Green is the new black. Drive a hybrid car, participate in Earth Hour and offset your lifestyle by the conspicuous consumption of carbon credits and you are counted among the fashion forward. This turn of public opinion has given earnest environmentalists cause to celebrate, albeit in an eco-friendly manner.
However, as the global chatter continues to bring us reports of plummeting stock prices, toxic debt, government bailouts and growing deficits, there is grave concern that the public resolve to conserve, recycle, cap and offset may evaporate. Our new environmental morality is in danger of become a passing trend, quicker than you can say, 'You're not still wearing that old thing are you?'
And so, the question has been raised as to whether we can afford to save the planet, in respect to climate change and the global financial crisis.
In order to explore whether we can indeed afford to save the planet, we will look at three areas. Firstly, we will consider what we are not saving the planet from. Secondly, we will consider what it truly is that we are saving the planet from, and finally, we will consider the impact of the global financial crisis and what effect it may have in this endeavour.
Let us turn our attention to the first question, 'What are we saving the planet from?' One answer to that, according to many people, is, well, people.
This is an idea first popularised in the 1800s by Rev. Thomas Malthus. Writing extensively on this matter, he said, 'The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.' Two centuries later, population control still bubbles up to the surface of conversation, and not just at the extreme edges of social commentary.
At the end of 2007, in the Medical Journal of Australia, Professor Barry Walters put forward the idea of charging a carbon tax on babies. As an Associate Professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia, Doctor Walters said that any family who chose to have in excess of a 'defined number of children' should pay a carbon tax per child. Being logically consistent, he also advanced the notion of carbon credits being granted to those who bought condoms or who underwent sterilisation.
It is a set of notions that Doctor Garry Egger, adjunct Professor of Health Sciences