Sustainability
…the challenge to move beyond policy short-termism
As Australians the bigness of climate change confronts our smallness, our short-term thinking – and living. Business as usual which led to the Global Financial Crisis, is not an option. What confronts us is a challenge that requires a fundamental change in direction, something more than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
Australian Independents Movement (AIM) for political integrity believes to respond adequately to global challenges we all must grow…
bigger than our materialism…
our pursuit of wealth and possessions for their own sake. There is enough for everyone’s need, but not greed.
bigger than our denial…
Solzhenitsyn back in 1973 said our obsession with ‘endless progress’ was a blind dash into a dead-end. Global warming is just one symptom of a breakdown in the eco-systems that support life. As conservative Californian Republican Governor Arnold Schwartznegger said in 2005, ‘I say the debate is over – we know the science, we see the threat, and time for action is now.”
bigger than our ideology…
the left-right antagonisms of a past era. The global challenges we face are bigger than ‘only we know best’. The planet’s health is no-one’s sole claim. In the words of the British conservative party, what we are seeing is nothing less than the ‘green industrial revolution.’
bigger than government…
Only government sets targets. Only government legislates incentives and priorities. Only government regulates initiatives. Yet government is not god. The market and individual response are crucial.
bigger than markets…
carbon trading is but one enormous potential for markets to drive greenhouse gas reduction, the possibilities as numerous as they are innovative. Yet markets also are not god. Markets fail to address the needs of all those outside the market, who have no purchasing power (most of Africa). Markets can also be distorted by government protection and trans-national corporate greed.
bigger than institutions…
the ultimate driver behind change is the individual, the power of one. Change starts with me, right where I am.
bigger than Australia…
we live in an unsustainably unfair global village.
Australian Independents Movement for Political Integrity 