14 April 2016, Kelvin Thompson MP, Population Growth Driving Infrastructure Deficit. Josh Gordon is absolutely right to raise the problems associated with Melbourne’s rapid population growth of the past decade. It is absolutely correct that politicians and economists are allowed to get away with murder by talking about economic growth when they should be required to talk about GDP per capita. It is like saying that because more people have moved into your street, that the street has more money, and therefore you are richer. You are not personally richer at all – indeed the probability is that your street is more crowded and that in amenity you are poorer. Melbourne’s rapid population growth is the reason there is an infrastructure problem. The Queensland academic Jane O’Sullivan has done research which shows that in a stable population the community needs to set aside around 2 per cent of its income to repair and replace ageing infrastructure, but that in a community growing by 1 per cent it needs to set aside 3 per cent of its income to keep up, and in a community growing by 2 per cent it needs to set aside 4 per cent of its income. The infrastructure task doubles, with only 2 per cent extra people to pay for it. Read More here
Category Archives: People Stress
17 March 2016, BIEN, On why basic income has not yet been deployed. The hypothesis: basic income has not been deployed in South Africa in part because the powers that be do not let go of their interest and ability to explore people. The following article attempts to demonstrate the validity of this hypothesis. Let’s begin with some background. Basic Income (BI) is not a new idea in South Africa. In fact a thorough economic analysis for BI implementation has existed since 2004. The analysis was drawn from the work of recognized economists, specialists in the field, and the findings were summarized in what became known as the Taylor Committee. The Basic Income Coalition (composed of Black Sash, COSATU and SAAC), used these results to prove that BI is feasible, or at least should be tested, in South Africa. More than 10 years have passed, and yet nothing resembling BI has been implemented or even tested in South Africa. Why not? It is not due to lack of need: 54%1 of South Africans – over 29 million people – live under the country’s poverty line, and over 40% of the labor force is unemployed2. Moreover, according to the BIG Financing Reference Group report, it is also not due to a lack of funds: “The Basic Income Grant is an affordable option for South Africa. Although the four economists [Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI), Prof. Pieter le Roux, Prof. Charles Meth and Dr. Ingrid Woolard] posit slightly different net costs for the BIG, representing transfers to the poor of different amounts, there was consensus that the grant is affordable without necessitating increased deficit spending be government.” In spite of this, the same report also states that government officials believe that BI cannot combat poverty. They have refused to consider a BI, despite knowing that current social assistance plans fail to reach over 50% of those living under the poverty line, or nearly 15 million people. These officials have continued to say that BI would not be effective despite demonstration by the Taylor Committee that basic income is the best way to diminish or even eradicate poverty in the shortest amount of time. They also ignore fiscal collection and social security savings when speaking of BI, which more than doubles its actual net cost of about 24 million ZAR/year (1.35 billion €/year), according to the calculations of the Taylor Committee. In short, most government officials completely ignore these very consistent and thought-out analyses from the Taylor Committee. Why is that? Read More here
10 March 2016, The Conversation, Global food production threatens to overwhelm efforts to combat climate change. Each year our terrestrial biosphere absorbs about a quarter of all the carbon dioxide emissions that humans produce. This a very good thing; it helps to moderate the warming produced by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests. But in a paper published in Nature today, we show that emissions from other human activities, particularly food production, are overwhelming this cooling effect. This is a worrying trend, at a time when CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels are slowing down, and is clearly not consistent with efforts to stabilise global warming well below 2℃ as agreed at the Paris climate conference. To explain why, we need to look at two other greenhouse gases: methane and nitrous oxide. The other greenhouse gases Each year, people produce about 40 billion tones of CO₂ emissions, largely from burning fossil fuels and deforestation. This has produced about 82% of the growth in warming due to greenhouses gases over the past decade. The planet, through plant growth, removes about a quarter of this each year (another quarter goes into the oceans and the rest stays in the atmosphere and heats the planet). If it didn’t, the world would warm much faster. If we had to remove this CO₂ ourselves, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars each year, so we should be very grateful that the Earth does it for free. Apart from CO₂, there are two other main greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O). In fact, they are both more potent greenhouse gases than CO₂. The global warming potential of methane and nitrous oxide is 28 and 265 times greater than that of CO₂, respectively. The human emissions of these gases are largely associated with food production. Methane is produced by ruminants (livestock), rice cultivation, landfills and manure, among others. Read More here
8 March 2016, Renew Economy, Government somnolence on climate change health costs. Climate change is described by leaders of the medical profession as the greatest health risk of this century. Its health impacts are already significant both internationally and in Australia and are predicted to increase with rising temperatures. The severity of natural disasters from extreme weather events is increased by climate change and is an important cause of harms to our health. A report prepared for the Australian Roundtable by Deloitte Access Economics on the costs of these disasters is remarkable in exposing the health costs. It requires dedicated government attention and action if many Australians are to be spared unnecessary harm and suffering. In 2015 the social costs of natural disasters were at least equal to the physical costs in a total of over $9 billion — about 0.6% of gross domestic product. The total cost of disasters is expected to rise to an average of $33 billion per year in real terms by 2050 unless steps are taken to increase resilience and address mitigation. However, as the report indicates, these costs are calculated without considering the potential impact of climate change. This report “assumes natural hazards will be as frequent in the future as in the past. Given the evidence for climate change, this is unlikely to be the case – extreme weather events will probably occur more regularly in the future than in the past” It is not difficult to calculate the tangible costs of disasters, the damage to infrastructure of buildings, roads, land and crops but the importance of the new Report lies in its costing of the intangible damage to people, the health and well being of the affected community-the lives destroyed from an increase in mental health issues, family violence, alcohol consumption, chronic and non-communicable diseases and short-term unemployment. Read More here Access for full Report here