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Good reasons for not wanting to be sustainable

By Eric Claus - posted Tuesday, 9 June 2009


Protect the tribe

Early in our existence we learned that the tribe or the pack could help protect us. If one lion came around, ten of us could take him. If we were alone it was much more difficult.

Past a certain point, the higher the population, the harder it is to be sustainable. Many politicians and other commentators say that the world is overpopulated, and that Australia should continue with high immigration levels. They see no contradiction in saying that the rest of the world should reduce its population, but Australia should increase its population. We need to protect the tribe. Australia needs more people to be more significant and more robust. We need to increase and strengthen our tribe. We even like to get the best people from other tribes and encourage them to join our tribe. If that weakens the other tribe, then all the better.

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Conquer the environment

Humans survived for a million years by conquering the environment, not by living in harmony with the environment. If an animal needed to be killed, we killed it. If a tree needed to be chopped down, we chopped it. We didn’t do environmental impact statements. We conquered.

Another reason we don’t like sustainability is the negativity of it.

Australians and Americans are the rootin’ tootin’ cowboys of the world. We don’t act sustainably. We don’t live in harmony with nature. We kick nature’s ass. Even though America is the most obese country in the world and Australia is one of the most urban countries in the world, we still see ourselves as Hugh Jackman, sitting on a horse, looking over the horizon and conquering all we see. Being sustainable is what the the wimpy Europeans do. That’s not for us.

Lessons learned as a child

Everything is great and always will be

Anybody born after World War II has only experienced good times. With the exception of some “business cycle” downturns we have been getting richer and richer every year. I stress that I am only referring to the rich world. In half the world, day-to-day life is still a challenge.

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As a kid growing up, we saw our parents buying better stuff all the time. We heard our grandad say “When I was a boy we didn’t have fancy colour TVs and air conditioners”. Now we say to our kids, “When I was a boy we didn’t have mobile phones and the Internet.” The message is clear. Things are getting better. They always have and they always will.

The everything-is-great idea is the theme of Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist and several articles in On Line Opinion in opposition to any measures to be more sustainable and who can blame them. Why rock the boat when it is clear sailing? We’ve heard the doom and gloom before, and it never happened.

A partner to everything-is-great is “change is difficult”. Staying on the same path is easy and doesn’t cause any problems. We know just what to expect, so we don’t have to worry. Things need to change to be more sustainable. That’s got to be trouble.

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About the Author

Eric Claus has worked in civil and environmental engineering for over 20 years.

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