable Development, contributed the following analysis of the Government’s “cash for clunkers” scheme to the Monday 9 August edition of the online political newsletter Crikey:

A carbon price beats throwing cash at new car owners

Frank Jotzo, deputy director of the ANU Climate Change Institute, writes:

Populism and procrastination reign in Australian climate policy, and what new policy proposals there are, on both sides of politics, consist largely of spending taxpayer dollars for little gain.

Labor’s "cleaner car rebate" is a particularly striking example. A year after the US and European countries finished up their cash-for-clunkers programs, Labor proposes that Australia start one. The European and American cash-for-clunkers schemes were squarely aimed at helping the car industry through the recession, but in Australia it is dressed up as climate policy.

The proposal boils down to this. Government would spend $400 million of taxpayers’ money to buy older cars from people who are well enough off to afford new cars. Any car better than the existing fleet-wide average qualifies, so the great majority of new cars would be eligible, not just the most efficient ones. Many of the older cars that attract the subsidy would probably be scrapped soon anyway. The money would be diverted from other climate programs, in particular advanced solar power.

By Labor’s reckoning, the car program would cut carbon dioxide emissions by one million tonnes, presumably stretched over several years. Australia’s total emissions in just one year are 500 times that. The fiscal cost per tonne avoided would be $400. By comparison, a carbon price of just $20 per tonne would drive widespread change in the power and industry sectors. Even relatively high cost renewable energy options, such as the ones supported by government programs that are to be cut back to pay for cars, are estimated to come in at about $50. So the car subsidy policy would backfire in terms of emissions, because money is drawn away from options that would have delivered a much bigger and long-lasting effect.

The tendency with policies such as this is to lead to a maze of expensive subsidies and cumbersome regulation, with plenty of bureaucratic churn and political interference. It will be expensive, and fall short of even the lower end of the 5%-25% reduction range that both parties have signed on to.

The Coalition, meanwhile, promises to pay emitters for reducing carbon, rather than imposing a price on emissions. By necessity, it would need to use highly uncertain estimations of the reductions achieved, compared to some hypothetical baseline. The Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism relies on this principle. It has managed to draw money into clean investments, but in a very patchy fashion, with huge bureaucratic overheads, and with uncertain environmental benefit.

What is more, the Coalition claims as an advantage that prices of energy and goods will not rise. But as always the money will have to come from somewhere, in this case from taxpayers. And if power prices do not go up, then extra incentives need to be created for end users to save energy, through extra government interventions and more subsidies. Achieving any kind of meaningful reduction would rack up an enormous tax bill.

The underlying problem is that neither of the main parties can summon up the courage to go with the policy that is so obviously the key to an effective and efficient climate policy: putting a price on carbon, through emissions trading or a carbon tax. Business is calling for it to put an end to crippling investment uncertainty. The Howard government prepared for emissions trading already in 1999 and made it its policy in 2006. And Australia would by no means be out in front: Europe has had emissions trading for five years, and despite setbacks in the US Senate, schemes for carbon pricing are in place in many American states. Even China is set to introduce emissions trading of the next five years.

Julia Gillard has stated that she is committed to carbon pricing, but not just yet. Her citizens’ assembly seems little more than an excuse for further delay. It would not bring new insight on an issue that has been so well researched and so widely debated as climate change. The science of climate change is crystal clear, the case for action has been made convincingly, and consensus among the expert community in economics and business is that carbon pricing is the right policy choice. Climate change has been in the centre of public debate for years now, and attitudes among the Australian public have been surveyed and re-surveyed dozens of times.

Demolishing the myths on emissions trading

2010-08-08T22:00:00.000+10:00

The following piece by Australia 21 Director Ian Dunlop appeared on the ABC’s web forum The Drum: analysis and views on the issues of the day on 2 August 2010, under the title Demolishing the myths on emissions trading.

Demolishing the myths on emissions trading

One of the great myths being perpetuated in this election campaign is that the Greens, by refusing to support the Government's CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme), prevented the introduction of effective emissions trading in this country, thus blocking serious action on climate change. Penny Wong was at it again on ABC's Q&A on Monday night. Utter nonsense!

The CPRS is appalling policy. By weakening the underlying emissions trading mechanism with multiple escape clauses and compensation, it runs counter to all the recommendations of the sound policy design work that had been carried out in Australia, ranging from the AGO 1998 National Emissions Trading framework to the 2008 Garnaut Review, as well as practical overseas experience. The rot set in with the 2007 Report of the Task Group on Emissions Trading, which was initiated by the Howard government and dominated by fossil-fuel interests. Rudd and Wong then continued the race to the bottom, even before the Garnaut recommendations were released, throwing aside what little CPRS integrity remained in the final horsetrading with Malcolm Turnbull. If the CPRS were to be implemented in its current form, it would impose an enormous cost on the economy for minimal reductions in emissions.

Turnbull deserves credit for standing up to the climate luddites in the Coalition, but he is still not prepared to honestly acknowledge the nonsense which the CPRS represents and, more importantly, the size of the problem we now face. The only political party to do so are the Greens. Christine Milne laid it out clearly in her Re-Energising Australia Report, released in 2007. The science now indicates even greater urgency for action.

The inertia of the climate system, particularly the slow warming of the oceans, means that the results of our emissions today only become evident decades hence. Thus, unless we take rapid action now, we may well be locking in irreversible climate change of catastrophic proportions for future generations; indeed we may have already done so.

There will always be scientific uncertainties on an issue this complex, with year-to-year climatic variations continuing to be used selectively by deniers to discredit the mainstream science; but the overall trends are clear and they are all moving in the wrong direction. It is tempting to believe the deniers are right, but faced with the mounting empirical evidence, prudent risk management dictates we should not gamble on inaction.

The world is starting to understand that, if catastrophic outcomes and climatic tipping points are to be avoided, the real target for a safe climate is to reduce atmospheric carbon concentrations back to the pre-industrial levels of around 300ppm CO2 from the current 392ppm CO2. This will require emission reductions in the order of 40-50 per cent by 2020, almost complete decarbonisation by 2050 and continuing efforts to draw down legacy carbon from the atmosphere.

Looked at from a total carbon budget perspective, to have a less than 25 per cent chance of exceeding the 2 degrees Celsius temperature increase relative to pre-industrial levels, which is still the official political temperature objective, the world can only emit a further 800 gigatonnes of CO2 in toto from today, a budget which would be used up in less than 20 years. Accepting a 50/50 chance allows the budget to increase to 1,200 gigatonnes of CO2, used up in less than 30 years. The Australian budget runs out in around five - eight years. If the temperature target has to be less than 2C, which is now almost inevitable, the budgets are considerably lower.

Put bluntly, we face a global climate change emergency, which requires an emergency response; both major parties are well aware of this from their scientific briefings. In this context, the emission reduction target of 5 per cent by 2020, which they are so graciously offering is derisory. The only possible conclusion is that both parties do not believe in human-induced climate change and are going through the motions purely to placate the electorate. I, for one, object in the strongest possible terms to the future of my children and grandchildren being thrown away by such irresponsibility from those who would profess to be our "leaders".

Christine Milne is quite right to hold out for serious climate change policy rather than this "Clayton's" variety offered by the major parties' deniers.

Ian Dunlop is a CPD Fellow and a contributing author to the CPD book, More than Luck: Ideas Australia Needs Now, launched this week. Ian chaired the AGO Experts Group on Emissions Trading from 1998 to 2000.

Forthcoming publication: Resilience and Transformation

2010-08-02T22:27:00.000+10:00

Later this month CSIRO Publishing will release Resilience and Transformation: Preparing Australia for Uncertain Futures, edited for Australia21 by Australia21 Fellow Dr Stephen Cork.

Resilience and Transformation explores what factors contribute to Australia’s resilience, what trends are apparent, and what actions are required to better prepare us for the immediate and longer term future.

Resilience is a word used more and more across societies worldwide as decision makers realise that predicting and controlling the future does not work and that preparing for uncertainty and surprise is vital. Many viewpoints have emerged on how to assess and achieve resilience of individuals, organisations, communities and ecosystems, but rarely has the resilience of a nation been considered. As Australia moves into a millennium that promises major economic, social, technological and environmental change, Australia21 has assembled some of Australia’s leading thinkers to give their perspectives on the extent and direction of resilience across our nation’s social, economic, ecological and disaster management systems.

Full information about this publication may be found, and orders placed, on the CSIRO Publishing website here. It is a 216 page paperback, priced at $39.95.

Climate change forum report issued

2010-07-24T18:04:00.000+10:00

In Joint forum on climate change I gave my extemporised summary of a high level group meeting on climate change and Australia’s response to it which was held at the Australian National University on 12 July.

The meeting, hosted by Australia21, Universities Australia and the National Business Leaders Forum on Sustainable Development, included some of the nation’s leading climatologists, economists, climate policy experts and representatives of Australian business.

The formal report of the forum has now been issued, and copies have been forwarded to the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Australian Greens . The executive summary appears below. The full report may be downloaded from the Australia21 website here, and the covering media release may be accessed here.

Executive Summary

Australia21, Universities Australia, and the National Business Leaders Forum on Sustainable

Development combined to host a high-level forum of twenty-seven experts in Canberra on 12 July

2010. The meeting was held in the context of a forthcoming national election. This Australia21 report provides an overview of the forum discussion and outcomes.

The purpose of the meeting was to define how Australia could most effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in the aftermath of the Copenhagen discussions and the deferral of the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). The participants included climatologists, economists, social scientists and policy experts from a range of national institutions and businesses.

A brief review of the scientific consensus about climate change and Australia’s response to date reaffirmed that climate change is a public policy issue requiring urgent attention. Furthermore, far from being a world leader on this matter, Australia is now lagging behind many other developed and developing nations in producing mechanisms to mitigate and adapt to global warming. Yet the Australian electorate seemingly remains impatient for effective action.

The science clearly indicates that there is likely to be increased danger with increased warming and that in the face of grave risks and uncertainties associated with rising emissions Australia must move towards becoming a resilient society. There is the likelihood that feedback effects that are relatively unpredictable in their timing of onset could lead to ‘tipping points’ that would produce irreversible changes to our landscape and ecosystems, and place additional stresses on Australia’s regional and urban infrastructure and its food production systems.

It was concluded that plans for adaptation, mitigation and transformation must be developed in our national response to these changes, recognising that the climate of the future will hold the likelihood of ‘high impact-low probability’ events, of which the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a striking example.

Much of the discussion centred on the potential role of carbon pricing in constraining greenhouse emissions and the practicability of various pricing approaches, including different ways of moving from where we are now, to a situation where a carbon price would result in trading of emissions entitlements as well as real reductions in the nation’s emissions - which are still continuing to rise.

A known and predictable price will offer business a clear understanding of the future costs they face, and will also facilitate investment in innovation in non-polluting energy production. Pricing could be introduced without disturbing the budget bottom line and made appealing to the public and industry, if the property rights on emissions are distributed effectively.

There was firm agreement that a new national narrative on emissions reduction should be developed, and on the importance of depoliticising the debate so as to reflect the magnitude of the environmental, economic and social aspects of changes to our climate.

While regulation for energy efficiency and strategic roadmaps for alternative energy technologies are vital elements of climate policy development, the meeting concluded that Australia should develop a pricing and market mechanism to win the support of the vast majority of Australians. A pricing and marketing mechanism will reduce business uncertainty and increase incentives for investment, at the same time as it contributes to rapid and essential reduction in emissions. There are a number of ways this could happen, and it should commence now.

An independent institution to manage a carbon price could assist in informing a carbon market and in educating the community. Any such institutional structure should be at arm’s length from the political process in much the same way as the Reserve Bank manages monetary policy.

The group is concerned at the way this policy is currently being handled and urges all political parties to work together to produce an effective carbon pricing policy. All political parties should engage in the scale and management required to create Australia as a low carbon society – and to bring it into the centre ground of national public policy.

The forum has offered its support to all parties to assist them to build an attractive and common pricing mechanism into their policy platforms.

Joint forum on climate change

2010-07-24T15:40:00.002+10:00

On 12 July a high level group of 27 experts on climate change and Australia’s response to it was held at the Australian National University. The group included some of the nation’s leading climatologists, economists, climate policy experts and representatives of Australian business.

The meeting was hosted by Australia21, Universities Australia (the peak body representing Australia’s 39 universities) and The National Business Leaders Forum on Sustainable Development.

The question under discussion was “What are the best available policy options for reducing greenhouse emissions in Australia in the context of the Copenhagen result and the delay of an Australian CPRS [the government’s proposed emissions trading scheme]?”

At the end of the day the three organisations hosted a small function to enable us to meet with various Canberra based people who are involved in the climate change issue in one way or another.

My task at this point was to give our guests my take on what had occurred during the day – a summary that I hope did not do too much violence to how any of the other participants saw the proceedings.

My summary was recorded by my colleague, Australia21 Chairman Professor Emeritus Bob Douglas, who had chaired the day’s proceedings, and what follows is a transcript of my extemporised summary.

Summary

It will not come as a surprise to any of you – because Australia has been thrashing around with this problem of climate change since 1992 – that our discussions today have not produced any new magic bullets. We know what most of the solutions to our policy problems in this area are, so please do not be surprised if a lot of what I say in the next few minutes has a familiar ring to it. This is my summary of the consensus of the people who met in the room today.

The genesis of this meeting was a feeling that following the postponement of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the disappointing outcome of the Copenhagen discussions – though I am not as disappointed about that as some commentators – Australia21, as an organisation interested in public policy, should be sitting down and thinking – “Well, what can Australia actually do? What are the politically feasible next steps?" Happily, Universities Australia and the National Business Leaders Forum on Sustainable Development were very happy to collaborate in hosting today's event.

The first point is that we all agree that action is urgent from the climate point of view. A 2° rise in average global temperature is almost inevitable. 2° will be difficult to cope with. What we are dealing with right now is not only abatement but also adaptation. We must have a very clear view that we are in the adaptation phase right now.

Action is urgent from another point of view, to create investment certainty and to ensure that there is investment for our future energy needs that can take place on an informed basis. People need to know where they stand. It is also important from the point of view of enabling consumers to make informed decisions about technologies they want to use in the abatement and adaptation process. Inaction in that regard has already cost us.

There was a clear view that we must price carbon and that we must develop a carbon market. There are at least three reasons why we need to price carbon, and the first is of course the obvious one of the impact on demand that results from having a price on carbon. Equally, or perhaps more important, is the incentive that a carbon price creates to innovate, and to innovate on a clear view of what the market is telling you. So the question becomes “what will be a commercially sustainable form of innovation?”

The third point is that a carbon market – a futures market in carbon – is a mechanism to bring perceptions of the future back into the present. As new technologies emerge and new situations arise, people in the market can say “Well, I am going to respond to this in a certain way.” That in turn will have an impact on the price of carbon.

We also have to recognize that the climate is a driver of a number of issues. The most obvious ones are water availability and water management, our food production systems, which lead to questions of what will be the distribution of life and living and economic activity in rural and regional Australia, and will have a very profound implications for the preservation of biodiversity

We can't predict the future. So we need to make sure that we adopt resilient policy frameworks. By resilience we mean the ability to withstand a shock and continue to function with the purpose for which we want the system to function. One clear way to create resilient frameworks is to have a diversity of technological solutions. We should not get locked into one view of the future with a single bet or a narrow range of bets.

Because of the urgency, we need to take early actions. And they obviously have to be politically feasible early actions. Amongst the early actions, we can see the necessity to communicate a target for a carbon budget, to set the transitional price on the pathway to a long-term framework and to pluck – to use a cliché – the low hanging fruit. That requires an emphasis on identification and implementation of the energy efficiency frameworks that are currently evolving.

We need to look now to a broad roadmap of the long-term actions to be taken and those would include a robust long term energy pricing and trading framework. It is very important to try to depoliticize the subject and in the long run transfer the market process to an independent institution where it is more secure from the political hurly-burly.

Government needs to approach the public debate strategically. By strategically, I mean changing the environment within which the debate takes place, and that means communicating to the public the science, the urgency, the mechanisms and the policy framework.

Above all, we would assert that central government has to re-capture and act on the climate change issue. It must put itself back at the centre of policy and the centre of the debate, and not simply be reacting. It needs to be leading the issue, and creating the political climate for action.

HotLine asks its next big questions

2010-07-15T15:57:00.004+10:00

HotLine - a television style panel show by kids for everyone

An audience of over eighty students aged from 12 to 17 years participated in a television style panel show on Wednesday 23 June 2010 at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre in Adelaide.

The hotline project is linked to Australia21’s Next Big Question (NBQ) project, which seeks to create a new conversation on the big questions facing Australia, to respond to the unprecedented challenges facing Australia within the global world today.

Australian youth have been invited to participate in the NBQ project. Recently youth participation occurred in conjunction with the Federal Government’s Australian Youth Forum, and now with this creative initiative called HotLine.

The HotLine host was 17 year old Tom Merrett, Head Prefect at Unley High School who recently contributed to the Next Big Question Project for Australia21. He was also a winner of 2009 ECOtvc film competition and his film Global Warming It’s Serious screened on Network TEN. Tom believes that Australia's youth have to deal with the effects of environmental change and social realities, and that young people need to be involved in today’s decisions for our future.

The HotLine show began with a live link to Canberra to Dr Lynne Reeder, Executive Director, Australia21 who gave an overview of Australia21 and the Next Big Question project. The panel then presented the results of the Australian Youth Forum participation, and other youth involvement. The Australian Youth Forum input to the NBQ can be accessed by clicking on the second report findings at http://www.australia21.org.au/bigquestion_findings.htm

Other panel members included Dr Barbara Hardy AO, renowned scientist, geologist and co-instigator of the Nature Foundation of SA; Prof Monica Oliphant, scientist and solar expert; Maggie Hine, Group Manager of Sustainability at Onkaparinga Council; Joel Dignam, student from University of Adelaide who attended Australian Youth Climate Debate at Copenhagen; and a 16 year old student who is a recent ECOtvc winner.

Prior to the HotLine show, students were asked to submit up to three questions on the environment. Questions could be controversial, interesting and insightful, related to people and society, technology, hopes and concerns, cultural background and the way we live our lives. Students’ questions were to be answered by the panel. The questions are listed below.

With three cameras, a sound recordist, an auto-cue for the host, a live feed for the audience, and five screens surrounding, it all created a very professional production.

Students were also given an overview of how the production studio had been set up for the day to give them the opportunity to learn about the intricacies and complexities of television panel show production. Some students also gained work experience through their involvement with the filmmaking.

It was agreed that the day had been a great success – with one participant noting “Hotline is a wonderful initiative and it's inspiring to see kids communicating with and informing kids on complex environmental issues.”

The outcome of this creative and participative event will be a ten minute television style panel show for You Tube, schools, websites and hopefully television.

It is planned to make HotLine a regular online show hosted by schools and students and to link with organizations such as Australia21 and the Australian Youth Forum.

Hotline Questions

Students 15 years

- What can we, as youth, be doing to help in the battle against climate change?

- What is being done in Australia to change the way we live our lives so that we can be more sustainable?

- How can schools make a difference?

- What is a good way to get funding for environmental projects at our school?

Students 12 years

- Considering alternative sources of energy, I am particularly interested in focusing on Uranium as South Australia has such rich deposits in this mineral. Therefore my questions are as follows:

: Can Uranium be developed as an energy source without harming the environment?

: Would Uranium provide a cheaper source of power than we currently have?

: Would the use of Uranium pose a threat to the world at large?

Students 13 years

- How can we sustain our growing population when we keep putting houses and other infrastructure on our most productive land?

- How is the Port Stanvac desalination plant sustainable without damaging the marine environment?

- Is there some way to supply water to farmers along the Murray River as well as to the Lower Lakes and the Coorong?

Students 17 years

- What is the likelihood of another oil spill happening like the one in the Gulf of Mexico?

- Do you think the environment will be able to recover from this spill?

- What does this mean for our reliance on fossil fuels as an energy source?

Students 13 years

- What do you believe would be the most appropriate energy option for Australia and why?

- What is Australia doing to support the oil spill situation in America?

- How do you think the Australian Government is handling the production of carbon emissions?

Students 12-14years

- Why is all the “Environmentally Friendly” franchised so frantically, why don’t you spend the money on making the products more affordable as the main part of society are not as rich and fortunate, their money is needed for the necessary things.

- Do you think that the Government both Federal and state are giving enough money to the right solutions for saving the environment such as solar power, wind power and just green energy in general? Could we not just spend the money trying to fix people’s life styles then clean up the previous damage?

- There will have to be a balance between all fuel cars and all “environmentally safe” cars in order for the environment AND the economy to be better off. If there had to be a majority of one, which do you think would favour the economy and the environment?

- Are the “environmental friendly” shopping bags actually any better for the environment? We hear about how the plastic bags are suffocating animals in the ocean and not biodegradable so they cause litter and result in landfill, but do the “new and improved” bags do anything?

- At the rate that we are going in tropical rainforest deforestation, how much of our rainforests will we still have? How will this affect the natives and animal species only found in rainforests?

- How are we impacting the ecosystem in daily life, and will we still be able to live like this in 2050?

- What eco-friendly alternatives are being looked into for our daily power needs, such as cars?

- What mark is the mining industry leaving on the Australian ecosystem?

- The current environment programmes run by schools and private companies are often, in my opinion and most people my age, boring. What research is conducted before these programmes are initiated, and does it actually involve people of the targeted age group?

- Do you think that we should be investing money into saving the environment or saving people? Many children are dying each day of malnourishment, and AIDS and we are spending money on making solar panels. Is this right? Should we be spending money on the environment before people?

- Because of our modern lifestyles and the choices we are allowed to make, do you think advertising these environmental issues will really have any effect on the community?

- Do you think that governments are taking enough action in informing the public about the right choices to make for the environment?

- How are we going to inform people about the bigger picture, not just doing what they think is good for the environment?

- Why would people change for environment technology when it costs more and it does not travel or work longer or better? Why is it that there is not a solution to satisfy the whole of society that is easy and cheap to use?

- Why doesn’t the government put a lot of time and pressure to achieve great environmental technological feats? Shouldn’t the technology be more efficient but be convenient and better for the environment?

- From my perspective it seems that the government is making all the decisions. This is surely wrong as should youths not get a say, taking into consideration that soon current day children will lead our nation in government?

- How will the new mining tax affect the current economical state, and me and others personally?

- In light of the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico do you think that this will hasten the search for alternative energy sources?

- What detrimental effect will take place on the environment when the salt from Adelaide’s new Desalination Plant is pumped back into the Saint Vincent Gulf?

- When Australia took part in the recent climate change expo, it was said that to transport all the representatives of Australia to the said expo, that it used more fuel then a small country in a year. Is there actually a point to wasting all this power or are we actually making our predicament worse?

- How are we as a nation meant to change our lifestyle by including these new forms of power and transport?

- What is the point of all these new environmentally friendly cars when most of them still get their power by burning fossil fuels or nuclear power? For example, electric cars are powered by electricity and this electricity is made by burning coal. Are we actually getting anywhere?

NWC Report on scale of intercepted water use

2010-07-03T18:17:00.000+10:00

The National Water Commission recently released Australia's first ever nation-wide baseline assessment of water interception activities, calling for all Australian governments to take action on this critical issue.

The Surface and/or groundwater interception activities: initial estimates report shows that the total volume of water unaccounted for as a result of land use activities outside our current water entitlement regimes and planning frameworks equates to almost one quarter of all the entitled water on issue in Australia.

A combined annual volume of 5600 gigalitres is intercepted, with forestry plantations using approximately 2000 gigalitres a year (GL/yr), farm dams 1600 GL/yr, stock and domestic activities 1100 GL/yr, and overland flows (floodplain harvesting) on average 900 GL/yr.

According to National Water Commission CEO Ken Matthews:

These are clearly significant uses of water which need to be brought within the water planning and management fold, both to manage current activities and guide future growth.

In agreeing to the National Water Initiative (NWI), all Australian Governments recognised that interception activities present an immediate risk to the security of water access entitlements and the achievement of environmental water objectives.

Under the NWI, governments committed to apply appropriate planning, management and regulatory measures to account for interception water use by 2011.

The report and/or its executive summary may be downloaded from here.

Nature on climate change

2010-07-01T12:43:00.000+10:00

Today’s edition of the prestigious weekly scientific journal Nature has an editorial on the subject of climate change.

It addresses a number of issues: the public impact of the scandals associated with the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia in the UK; the need to continue to engage the public in clear and direct language; and the need for transparency and the avoidance of hype.

On the University of East Anglia issue, the so-called “Climategate” which has brought denialists such comfort, the editorial says:

Despite the scandals over leaked e-mails at the University of East Anglia, UK, and flawed data in the most recent assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the scientific evidence for global warming remains strong. The question, then, is to what extent have the controversies eroded the public's trust in climate science or, worse, in the scientists themselves?

There has undoubtedly been some slippage. But a closer look at the data across multiple polls shows that, broadly speaking, the public trusts scientists, believes in global warming and wants governments to do something about it. The public seems to have done what the mainstream media could not: it has kept the scandals in perspective. The scathing verbal attacks on climate science and scientists are actually coming from a relative handful of critics, and they do not reflect a broader resurgence of scepticism.

On where we go from here, the editorial concludes:

The science isn't complete and never will be, but it is sufficiently robust that broad conclusions cannot be undermined by questions about any given datum point. From this perspective, the fact that climate scientists can't predict exactly how bad the impacts might be could well be the best argument for action.

Read the complete editorial, A question of trust, here.

Richard Eckersley on the mental health crisis

2010-06-27T18:47:00.000+10:00

The following article by Australia 21 Director and Fellow Richard Eckersley was published in The Canberra Times, 24 June 2010. See the article as published here.

Cash grab hurting wellbeing

Cultural changes towards extrinsic goals – like financial success – are adding to pressures on young people, Richard Eckersley writes.

The resignation of the Federal Government’s top mental health adviser, John Mendoza, is just the latest episode in the unfolding mental health crisis in Australia. Professor Mendoza, the chair of the National Advisory Council on Mental Health, quit last week saying he was deeply disappointed at the Government’s lack of vision and commitment to mental health.

The crisis goes deeper than even many psychiatrists and psychologists, let alone governments and the public, realise. Addressing it requires more than increasing funding for mental health services. Our understanding of the causes of the situation remains a contentious matter among researchers, but there is growing evidence that they lie deep in the psychological impacts of the changing culture of Australia and other Western societies.

Most mental illness begins in adolescence and early adulthood and concerns about mental health care for young people are a prominent feature of the current debate, championed by the 2010 Australian of the Year, Professor Pat McGorry.

Earlier this year, American psychologist Jean Twenge and her colleagues published the findings of a remarkable study, in which they compared the results of the oddly named but widely used psychological test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI, going back to the 1930s.

The researchers found a steady decline in the mental health of college students between 1938 and 2007 and high-school students between 1951 and 2002. Five times as many college students now score high enough to indicate psychological problems as they did in 1938. The increases translate into a greater likelihood of characteristics such as moodiness, restlessness, dissatisfaction and instability; unrealistically positive self-appraisal, overactivity and low self-control; feeling isolated and misunderstood; sensitivity and sentimentality; and being narcissistic, self-centred and antisocial.

The findings are not conclusive. Critics point out that people might just be becoming more willing to endorse items indicating psychological problems (although Twenge says the MMPI allows researchers to test for this bias, which they did; the trends remain).

Another new study, conducted by British psychologist Stephan Collishaw and colleagues, found that English adolescents experienced considerably higher rates of emotional problems in 2006 than they did in 1986, especially girls. The greatest changes were for worry, irritability, fatigue, sleep disturbance, panic and feeling worn out or under strain; the more severe the reported symptoms, the larger the increase over the two decades.

A few months ago, I looked up the most recent results of national surveys conducted by the American College Health Association. The survey shows that large proportions of students report strong negative emotions for both the previous twelve months and the previous two weeks. For example, 47 per cent in the last twelve months (and 17 per cent in the last two weeks) had felt things were hopeless; 87 per cent (54 per cent) had felt overwhelmed by all they had to do; 82 per cent (50 per cent) had felt exhausted; 31 per cent (10 per cent) had felt so depressed that it was difficult to function; 49 per cent (19 per cent) had felt overwhelming anxiety; and 39 per cent (12 per cent) had felt overwhelming anger.

Although I have been steeped in data like these for over 20 years, I find the figures shocking, even hard to believe. I’ve asked colleagues here and in the United States and Britain what the findings mean. I think it is fair to say that we don’t know for sure. They are certainly not the whole story of young people’s lives.

Had they been asked, 80-90 per cent of the students would have said they were happy and satisfied with their lives; most would be leading seemingly normal lives: attending lectures, completing assignments, working, partying and dating. At the same time, I think these findings tell us something about being young today, including specific social problems such as youth violence and binge-drinking.

The disturbing picture is likely to be broadly true of Australians (we lack comparable data over time to assess trends here). What explains it? There are many possibilities, including changes in family life such as more family conflict and breakdown, increasing work-life pressures and changes in parenting. The growth of the media and communications technologies, the weakening influence of religion, more junk food and other changes in diet, and even chemical pollution might be involved.

Twenge and her colleagues considered – and rejected – the possibility that economic factors were responsible. Instead they favoured a cultural explanation – in particular, a shift from intrinsic to extrinsic values and goals. An intrinsic orientation means doing things for their own sake – because we want to do them. It is ‘self –transcending’ and is good for our wellbeing.

An extrinsic orientation means doing things in the hope or expectation of other rewards - status, money, appearance, recognition. It is ‘self-enhancing’ in the sense of being concerned with self-image. It is not good for our wellbeing. A focus on the external trappings of success and ‘the good life’ encourages unrealistic and misguided expectations and increases the pressure to perform and achieve, leading to stress, frustration, resentment and dissatisfaction.

One American student says in an Associated Press article on Twenge’s findings that she feels pressure to be financially successful, even when she doesn't want to be. ‘The unrealistic feelings that are ingrained in us from a young age — that we need to have massive amounts of money to be considered a success — not only lead us to a higher likelihood of feeling inadequate, anxious or depressed, but also make us think that the only value in getting an education is to make a lot of money, which is the wrong way to look at it.’

The results of regular surveys over more than forty years of how American college students rate the importance of various life goals confirm her observation. The biggest change has occurred in the two goals of ‘developing a meaningful philosophy of life’ and ‘being very well off financially’. Meaning declined sharply in importance during the 1970s and 1980s, while money rose to become the highest rated goal.

Youth problems today are more the result of existential and relational deprivation than material and economic deprivation. Our individualistic, consumer culture relentlessly and ruthlessly promotes extrinsic values and norms, making it harder for us to develop a grounded sense of who we are and what we want in life, and distracting us from what matters most to our wellbeing: our relationships with other people.

Australian novelist Ruth Park, in describing growing up in

New Zealand

during the Depression, says of young people then: ‘Whatever hardship came our way was all on the outside. Inside we knew, without doubt, that Life was aware of us and somehow had us in its care’. It strikes me as a good description of intrinsic worth and existential certainty and confidence.

Richard Eckersley is a director of Australia 21, an independent, non-profit research company and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University.

Reclaiming our financial sectors

2010-06-27T18:23:00.000+10:00

Australia 21 Fellow Ross Buckley, Professor of International Finance Law at the University of New South Wales, writes that the Australian government should swing its support behind the growing international campaign for a banking levy, and then it should join the push for a financial transactions tax.

The aim of the “levy” in the form of a small tax on bank assets, profits and staff remuneration would be to set aside funds to finance future bailouts. The more important role of the transactions tax would be to cool off the flow of speculative funds swirling around the world by taxing transactions at a percentage rate that would be trivial for medium and long term investments, but onerous for computer programmed “investments” that might only last for periods measured in seconds.

Support for the levy seems to be gaining ground, the Australian Government being one of the few arguing against it. Gathering enough support for the transactions tax to be implemented will be a far tougher nut to crack.

Read Professor Buckley’s full article, published on the website Inside Story, published by the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University, in association with the Australian National University. The article may be accessed here.

Climate Institute launches report on renewable energy

2010-05-25T11:49:00.000+10:00

The Sydney based Climate Institute has launched an important report, Renewable energy investment opportunities and abatement in Australia, preparation of which was commissioned by the Institute and Westpac. The report was prepared by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

In his preface to the report, Climate Institute CEO John Connor says:

Global low-carbon investments and industries are growing rapidly and Australia’s innovative and forward thinking businesses are tapping into these opportunities.

The Climate Institute and its Climate Partner companies have come together because we share a resolve that Australia shouldn’t be left behind in the journey that other economies and companies are undertaking towards the expected multi – trillion dollar markets already emerging in clean energy and pollution reduction.

As a model for future individual and collective Climate Partner initiatives, Westpac and The Climate Institute commissioned Bloomberg New Energy Finance to assess global trends in clean energy investment, the recent and future outlook for Australia and the implications of this for Australia’s pollution reduction targets.

Globally, 2010 is expected to see record new investment in renewable energy. This is expected to occur on the back of increasing levels of asset investment in China and as more of the USD184 billion in global clean energy stimulus money starts flowing into the sector in the USA and similarly in other major economies.

In Australia, despite having world class renewable energy resources, investment in renewable energy has historically been subdued and Australia still contributes a very small fraction of total global investment in clean energy – reaching 2.4% of total investment in Asia and 0.8% of the global total in 2009.

Investors need certainty around climate policy and a long, loud and legal framework for a price on climate pollution so Australian business can take full benefit of opportunities in a global low-carbon economy. Assuming the Renewable Energy Target (RET) passes the Parliament, Australian investors will potentially have access to a $20 billion opportunity in clean energy.

The RET has the potential to deliver emission reductions of around 120 million tonnes over ten years to 2020, beginning the transformation of the energy sector in Australia. In the process previous research commissioned by The Climate Institute shows that thousands of new jobs would be created.

The Bloomberg New Energy Finance report also sends a warning though that a sectoral approach will not put Australia on track to meet current international commitments to reduce emissions. Without policies across the economy that ensure that companies and individuals take responsibility for the pollution they cause, many low cost pollution reduction measures will not get investment backing.

Australia will not be competitive in the emerging global low-carbon economy and will fail to meet our national commitments to reduce emissions without a carbon price to drive medium and long term investments in clean technologies and climate solutions. Policies to limit climate pollution and put a price on carbon are inevitable.

That is why partnerships between business and the community such as the one established by the Climate Institute are so vital in identifying key barriers to be overcome, and the solutions required, to achieve long term emission reductions and positive competitive outcomes for Australia.

The full report may be downloaded from here.

International Conference on Sustaining Natural Capital

2010-05-18T22:04:00.001+10:00

The Preliminary Program has been released for an international conference on Sustaining Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services, to be held at Salzau Castle, near Kiel, from 8-10 June, with pre- and post -workshop events at Kiel University (see here).

Australia 21 Scholar Simone Maynard, a Ph.D. candidate at the Australian National University, will be delivering two presentations on Tuesday 8 June – one on the development of an ecosystem services framework for Southeast Queensland, and one based on Australia 21’s paper Towards a National Ecosystem Services Strategy for Australia.

CSIRO Report on megatrends

2010-05-15T18:54:00.000+10:00

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) recently published a report highly relevant to Australia’s future, entitled Our Future World: An analysis of global trends, shocks and scenarios.

This report describes the outcomes from a CSIRO global foresight project. It presents five megatrends and eight megashocks (global risks) that will redefine how the world’s people live.

Megatrends

A megatrend is a collection of trends, patterns of economic, social or environmental activity that will change the way people live and the science and technology products they demand.

The five interrelated megatrends identified in the report are:

More from less. This relates to the world’s depleting natural resources and increasing demand for those resources through economic and population growth. Coming decades will see a focus on resource use efficiency.

A personal touch. Growth of the services sector of western economies is being followed by a second wave of innovation aimed at tailoring and targeting services.

Divergent demographics. The populations of OECD countries are ageing and experiencing lifestyle and diet related health problems. At the same time there are high fertility rates and problems of not enough food for millions in poor countries.

On the move. People are changing jobs and careers more often, moving house more often, commuting further to work and travelling around the world more often.

i World. Everything in the natural world will have a digital counterpart. Computing power and memory storage are improving rapidly. Many more devices are getting connected to the internet.

Megashocks

A global risk, or 'megashock', is a significant and sudden event, the timing and magnitude of which are very hard to predict. The report identified eight megashocks relevant to Australian science:

- asset price collapse

- slowing Chinese economy

- oil and gas price spikes

- extreme climate change related weather

- pandemic

- biodiversity loss

- terrorism

- nanotechnology risks.

Report and Feedback

The report may be downloaded from the CSIRO website here. CSIRO states that it welcomes comment and input from experts and stakeholders in this work in progress. Contact details are given on the project webpage cited above.

ANU to establish $111.7m public policy precinct

2010-05-10T16:10:00.000+10:00

On Saturday 8 May the Prime Minister announced that the Commonwealth would commit $111.7 million to enable The Australian National University (ANU) to play a lead role in boosting Australia’s expertise through enhanced teaching and research in public policy.

The key elements of the funding package for a new public policy precinct are

- An Australian National Institute for Public Policy - established to highlight under one banner the public policy expertise available through ANU and its various specialist centres, including the recently announced Australian Centre on China in the World and the National Security College, and the Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG)

- $14 million to bolster public policy expertise at ANU, through enhancing capacity in The Crawford School of Economics and Government and establishing the H. C. Coombs Policy Forum, which will inform future policy development

- $7 million to support Sir Roland Wilson Foundation scholarships for public servants to study at ANU

- $17.3 million for National Security College operations

- A new $19.8 million building to house jointly the new National Security College and the enhanced presence of ANZSOG in the precinct

- The recently announced $53.1 million Australian Centre on China in the World (including a building)

- $0.5m to scope the need and nature of additional accommodation for officials and students in Canberra for courses.

Welcoming the package, ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Chubb said the ‘precinct’ would be a place where public servants and others working on policy for the nation could engage with leading researchers and educators from a wide range of disciplines.

Ross Buckley on the Greek financial crisis

2010-05-10T12:18:00.002+10:00

The whole world could come acropolis

An edited version of this opinion piece by Australia 21 Fellow Ross Buckley appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, 10 May 2010

The global media has focussed on how Greek profligacy and deception have caused the current financial market troubles. Greece has been spending with abandon, and the Greeks have admitted they manipulated their deficit to gain entry to the Eurozone in 2001, and have since disguised their debt levels using the creative ‘financial engineering’ of Goldman Sachs.

But this is only half the story.

The seeds of Greece’s, Portugal’s and Spain’s problems were all planted along with the birth of the Euro. Furthermore, their problems have been exacerbated by the access to abundant, cheap credit afforded by the Euro.

From the outset, everyone knew a common currency for economies as disparate as those in Europe was going to be a huge challenge. So all Euro nations made binding commitments to keep their budget deficits below 3% of GDP, and their total debt below 60% of GDP. The idea was that fiscal prudence would carry the day.

The first problem arose in implementing these commitments. Today 14 of the 16 Eurozone countries have debt levels above 60% of their GDP and from 2002 to 2004 even France and Germany breached the deficit rules, a dangerous precedent.

But the bigger problem is the one nobody mentions – the relative competitiveness of economies. Greece introduced the modern drachma in 1954 with a value of 30 to the US dollar. Slowly but steadily the drachma’s value fell, so that by the late 1990s it took 400 drachma to buy a US dollar. This long slow devaluation allowed Greece to remain competitive.

Adopting the Euro ended the long-term trend of southern European currencies slowly devaluing against northern currencies, primarily because the Southern economies were less competitive.

A report of the European Commission this January estimated the real effective exchange rates for Greece, Spain and Portugal were overvalued by well over 10%. Given devaluation is not an option, wages and prices have to fall by well over 10% for these economies to regain their competitiveness – and that will be an extremely painful process.

In short, if Greece, Portugal and Spain had their own currencies, market forces would mean they were worth much less than the Euro. And the converse applies: if Germany had its own currency, it would be worth much more than the Euro. Germany runs massive trade wurpluses partly because its undervalued currency makes its exports highly competitive. The US rages against China for undervaluing the Renminbi. Yet the Euro is undervalued for Germany, which profits from this precisely as does China.

So there is some real justice in Germany having to fund the largest share of the Greek bailout. Furthermore, the Euro 110 billion ($157 billion) bailout is essentially of Europe’s banks. It will replace loans currently owed to European banks with loans owed to the IMF and European countries. Germany’s banks are the largest creditors to Greece so Germany will really just be rescuing its banks with its taxpayer funds. None of this helps Greece.

And the really bad news is that the bailout is highly unlikely to work, for it is the wrong medicine.

A bailout is medicine for a liquidity crisis. Yet careful study of the figures suggests Greece’s crisis goes deeper than liquidity, to solvency. The severe austerity measures that accompany the bailout will shrink the economy, reduce the tax base and make servicing Greece’s debt much more difficult. As Greece is highly unlikely to be able to service its debt ongoingly; the bailout is only postponing, and worsening, the inevitable. Credit markets are now anticipating this outcome, as yields of over 18% on two-year Greek government bonds indicate.

What Greece needs is a major devaluation and a debt restructuring involving the cancellation of a sizable proportion of its debt. A devaluation is not possible without breaking apart the Eurozone. A restructuring and partial debt cancellation would require political courage and decisiveness Europe never displays. The only other likely option is default, and the question merely when it occurs.

Unless Spain and Portugal act with rare alacrity to reduce their wage rates and other costs in absolute terms (which is generally a political and social impossibility) Greece’s problems will probably flow on to Spain and Portugal, and the disaster that currently afflicts a nation which produces only 3% of the Eurozone’s GDP will spread to two countries which together produce 20% of its GDP.

As this contagion spreads, expect global capital markets to seize up, as they did post-Lehman’s collapse. European and American banks are only in business today because governments acted decisively in late 2008 to bail them out with taxpayer funds. But how are sovereign balance sheets to be stretched to fund more bailouts, especially if EU nations now bailout Greece?

Unpalatable as it is, the IMF and Europe now need to attach generous restructuring terms to the bailout, so that creditors write off perhaps one-half of their loans and Greece will be able to service its debts. This will be bitter medicine. However, any other course of action will likely turn Greece’s problems into a global crisis worse than the last one.

Ross Buckley

Professor of International Finance Law

University of New South Wales

2010 Fenner Conference on the Environment

2010-05-05T16:58:00.001+10:00

You are invited to register for the

2010 Australian Academy of Science Fenner Conference on the Environment,

"Healthy Climate, Planet and People"

which will explore the co-benefits for health flowing from action on climate change -- a positive story.

Where: The Shine Dome, Acton ACT
When: 23-24 June 2010

Keynote speakers, including Professor Sir Andy Haines, Head, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Professor Kirk Smith, University of California Berkeley, and many more, will address the health impacts of key climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies - in particular alternate approaches to human mobility (shifts to walking, cycling and mass transit), diet (shift to greater proportion of vegetable matter in the diet), housing (materials, solar orientation, ventilation) and energy generation. Such strategies will increase physical activity levels and improve nutrition and air quality, whilst reducing greenhouse gas emissions (both carbon dioxide and methane). The economic implications, including for social equity, will also be discussed.

Stefano de Pieri will be guest speaker at the conference dinner - catered by the award-winning chef, Janet Jeffs - which will be held in the Members Dining Room at Old Parliament House.

Further information can be found on the conference website http://nceph.anu.edu.au/Fenner2010/index.php or contact Fenner2010@anu.edu.au

Places are strictly limited - there are less than 100 seats remaining. To ensure that you have a seat at this exciting conference make sure you register early! Once you register online, you will be emailed a payment form, which you are urged to return as soon as possible to guarantee your place.

Thanks to generous sponsorship registration fees for this two-day conference are very reasonable.

Full registration: $300 (+GST)
Students: $100(+GST)
Conference Dinner: $50 (incl GST)

Please feel free to draw this to the attention of your colleagues.

Transdisciplinary synthesis

2010-05-04T13:00:00.000+10:00

Richard Eckersley

The following commentary by Australia 21 foundation director Richard Eckersley provides a valuable insight into Australia 21’s raison d’être and its approach to complex multidisciplinary problems.

It is taken from:

Eckersley, R. 2007. Culture. In Galea, S. (ed). Macrosocial Determinants of Population Health, Springer, New York, pp. 193-209.

Transdisciplinary synthesis

There is growing scientific recognition of the importance of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research (with each term representing an increasing level of disciplinary fusion) (Rosenfield, 1992, Bammer, 2005). Transdisciplinary research is fundamentally about synthesis. While empirical research seeks to improve understanding of the world through the creation of new knowledge, synthesis creates new understanding by combining and integrating existing knowledge from across a range of fields, disciplines and sciences (Eckersley, 2005).

Despite its potential, synthesis remains underused in science. Costanza (2003) calls for a dissolving of the barriers between traditional disciplines. A 'consilient transdisciplinary science' will emerge from a 'rebalancing of analysis and synthesis', he writes, a balance that is missing from most current university research and education. Bammer (2005), in setting out the case for establishing a new specialization of integration and implementation sciences, says recent advances in this area are not yet embedded in mainstream academic activity. 'At best, they have led to issue-focused, cross-disciplinary research centers. At worst, individual researchers are isolated at the margins of their departments.'

The value of synthesis goes beyond reviewing, summarizing and multidisciplinary research per se. Transdisciplinary investigation aims to develop new common conceptual frameworks, creating a new level of coherence (Higginbotham, Albrecht & Connor, 2001, cited in Bammer, 2005). There are two general ways for doing this: having an individual synthesize findings from many disciplines to provide a comprehensive explanation of a complex issue, or creating a team whose members work together on this task.

Synthesis raises several important conceptual issues (Eckersley, 2005; Bammer, 2005): it strives for coherence in the overall picture rather than precision in the detail; it dispenses with expectations of scientific certainty and exactness, including with respect to cause and effect - everything is provisional, and relationships are often reciprocal; and it challenges Occam's Razor, as noted at the beginning of the chapter.*

As already discussed, disciplines draw on different conceptual frameworks and approaches, which yield different evidence and interpretations. Much remains to be done to integrate and reconcile these perspectives. In doing this, synthesis yields several intellectual and policy benefits: it adds value to existing specialized knowledge; reduces disciplinary biases; transcends (at least potentially) interdisciplinary tensions; improves researchers' knowledge outside their specialization; generates new research questions; is especially useful in examining complex systems; and enhances the application of knowledge. Concerning application, synthesis improves the fit between research and policy; strengthens the links between research and advocacy; is particularly appropriate for addressing the increasing scale, magnitude, complexity and interconnectedness of human problems; and suits the complex, diffuse processes of social change.

In dissolving disciplinary boundaries, synthesis exposes the 'false consensus' that can develop within disciplines, which then defines, and limits, the research questions asked. Examples include, as already noted, epidemiology's focus on socio-economic inequality, and anthropology's on 'small-scale' cultural effects. But such gains are not easily won. The cultures of scientific disciplines are like the cultures of societies: so ingrained that they appear to be the natural and right way to look at the world. For example, in a recent transdisciplinary project on young people's potential and wellbeing (Eckersley, Wierenga & Wyn, 2006), the authors could not agree on key issues, and even had trouble agreeing on how to disagree. Rather than disguising or blunting these differences with careful wording, they have highlighted them as a significant outcome of the project.

*The 14th Century English philosopher (and heretic), William of Occam, stated in his famous razor that 'entities must not be unnecessarily multiplied'. Roughly translated, this means 'the simplest theory that fits the facts corresponds most closely to reality'. Occam's Razor has a wide application in science. However, when dealing with complex systems like human societies, comprising many entities that often interact in multiple, weak, diffuse and non-linear ways, we may have to 'multiply entities' beyond what seems at first to be necessary.

References

Bammer, G. (2005). Integration and implementation sciences: building a new specialization. Ecology and Society, 10 (2), 6-36.

Costanza, R. (2003). A vision of the future of science: Reintegrating the study of humans and the rest of nature. Futures, 35, 651-671.

Eckersley, R. (2005) Well & good: Morality, meaning and happiness. 2nd ed. Melbourne: Text Publishing.

Eckersley, R., Wierenga, A., & Wyn, J. (2006), Flashpoints and signposts: Pathways to success and wellbeing for Australia's young people. Canberra and Melbourne: Australia 21 Ltd, Australian Youth Research Centre, and VicHealth. http://www.australia21.org.au/pdf/HPreport.pdf

Rosenfield, P. (1992). The potential of transdisciplinary research for sustaining and extending linkages between the health and social sciences. Social Science & Medicine, 35, 1343-1357.

Richard Eckersley on indigenous wellbeing

2010-05-03T12:53:00.002+10:00

On 15 March Australia 21 director Richard Eckersley gave a seminar, entitled “Indigenous wellbeing and the problems of Western benchmarks and contexts: 'closing the gap', but what gap and how?”, in a current series on Indigenous wellbeing at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

The Federal Government's report Closing the Gap notes that Indigenous Australians are at a marked disadvantage compared to non-indigenous Australians and the gap has not decreased over the past decade or more.

“Closing the Gap” is a great national challenge, but also a great national opportunity to achieve lasting change and ensure that future generations of Indigenous Australians have all the opportunities enjoyed by other Australians to live full, healthy lives and achieve their potential.'

Richard argues that the goal of “closing the gap” in indigenous health, education and employment may seem laudable from a practical, political standpoint, but at a more abstract, philosophical level, it misses important questions about the benchmarks used and the cultural contexts of health and wellbeing, including whether Australian society as a whole can learn from Indigenous cultural perspectives. Western nations like Australia don't perform as well as the dominant indicators of human development suggest; they are not the best of role models. This matters, especially when some commentators believe the consequence of “closing the gap”, whether intended or not, will be to have Indigenous Australians live like the rest of us.

The back cover of Karl-Erik Sveiby & Tex Skuthorpe's 2006 book Treading Lightly says it takes us on “a unique journey into traditional Aboriginal life and culture, and offers a powerful and original model for building sustainable organisations, communities and ecologies.” The blurb might seem to suggest the book is about the external features of sustainability, the outward manifestations of lifestyle. But it is really about the internalities, especially notions of the self and its relationships to others and to the environment.

The book is, in this sense, a parable or allegory for our times. The moral is not that we could or should adopt an indigenous lifestyle, but that we need to recognise that other, quite different, and even better, ways of making sense of the world and our lives are possible. And not only that: we need to examine our present situation at this most fundamental level if we are to have any chance of achieving a high, equitable and durable quality of life.

One important gap to close is that between the scale of our responses and the magnitude of the challenges, between policy relevance and response effectiveness. The transformation of our society requires transformation of the self and what we believe it to be. Indigenous spirituality and philosophy might help us do this (without suggesting that non-indigenous Australia could, or should, appropriate them or graft them on to Western modes of thinking and doing things).

Perhaps we cannot, or need not, confront head-on the orthodoxy of “closing the gap” in Indigenous health and wellbeing. But in this policy area, as in so many others, we need to look more closely at the wider social, economic and cultural context or framework within which policy is formulated. In his 2004 book Well & Good Richard says: “In ordinary times, it is perhaps normal for different planes of perception and understanding of the human condition to remain relatively separate and distinct, with little 'friction', or influence, occurring between them. In transitional epochs, when what it is to be human is undergoing profound evaluation and radical alteration, these planes of perception need to come together in a single, interwoven, public conversation. Ours is such a time.”

The seminars are available in PDF format here.

World Bank open data initiative

2010-04-27T19:08:00.000+10:00

In an enormously important development for researchers worldwide, the World Bank has launched an Open Data Initiative under which it has opened up its databases for free public access.

For an extraordinarily rich array of data and research, go to http://data.worldbank.org/ . From this front page you can access country profiles for over 200 countries, view data for over 300 indicators.

At http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog you can access the data catalogue, a listing of available World Bank data sources. This listing will continue to be updated as additional data resources are added. These resources include databases, pre-formatted tables and reports. Each of the listings includes a description of the data source and a direct link to that source. Where possible, the databases are linked directly to a selection screen to allow users to select the countries, indicators, and years they would like to search. Those search results can be exported in different formats. Users can also choose to download the entire database directly from the catalogue.

At http://data.worldbank.org/topic you can access data organised in accordance with sixteen topics – environment, financial sector, health etc.

At http://www.worldbank.org/reference/ you can access formal World Bank publications through the Online Bookstore, download over 65,000 free documents including operational documents (project documents, analytical and advisory work, and evaluations), formal and informal research papers, and most Bank publications, and access the Archives.

Robyn Archer on resilience

2010-04-26T17:30:00.000+10:00

One of the highlights of Australia 21’s National Conference on Resilience was an entertaining and thought provoking address by our after-dinner speaker Robyn Archer AO, who in 2009 was appointed the Creative Director for the Centenary of Canberra in 2013.

She spoke about the application of resilience thinking in her field of expertise, the arts – what resilience means in the life of an individual artist, how to ensure the resilience of the arts, and what the arts and the creativity of society contribute to the resilience of the society itself.

Robyn’s address may be accessed here.

Bob Montgomery’s Next Big Question

2010-04-23T12:46:00.001+10:00

The Next Big Question is the title which Australia 21 has given its global online space for eminent Australians to ask the questions designed to create a new conversation about the future.

Prof Bob Montgomery is the current President of the Australian Psychological Society. He is in full-time private practice on the Gold Coast, in clinical, health and forensic psychology, and is a member of three APS Colleges.

Bob's next big question is "Is human nature intrinsically flawed?" (70Mb).

If you would like to submit your next big question — please do so here.

Michael Ward Symposium on Resilience and Health

2010-04-18T10:50:00.000+10:00

On 12 August 2009 the Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Australia 21 held a symposium at the University of Sydney to honour Michael Ward, a Founding Director of Australia 21 and a Board Member and Associate of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy. Michael’s personal resilience in the face of enormous health adversity has been an inspiration to his many friends and colleagues.

Speakers:

- Dr Brian Walker, Chair of the (International) Resilience Alliance, and Director, Australia 21

- Teresa Burgess, Manager, Australia 21 Project on Resilience in Early Childcare Systems

- Emeritus Professor Bob Douglas AO, Board Chair, Australia 21 and Leader of A21 Project on Resilience of Health and Education Systems

- Professor Stephen Leeder AO, Director, Menzies Centre for Health Policy

- Michael Ward

Presentations and Notes:

- Dr Walker's presentation

- Teresa Burgess's speaking notes

- Professor Douglas's presentation

- Professor Douglas's speaking notes

- Professor Leeder's presentation

Recordings:

Click on the links below to listen to:

- Dr Walker's presentation

- Teresa Burgess's presentation

- Professor Douglas's presentation

- Professor Leeder's presentation

- Michael Ward's response

- Panel discussion

Violence in Public Places

2010-04-09T14:33:00.000+10:00

Project team: Richard Eckersley, Australia 21 Director and Fellow

Lynne Reeder A21 Executive Officer

Australia, like some other countries, has experienced in recent years a marked increase in the frequency and severity of violence in public places, a problem that is attracting massive public and political attention.

In response to this situation, Victoria Police commissioned Australia 21 to conduct a roundtable on antisocial behaviour and public safety and to prepare a report on the discussions and outcomes.

The roundtable addressed the question: What are the precursors and triggers of antisocial behaviour and the options for improved policy intervention to reduce such activity in public spaces?

The roundtable was held in Melbourne in October 2008. The 23 participants were drawn mainly from a range of relevant scientific disciplines and Victorian Government departments and agencies with responsibility for policy development and implementation. Participants and Victoria Police were given the opportunity to comment on a draft of the report, Violence in public places:

Explanations and solutions, but they were not asked to endorse or approve the final report, the responsibility for which rested with Australia 21 and the authors, Director and Fellow Richard Eckersley, and Executive Officer Lynne Reeder. The report was released on 2 March 2009.

The upsurge in public violence is not readily explained. It is possible Australian society has reached a tipping point, where the confluence or conjunction of many social changes and developments — short-term and long-term, specific and broad — has produced social conditions conducive to violence. Explanations include: changes in alcohol and drug use; the huge growth of the night-time economy; a 24/7 lifestyle; broad social changes relating to poverty and disadvantage, the family and parenting, communications technology and the media, and an individualistic, consumer culture; young people’s biological and social development; links between antisocial behaviour and other aspects of young people’s health and wellbeing; and the lack of sustained action to address the problem, coupled with a dearth of good research evidence in key areas.

When it came to solutions, some participants focused on more immediate, direct interventions to address public violence, others emphasised a broader, social development perspective. Nevertheless, most, if not all, participants agreed on the need for a multi-dimensional strategy spanning timeframes, social scales and government jurisdictions.

The Victorian Government has already implemented some of the report’s recommendations. A Federal Parliamentary committee looking into the impact of violence on young people and a Queensland Parliamentary inquiry into alcohol-related violence have considered the report. It also drew the interest of the UK National Community Safety Network, a practitioner led organisation supporting the promotion of community safety and crime reduction, which ran an article about it in its bulletin.

Australia 21 believes the project is a fitting demonstration of its mission to create cross-institutional and multidisciplinary networks to develop new frameworks for understanding and addressing important challenges facing Australia and the world this century.

Download Violence in Public Places in PDF format here.

Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia (GAPP)

2010-04-03T20:40:00.001+11:00

Project Leaders: Professor Allan Cripps, Pro Vice Chancellor (Health) Griffith University, and Professor Emeritus Bob Douglas AO, Chairman, Australia 21.

Pneumonia is the leading cause of death in the developing world, especially in children under five years of age. Currently at least two million preventable deaths from this cause occur annually. The prevention of death from this cause is a necessary priority for meeting Millennium Development Goal Number 4, which seeks by 2015 to reduce by 67% the 1990 global under-5 mortality. A 2007 analysis of progress in meeting this goal showed that at current rates of progress, global under-5 mortality is expected to decline by 27% from 1990 to 2015, substantially less than the 67% goal.

Australia 21 is mobilising Australian expertise on control of pneumonia deaths in the third world. We are able to do so because Australians have been particularly prominent in this endeavour during the past forty years as a result of work initiated in Papua New Guinea in the 1960s.

With support from CSL Biotherapies, Griffith University, AusAID and international vaccine manufacturers Merck Ltd and GSK, Australia 21 has in the past 12 months developed an initiative aimed at strengthening the Global Action Plan on Pneumonia Prevention through newly available technology and strengthening of health systems in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

In September 2008, Australia21 hosted an initial meeting of experts from Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea to consider the application of currently available pneumococcal vaccines to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal No. 4. Particular attention in this discussion was paid to the role which new and older pneumococcal vaccines could now play in the global effort.

Following that meeting, Australia 21 appointed an advisory group led by Professor Alan Cripps, Pro Vice Chancellor (Health), Griffith University to develop the Australia 21 initiative further. This group agreed that an appropriate next step would involve bringing researchers and administrators from

Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, to link with Australian scientists who have been working on pneumonia in Aboriginal children and in other developing countries.

Accordingly, a Tri-Nation symposium on childhood pneumonia was held in Sydney in July 2009. This was attended by forty-three senior ministry delegates, company representatives and researchers from Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia and from international and donor agencies. The day and a half of dialogue was captured in a communiqué which is being widely distributed in the three countries.

The group recognized that there is no single “magic bullet” and no single intervention that will lead to immediate prevention and control of preventable pneumonia deaths in the two countries. It recognized that:

- antibiotic treatment of severe disease

- the administration of oxygen to severely ill children

- vaccination using a range of currently available vaccines

- prevention of low birth weight

- reduction of malnutrition and

- indoor air pollution

are part of a constellation of activities which will come about as a result of strengthening health systems in the two countries.

The symposium delegates agreed that continuing high childhood pneumonia death rates should be addressed as a matter of urgent priority and are evidence of the need for health system strengthening. It proposed the development of strategic research to be undertaken in sentinel demonstration areas in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Australia 21 is discussing these matters with funding agents in hope that such strategic research activity could be initiated in coming months.

The health and wellbeing of young Australians

2010-04-03T16:06:00.000+11:00

Australia 21 Director and Fellow Richard Eckersley’s report, Never better — or getting worse? The health and wellbeing of young Australians — was launched at a public lecture given by Richard at the Australian National University in September 2008. The report served several purposes: to review the evidence over the past twenty years since his first report on youth, Casualties of change, was published by the Commission for the Future; to analyse the many ambiguities and contradictions in this evidence; to highlight the growing importance of non-fatal, chronic illness, especially mental disorders; and to challenge the dominant view that young people are healthier than ever before.

The report attracted good media coverage and professional attention, including invitations to Richard to address several state and national conferences of state and independent schools. Over the past year, Richard has also extended this work to explore population health and wellbeing more broadly.

He has published papers in the journal, Social Indicators Research, and an OECD newsletter, Measuring the progress of societies, that contest the orthodoxy that Western liberal democracies represent the leading edge of human progress and development, as suggested by commonly used indicators. He argues that life expectancy is not a valid measure of overall health; happiness may not be comparable across cultures and does not, in any case, cover all the attributes of healthy people or societies; and other common measures such as income, education, governance and human rights, being mainly structural and institutional, do not adequately reflect the cultural and moral qualities that shape the more intimate aspects of life, and so are central to health and wellbeing.

Richard also contributed an item on this topic to Australia 21’s Next Big Question project (for details of this project see The Next Big Question).

Another application of this work was an essay in the Australia 21 publication, Brighter prospects: enhancing the resilience of Australia, in which Richard proposed that the health of a population was a critical dimension of the resilience of a society, being not only a consequence but also a cause of national and global developments. If people are getting ‘sicker and sadder’, this not only weakens the confidence and resolve they need to face and overcome threats and adversities, it can also increase the risk that they will respond inappropriately — even in ways that make the situation worse.

Ross Buckley on transaction taxes

2010-04-02T16:10:00.000+11:00

In Ross Buckley on Late Night Live I gave a reference to an interview with Australia 21 Fellow Professor Ross Buckley on the ABC Radio National Program Late Night Live, on the subject of an international financial transactions tax.

A written version of Professor Buckley’s views on this important subject may be found here on the Swinburne Institute for Social Research – Australian National University website Inside Story, 26 March 2010.

Professor Buckley reports that, despite the international financial system suffering in 2008 its biggest crisis since the Great Depression, the only reforms are marginal: increasing bank capital here, tweaking a regulation or two there.

Now however, there is a growing momentum abroad for a financial transactions tax, a reform which is supported by the chancellor of Germany, the president of France, the prime minister of Britain and the foreign minister of Japan, along with the high-profile investors George Soros and Warren Buffet.

Professor Buckley gives three reasons why we need such a tax:

- Financial transactions have got way out of kilter with “real world” transactions. For instance, the global volume of foreign exchange transactions is seventy times greater than the global trade in goods and services.

- Second, “technical trading” represents a large and constantly increasing proportion of overall trading. A product of the computer and information revolutions, technical trading is implemented by computer programs automatically on the basis of incoming information, and it can act to disturb the process by which the market sets a price.

- Third, technical and other very short-term trading is more of a problem than one might think, because it can lead to momentum trading. This can lead to persistent mispricing which favours speculation over longer-term investment and therefore reduces economic growth and employment.

Professor Buckley goes on to outline five very strong reasons why a financial transactions tax would help to overcome these problems. Read the full article here.

Ross Buckley on Late Night Live

2010-03-31T11:34:00.001+11:00

Last night’s edition of Phillip Adams’s program on BC Radio National, Late Night Live, carried an interview on the question of an international financial transactions tax, known as the Tobin Tax.

The interviewees were:

- Peter Singer, the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and laureate professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) at the University of Melbourne.

- Australia 21 Fellow Ross Buckley, Professor of International Financial Law at the University of New South Wales.

The promo for the program states:

It's been nearly 40 years since American economist and Nobel laureate, James Tobin, proposed a tax on foreign exchange transactions. Tobin saw danger ahead unless there was a reduction in speculation in international currency markets. He envisaged that this tax might go towards supporting the United Nations or funding projects of benefit to Third World or developing countries. It was known as the Tobin Tax. Now there's a campaign up and running for the introduction of a Tobin-like tax called The Robin Hood tax. The campaign was launched last month in the U.K.

The program will be repeated on ABC Radio National this afternoon at 4.00 pm Australian Eastern Summer Time, or this segment may be heard in streaming audio or downloaded onto your iPod from here.

The Next Big Question

2010-03-30T12:50:00.001+11:00

For an organisation dedicated to research, especially research oriented to contemporary policy issues, a key issue is always to identify the researchable question(s), to ensure that our efforts add to the sum of human knowledge rather than the chorus of opinion that swirls around the big issues of the day. Many of our workshops are directed to that end – we identify an issue that we think is important, and convene a meeting of high level thinkers, some with expertise directly relevant to the subject matter, others from other domains whom we think would make a contribution, and ask these people to help us to frame the researchable question.

We think that it is equally important to ask the nation’s leading thinkers to help us to switch on the over-the-horizon radar and think about what the really big questions might be in the years ahead, and last year we formalised this as an Australia 21 project, one to which we could invite leading thinkers to make an attributable contribution, but to which we could invite any of our fellow Australians to make a contribution.

To that end, Australia21 has created a global on-line space for eminent Australians to ask the questions designed to create a new conversation about the future. This project is led by Australia 21 Executive Officer Dr Lynne Reeder, and Australia 21 Director Deb Lavis.

The project’s formal launch, in April 2009, brought together Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty; Australia’s Chief Scientist, Professor Penny Sackett; and former Australian of the Year and Child Advocate Professor Fiona Stanley, who asked their next big question, identified its importance and outlined its implications for Australia’s future.

The two-year project was officially launched in Canberra by Professor Frank Fenner, who played a major role in overseeing the eradication of smallpox from the world. It also featured a question by a young Australian National University student, Tom Sloan.

In addition to the online questions in either video or audio format — events are also being held. They provide opportunities for asking the next big question on topics such as social inclusion, corporate social responsibility and food safety in a time of climate change.

The questions are captured on the Australia21 website here, which is designed to facilitate the interactive nature of the project — inviting all Australians to submit what they consider to be the next big question.

To date questions have been asked on climate change, human rights, population levels, governance arrangements, health measures, social inclusion, participation of young people, new economic systems and others.

The questions are being analysed in a report which will be released every six months over the two years of this project. The analysis will seek to determine the trends and identify the major questions that need to be addressed to create an enhanced future.

Over the next eighteen months other distinguished Australians in all discipline areaswill be asking what they consider to be thenext big question. The specific goals of this project are:

- To inquire into ground-breaking and visionary questions to ensure Australia remains capable of addressing its long term sustainability

- To make an exceptional contribution to the essential thinking and responses to the unprecedented challenges facing Australia in the world of today

- To access insightful thinking and applications to influence broader industry planning and government policy

- To engage Australians in a conversation to identify new thinking around the challenges facing our long-term future.

A major launch of the final report will take place to coincide with Australia21’s 10 year anniversary in March 2011.

If you would like to submit your next big question — please do so here.

A National Ecosystem Services Network

2010-03-29T13:43:00.001+11:00

For the past twelve months, the Australia 21 ecosystems team has put its efforts into promoting the development of a National Ecosystem Service Strategy (NESS) and a National Ecosystem Services Network (NESN).

This work is led by Geoff Gorrie, Chair of the A21 Ecosystems team that includes Australia 21 Fellow Mike Archer, Australia 21 Scholars Peter Ampt, Phillipa Rowland and Simone Maynard, Dr Jeremy Thompson, Dr Allan Dale and A21 Chairman Professor Bob Douglas.

Evidence of the diminishing health of Australian ecosystems is unfortunately not hard to find, with evident decline in soil fertility, fisheries stocks, water quality and quantity and loss of carbon sinks that help local/regional climate regulation. There is both a national and a global sense of urgency about the need for a coherent strategy to preserve ecosystems and the services they provide to humans. This is highlighted in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment conducted by the United Nations (access the Assessment home page here) and recognised by the Obama Administration which on 6 January 2009 announced a new section of its Department of Agriculture, entitled the Office of Ecosystem Services and Markets, to be headed by a new appointee Dr Sally Collins (see here).

The concept of ecosystem services is becoming more widely recognised in research and policy and has the potential to provide the framework for better planning and management, leading to ecologically sustainable development. An ecosystem services approach is being applied to Southeast Queensland catchments and is becoming recognised as leading the world. Research networks are already focused on ecosystem service provision. Some groundbreaking work with indigenous communities has highlighted the possibilities for payments to groups who, by their actions, are enhancing ecosystem service provision on the vast and important indigenous estate.

Great potential can be generated by fostering enthusiasm and passion from innovators and bringing them together in a flexible network that brings together the interests, skills and capacities of Federal and State Governments, the private sector, research communities, local regional bodies and civil society. An approach that encourages collaboration and ownership and builds on existing activity, while creating opportunities for a broad consistent approach to the national valuation of the essential suite of services could, Australia 21 believes, contribute very substantially to the solution of many natural resource issues including biodiversity conservation, bio-sequestration of carbon and indigenous employment.

Cross-sectoral learning from each other appears to have the greatest likelihood of success in rapidly building ecosystem services into the future Australian economy.

In its preliminary proposal for a NESN, the Australia 21 Ecosystems team is suggesting that NESN members would have the responsibility for overseeing the implementation of a world leading strategy to be at the heart of the activities of regional Natural Resource Management (NRM) bodies around Australia. The NESN would have responsibility for overseeing the data needs, the research activity, and the development of a framework for a coordinated regional approach to the assessment and management of ecosystem services across the nation.

To further develop these ideas for an NESN, Australia 21 is currently seeking support from funding agents, to undertake discussions and a roundtable with the many stakeholders who would be needed to make the national strategy operational.

Resilience – what is it?

2010-03-27T16:01:00.000+11:00

In National Conference on Resilience I reported that Australia 21 had convened its first national conference, on the subject of resilience and its applicability to complex systems beyond the world of social-ecological systems.

“Resilience” is a term that is on many policy makers’ lips these days, but if it is to have policy relevance it is important that it be defined rigorously, and its consequences, usefulness and limitations derived with equal rigour, so that what we learn in one knowledge domain can be transferred with due care to others.

Australia 21 is fortunate that one of its directors, Dr Brian Walker, is a world authority on resilience. Dr Walker is a Research Scientist with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. He is the Board Chair of the Global Resilience Alliance. In 2003 he was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal for service to Australian Society in Ecology. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He was formerly Chief of CSIRO Wildlife Ecology.

Dr Walker staked out the ground for our conference with a paper entitled Resilience in Perspective, the text of which is reproduced below. The paper may be downloaded as a PDF file from here, and the PowerPoint slides which accompanied the presentation may be downloaded from here.

Resilience in Perspective – Dr Brian Walker

“Resilience” is gaining increasing attention, not just in science but in policy development and amongst practitioners, in all sectors. This rise in interest is not really surprising. It’s a response to an increasing uneasiness about potential looming shocks that would sorely test the coping capacities of nations and of the world. Economic uncertainty, climate change, new pandemics, fanatical terrorism, food shortages and food riots, water ‘wars’ and other serious worries are converging in a way that evokes the feeling Winston Churchill described in the build up to the Second World War as “the gathering storm”. The spectre of being hit by a serious ‘whammy’, and perhaps double or triple whammies, has raised the notion of resilience high on the agendas of many governments, corporations and organisations.

All of these concerns involve the behaviour of dynamic systems; systems that are always changing, sometimes in surprising and unpredictable ways. Ecosystems, organisations, farming regions, countries, people – all of them are complex adaptive systems, which means they are self-organising systems. Change some part of any one of these systems and they respond by initiating changes in other parts, and for most of the time this self-organising, self-regulating behaviour allows the system to keep functioning in the same kind of way. But there are limits to this; limits to how much the system can be changed and cope through self-organising processes. A change beyond those limits causes a change in one or more of the feedback processes that control the system’s dynamics, and the changed feedbacks result in a change in the way the system functions. It then changes towards a

different structure.

The application of resilience ideas in science and society has four main origins – engineering, ecological/biological, psychosocial and defence/security – with organisational resilience appearing more recently. The literature is large and overlaps with that on robustness (see for example Jen 2005). I will not go into it here except to say that some of the differences are important in regard to how useful the concept is - in particular, the difference between the engineering use and the others. Engineering use focuses on a designed amount of resilience, while in ecological, psychosocial, organisational and defence use what is important is how resilience can change, how it can be gained or lost.

This is what resilience is essentially about – the amount of change, or disturbance, a system can undergo without changing to a different way of functioning, a different structure. A definition developed for social-ecological systems, but used more widely for other kinds of systems, is “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and to reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks” (Walker et al 2004). As resilience declines it takes a progressively smaller size of shock to push the system across a threshold. This is the emphasis I am adopting because it’s the one we need to focus on in applying resilience to policy and management, and it constitutes the first of the characteristic features of resilience that need to be understood and included in program that adopts a resilience approach.

Five characteristic features of complex systems that need to be considered in developing a resilience approach to policy and management

1. Maintaining resilience requires continual change. Keeping things constant reduces resilience. A common objective of policies aimed at optimizing some particular product or outcome is to identify an ‘optimal’ state of the system, and then to somehow try and keep it in that particular state. In fact, keeping a system in one particular state leads to self-organised changes that make the system less and less resilient. As an example, preventing fire in a forest in an attempt to keep it in its present state eventually leads to the loss of those species that are able to withstand fire. They are out-competed by species that do not have to channel resources into attributes like thick bark, resistant cell structures and dormant stem buds that enable them to resist or recover from fire. The longer fire is prevented, the more vulnerable the forest becomes to fire. To keep a forest resilient to fire it is necessary to periodically burn it. Immune systems of children protected from contact with dirt do not develop the capacity to cope with it, resulting in later allergies. Maintaining resilience requires probing its boundaries.

1a. A corollary of the above is that resilient systems evolve through time. The self-organised evolutionary change in response to changes in the environment (natural and social) is part of being resilient. The point to make is that resilience does not mean no change. All systems have to change in order to adapt to changing environments.

2. Resilience is maintained by having a high response diversity.

This means having different ways of performing the same function, each with different capabilities of responding to shocks and disturbances. Pursuing efficiency, narrowly defined, removes apparent redundancies that later can turn out to have been response diversity.

3. Cross-scale and cross-domain interactions.

You cannot understand or manage the resilience of a system by focusing at only the scale of interest. You need to consider, at least, one scale above and the embedded scale below. This is the basis of the concept of ‘panarchy’ (Gunderson and Holling 2002). Increasing resilience at one scale can reduce resilience at other scales. A common example of this is pushing problems up-scale (through seeking short term solutions). The Australian ‘wool mountain’ and the European ‘butter mountain’ and ‘milk lakes’ were a consequence of efforts to make individual farmers resilient to fluctuating market prices, leading to loss of resilience in the industries concerned.

The ecological, social and economic domains in linked social-ecological systems tend to have multiple, interacting thresholds. If one is crossed it can cause either an increase or decrease in the likelihood of others being crossed, leading to a cascading effect.

4. General and specified resilience.

There is a danger in focusing too much on known or suspected thresholds. If all the attention and resources of management are channelled into managing for the identified (specified) resilience and associated thresholds, it may inadvertently reduce resilience in other ways. There is therefore a need to consider both general and specified resilience. General resilience involves such things as diversity (natural and social), tightness of feedbacks and modularity. While it is reasonably straightforward to estimate the costs of maintaining general resilience (some form of foregone extra yield or profit that it entails), it is much harder to estimate the costs of not maintaining it (since it is unspecified).

5. Resilience vs. (and) transformation

Resilience, per se, is not ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Undesirable states of systems can be very resilient (woody weeds, dictatorships, poverty traps, saline landscapes). Also, a system state that once was considered to be a ‘desired’ state can become ‘undesirable’ through changes in external conditions. Where the current state of a system is considered ‘desirable’, and it is possible to avoid crossing a threshold into an alternate, undesirable state, building resilience is the appropriate action. But where crossing such a threshold is unavoidable, or has already happened, then efforts to build the resilience of that state only amount to digging the hole deeper. The need in such circumstances is reduce the resilience of the existing state of the system in order to allow transformation into a different kind of system, defined by a different set of variables and a different way of functioning – a different way of making a living.

Both resilience and transformability are necessary, and given the looming pressures and changes facing the world and individual nations, the question policy makers and planners will increasingly have to face is: “which parts of our (locality, region, country) need enhanced resilience in order to ensure that their present states can continue, and which parts need to be transformed?”

Changes in resilience through time – adaptive cycles.

Societies, ecosystems, organizations - most complex systems - tend to exhibit relatively long periods of fairly predictable change from a phase of rapid growth with high resilience through maturation into a highly inter-connected conservation phase with much increased complexity and little resilience. They become accidents waiting to happen. These long periods are interspersed with short, chaotic periods of release and re-organisation (Schumpeter’s ‘creative destruction’ episodes in economic systems). They are quickly followed by a new growth phase of another adaptive cycle.

Planners and managers largely base their actions on the predominant cumulative phases, yet it is the short, chaotic periods when big change is possible that allow for changes in system directions. Embracing uncertainty and surprise, using crises as opportunities, and even generating a ‘planned’ crisis, are crucial aspects of a resilience approach to planning and management. The phase a system is in determines what kind of policy or management intervention is most appropriate.

A concluding comment and a question

1. Adopting a resilience approach sometimes comes into conflict with current policy doctrines. “Efficiency” is one. But it isn’t efficiency per se; the problem is narrowly defined economic efficiency, calling for removal of so-called redundancies that are in fact sources of resilience. Another conflict that I am encountering is the requirement for precisely defined targets. The need for better accounting of how money is spent on government (and other) programs, coupled with the general increased emphasis on compliance and increased risk aversion, has given rise to what is now virtually a mantra about defined targets and audited progress towards them (“on track, on target, on budget”). Yet, I would submit that instead of asking for evidence that the defined targets are on track in a cost-effective way, a more resilience kind of question might perhaps be: “Have you changed your targets in the past year; and if not, why not?”

Resilience is about adaptive management and, even more importantly, adaptive governance. This puts an emphasis on reviewing and adapting the understanding of the system, and therefore the appropriateness of goals and targets and the rules for use and management. It embraces uncertainty and rather than trying to pick precise targets in an uncertain, changing, and not-very-well-understood world, it is more about deciding where not to go, and allowing the system to self-organise within a range of acceptable trajectories. The challenge to the world of planners and auditors is how to match two, equally legitimate needs: the need for accountability, and the need for the adaptability required to navigate the inherent messiness that keeps the world resilient.

2. The question I posed earlier will, I believe, increasingly confront people in planning and policy development, at all scales: “Where do we need to build resilience, and where do we need transformational change?”

REFERENCES

Gunderson, L. H., and C. S. Holling (eds). 2002. Panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press, Washington, D.C., USA.

Jen, E (ed.). 2005. Robust design: A repertoire of biological, ecological, and engineering case studies. Oxford University Press, N.Y., 295pp.

Walker, B.H., Holling, C.S., Carpenter, S.R. and Kinzig, A. 2004. Resilience, adaptability and transformability in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society: 9(2): 3. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9.iss2/art5

National Conference on Resilience

2010-03-27T15:12:00.000+11:00

On 18-19 February 2010 Australia 21 convened its first national conference, at the Australian National University in Canberra.

The title of the conference was Shaping Australia’s Resilience: Policy development for uncertain futures. It was, as its title suggests, an exercise in exploring the applicability of a disciplined concept of “resilience”, a concept which emerges from the study of natural ecosystems, to other policy domains that deal with complex systems.

The core concept of resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change so as to retain essentially the same structure, function, identity and feedbacks. In other words, how much of a shock can the system absorb and continue to perform its characteristic functions.

We were fortunate to attract the participation of an impressive list of high level speakers. The presentations may be accessed by visiting the Australia 21 website here.

Our thanks are due to the Australian National University, mecu credit union and the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department for their support in convening this conference.

About the Australia 21 blog

2010-03-27T12:45:00.000+11:00

The aims of this blog are to complement Australia 21’s website and support the organisation’s objectives by:

- Expanding awareness of Australia 21 and its activities in the wider community

- Giving notice of Australia 21 events, reports and discussions

- Giving both subject matter specialists and members of the general community an opportunity to contribute to thinking about the important issues which confront Australian society

- As the opportunity arises, drawing attention to reports and other materials published elsewhere that we consider represent significant contributions on the issues that we have in focus.

Accordingly, we welcome constructive comments from our readers, whether they agree with us or disagree with us, and the blog has been set up for “open” comment, that is, you don’t have to have any form of registered access in order to post comments.

There are, however, some rules:

- The comment facility has been set up for “moderated” comment – no comment will be uploaded to the site until it has been reviewed by the site manager

- Publication of comments is at the absolute discretion of Australia 21

- Racist, sexist, insulting or otherwise offensive material will not be published

- Potentially defamatory material will not be published

- The language of the blog is English – comments submitted in other languages will not be considered

- Material that is not considered relevant to the subject matter of the post will not be accepted

- As our aim is to further understanding of the matters we consider important, we welcome commentary that will contribute to that end, but we do not welcome cheap shots, unsubstantiated assertions, or ad hominem attacks.

Subject to those rules, we hope you will find our posts interesting and stimulating, and will feel free to contribute to our debates.

About Australia 21

2010-03-26T15:10:00.003+11:00

Australia 21 is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organisation which was established in 2001 to develop and promote new frameworks of understanding regarding the complex problems which Australian society faces in the 21st century.

It was established in the belief that the big issues that now confront Australians are so complex as to require independent, non-ideological, collaborative inputs from our best thinkers and researchers from many intellectual disciplines around the nation.

Australia 21’s charter commits it to:

- Promote interdisciplinary and inter-institutional discussion and germinate new research on topics pertinent to our national and regional future

- Build open networks between researchers, community, corporate, business leaders, policy makers and decision makers

- Ensure that we are open and accessible to the policy and decision makers who will shape our nation’s future.

Australia 21 operates by drawing on outstanding researchers and experts from diverse institutions and disciplines, nationally and internationally, and from various sectors of society – the research community, government and business. We bring together in roundtables and ongoing research networks of the best minds available and provide them with opportunities to interact in ways that are not usually available.

We undertake inclusive, integrated analysis in four thematic programs:

- Australians in society (how we develop and interact with each other)

- Australians in the landscape (how we interact with our natural environment and the landscape over which we exercise custodianship)

- Australia in the world (how we interact with the rest of the community of nations)

- Building Australia’s resilience (building our capacity to withstand shocks and adverse events).

Our stakeholders are all present and future Australians. We serve them by working to enhance the links between science, business and policy, through our focus on complex long-term issues. We produce distinctive outputs of relevance to governments, corporations, universities and communities.

Australia 21 is registered by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations as an approved research organisation, and is gift tax exempt.

Our independence is assured by the fact that we are entirely dependent upon donations, grants and in-kind assistance. If you wish to support our work, please visit our website www.australia21.org.au, where you can make a secure on-line donation.