Australia on the Brink: Avoiding Environmental Ruin

by Ian Lowe

In 1996, the first independent national report on the state of Australia' s environment found that we faced serious problems. With increasing urgency, five subsequent reports declared those problems were all getting worse, each calling for immediate action to protect our future. The 2021 report determined that, ‘ Overall, the state and trend of the environment of Australia are poor and deteriorating as a result of increasing pressures from climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and resource extraction,' and warned of the dramatic impact on our health and living standards. It is now clearer than ever that the consequences of long-term inaction are upon us.Accelerating climate change and the loss of our unique biodiversity are the most obvious signs of the grim outlook for future generations of Australians. But the international trends are equally worrying, with quixotic economic systems casting doubt on the wisdom of running down our domestic production of essential goods and services in favour of a dependence on trade. It is no exaggeration to conclude that Australian society itself is at risk.In Australia on the Brink, Ian Lowe argues that the essential first steps in addressing these threats are stabilising the global climate and protecting our local biota. We must also change the emphasis of resource extraction from a damaging reliance on trade to improving our capacity to meet our own needs. This is our best – perhaps our only – chance of restoring a sense of social stability, and the equality of opportunity that was once a hallmark of this country.

Genres: Nonfiction

95 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Ian Lowe is emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University and president of the Australian Conservation Foundation. He studied engineering and science at the University of New South Wales and earned his doctorate in physics from the University of York. In 1991 he gave the ABC’s Boyer Lectures. He is the author of many books, including A Big Fix and Living in the Hothouse.

Reviews

[Daniel]

A real page-turner, I couldn't put it down!

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some humorous lines (driving cars in circles to see how fast they go) and various cultural callbacks but unfortunately short-sighted with regards to nuclear power, population growth, innovation, etc. too much of its time to look out the window at the world going by and growing

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ian Lowe's Australia on the Brink: Avoiding Environmental Ruin is a recent addition to the series In the National Interest , published by Monash University Publishing. I brought it home from the library a week ago and I read it yesterday because I was so cross about Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek's approval of yet another coal mine in Queensland, the third one so far this year. My fury was exacerbated when I read in today's The Saturday Paper that our emissions have gone up by 4.1 million tonnes compared to last year.

The federal government's legislated target is a 43 percent reduction by 2030, relative to 2005 levels.  They should be tracking down by a couple of per cent each year; instead they just increased by 0.9 per cent in 12 months. (Mike Secombe, 'Australia's greenhouse emissions are still rising' in The Saturday Paper, Sept 2-8, 2023, no 465, p1.)

Back in the late 1980s, I first encountered Ian Lowe at a conference under the aegis of polymath, public intellectual and then Science Minister Barry Jones.  Lowe was Director of the (now defunct) Commission for the Future in 1988 and the conference was rich in stimulating ideas, which guided my work in policy development in all the schools I worked in.  I often quoted a key take-away which was that we were educating students for jobs that didn't yet exist, and that is as true today as it was in 1988.

And even back then Lowe was alert to the prospect of environmental crisis...

For readers who've been paying attention, much of Australia on the Brink will be familiar.  Most of us know what our serious problems are:

loss of our unique biodiversity;
loss or degradation of productive land;
the state of our inland rivers, especially the Murray-Darling system;
pressures on the coastal zone from increasing population; and
the release of increasing amounts of greenhouse gases contributing to global climate change. (p.2)

The question is, are we — individually and collectively — doing anything about them?

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/09/02/a...

[Alex Borowiak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it! Well written and had some great ideas.

[Bethany Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and sweet. A message of how we as a society have and continue to fail on environmental policy, and how multifaceted that can be. But there’s hope to be found!