Beware eco-fundamentalism

I just heard an environmental academic speaking on ABC radio. He repeated Tim Flannery’s scare story about global warming and said the average Australian could help by asking their power company to switch them to green energy. “Our family has 100% green energy and our contribution to greenhouse gases is zero.” How much more is green energy, asked the announcer. “Only 25%,” came the unthinking reply. OK, university professors can afford to choose to pay 25% more for their power. But people on award wages – especially in John Howard’s Australia – don’t have that discretion. The blasé disregard of economic reality that supporters of the environment exhibit brings the whole movement into disrepute. One caller to the station complained about the cost of solar power installations. “They should subsidise them,” he said. Who is “they”? It’s you and me. Every idea the greenies have either increases costs or reduces our ability to produce saleable goods and services. Why is this? Why can’t they have ideas that save money or make it easier to generate the wealth without which there can be no wages or taxes paid and therefore no groceries bought or social services. The people who complain that environmentalism is overshadowed by economics are the same people who expect to live in a city, have access to modern amenities, and have a well-paid job. Naturally I support nature, but I don’t support eco-fundamentalism. Man is part of nature, not an alien intruder. Man’s imagination and ability to innovate are part of his nature which is part of Nature. The most innovative way I have encountered to balance economics and ecology is Holistic Resource Management, an ecologically-sustainable method of working with Nature to reduce costs and increase productivity on farmland by mimicking the conditions the rangelands experienced before man became an agriculturalist. Greenies who say wilderness should be shut away from animal impact forget that the wilderness enjoyed massive animal impact before the megafauna was hunted to extinction. And when land is shut away from the tilling effect of animal feet and the fertilising effect of animal dung, the earth bares and desertification follows. So denying domesticated animals access to landscapes will have the reverse effect of what is intended. (See Allan Savory’s book Holistic Resource Management: A New Framework for Decision Making.) We run “Uamby” according to HRM principles and we have flourishing native pastures, we accommodate a significant mob of kangaroos and wallabies and we are planting more native trees and allowing natives to regrow naturally to attract a greater diversity of bird life.