Together or not at all
The environmental crisis facing the Earth today is a direct result of the transnational capitalist economic system. This system of unplanned production solely for the sake of private profit does not provide for the actual needs of the world's peoples, 4/5 of whom live without adequate food, clothing or shelter, ie in poverty.
Jenny Goldie, in her article (GLW, October 28), says advocating low immigration is "to recognise our contribution to the problem (ie the global environmental crisis) and to try to move our society to ecological sustainability ..." How do we "move our society" in this direction, when control over the nation's economy remains firmly out of our hands? The most serious point is that the global environmental crisis will kill us all, regardless of what state our local environment is in, unless we act collectively to stop it.
This does not mean we abandon the fight to protect and enhance local environments, but rather that we see the real enemy in this fight, the capitalist system, not immigrants fleeing from poverty and repression which they had no part in creating.
It is essential that we break down chauvinistic attitudes towards people from other nations. There is very little political or economic democracy for anyone in today's world. We should share our good fortune, as well as our common struggle, with any who seek the protection of our borders. We must do this in full knowledge that if we do not solve the world's problems together, we will not solve them at all.
Alex Aitkin
Balmain NSW
[Edited for length.]
Population
Jenny Goldie's article on population and the environment (GLW, October 28) yet again puts forward the argument that the world's growing population is the root cause of poverty, unemployment, starvation and social injustice.
While it's true that women burdened with a dozen children in the third world have little scope to ensure their survival, let alone their education, Goldie misses the point: the repressive regimes (backed by western economic powers) that control most of the third world have little enthusiasm for "empowering the mass of the dispossessed", even if they do come from small families!
Goldie also puts forward the claim from the Food and Agricultural Conference in the US that the world is running out of food, and suggests this is due to too many mouths to feed. But she fails to mention the fact that food stocks are deliberately kept low — the vast majority of food surplus glutting the market is not exported or stored but simply dumped in order to keep prices artificially high. Or US farmers are paid not to produce. A better distribution system and a more rational economic order is not "naive" as Goldie suggests, but logical, and it is only "dangerous" to the minority who control the world's resources. And Goldie's solution to the shortage of jobs in our country, and Germany? Cut immigration. What happened to increasing public transport, improving health and education services, embarking on extensive environmental repair and protection programs? There is no "shortage" of jobs of immense social value, just a shortage of the ones that the owners of industry make a profit from.
It wouldn't matter if we only had a population of 10 million if we still employed irrational, environmentally suicidal practices such as continued use of chemical fertilisers, and the over-watering of English gardens in Perth and Adelaide. All that would be changed would be the rate of environmental destruction, and perhaps the capitalist system of production would survive a little longer.
It is a question of strategy: do we fight for lower population growth in order to save the environment and achieve social justice, or do we fight for a completely different system altogether: one that involves the vast majority of people in the decision-making, and in so doing progresses on those issues at a far more real and permanent level.
Teresa Dowding
Hobart
[Edited for length.]
Conservative think-tank
WASP is a term that springs to mind when reading the makeup of the Tasmanian Family Council recently created by Premier Ray Groom. The council includes eight women and two men, all married, seven with no more than two children, five in traditional women's jobs in the caring and nurturing sector.
Its composition provides no reassurance that the needs of real Tasmanian families are being met. Where are the fathers, Kooris, migrants, parents with disabilities, single parents, lesbian and gay parents? The traditional nuclear family is the only kind of family the conservative Groom government wishes to acknowledge.
Council member Lindsay Benson, a police inspector from Burnie, said "you must be careful not to divert scarce resources to people who don't need help".
Meanwhile the Tasmanian right has made huge attacks on abortion rights, gay law reform, environmental concerns and workers' rights with the backing of the government and the media. The Family Council is another attempt to force back many of the gains made by the women's movement.
Rose Mathews
Hobart