Our neoclassical economic systems of accounting such as cost-benefit analysis favour short-term profits and do not accurately reflect the negative social and environmental consequences that occur over the longer-term.

We measure growth and development using GDP, which in fact only measures economic activity. Measuring long-term sustainable growth and wellbeing requires indicators that reflect social, environmental and economic growth. Failing to do this could mean another half a century of rhetoric about green economies without any appreciable change.

Such profound change that contests long-held views of 'thinking and doing' essentially requires a 'new' and courageous model of leadership in government, organisations and communities. Rather than leading through individual power and authority, new leaders prefer distributed leadership and are collaborative, flexible and adaptive.

Changing dominant mindsets is no easy task, and exercising new leadership is risky and dangerous as it requires stepping out of the security of business-as-usual practices into unknown situations to confront conflict, uncertainty and unpredictability.

The choice of not taking this risk, however, may leave our future generations with no choices at all.

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Mehreen Faruqi is academic director of the Master of Business and Technology (MBT) Program and Associate Professor at the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) within the Australian School of Business at UNSW.

http://blogs.unsw.edu.au/knowledgetoday/blog/2012/06/green-future-requires-risk-taking-leadership/

 

Around 20,000 homes and businesses are without power as a massive storm works its way across Sydney.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning, with heavy rain and damaging winds of up to 115 kilometres per hour expected in some parts of the state.

The SES has received more than 300 calls for help and service's Dave Owens says Sydney has begun to feel the full force of the storm.

"Sydney has copped a significant brunt of the front that went through. The winds are still extremely high," he said.

Wind gusts of more than 120 kilometres per hour have been recorded at Wattamolla in the Sutherland Shire, where a blackout is affecting 1,300 homes.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-05/nsw-bad-weather/4053742?WT.svl=news0

Tornados have damaged homes and businesses in the northern Perth suburbs of Morley and Dianella and the town of York, east of the state's capital.

Roofs were ripped off, windows shattered, trees uprooted and power lines brought down as the tornados tore through the areas.

The Fire and Emergency Services Authority has received more than 60 calls for assistance.

Western Power says 5,000 Perth customers are still without electricity.

Morley video store Manager Michael Williams says it was an extraordinary experience.

"It was really windy; looked out the windows there was just stuff flying in the sky," he said.

"Then we were just standing at the window having a look and the roof just started going boom, boom, boom with the wind, so we just ran to the back of the store as we were running the windows just smashed in."

Electrician James Stevenson was in the Galleria Shopping Centre car park in Morley when the storm hit.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-07/mini-tornado-strikes-dianella/4058618

I have seen serious damage done by a tornado in Sydney but this is the first time in forty years I have heard of tornadoes (wbatever mini means?) in Perth...

 

With forests and fish stocks declining, water demand rising and lack of action on climate change, humanity's path is anything but sustainable, the UN warns.

The Global Environmental Outlook says significant progress is seen on only four out of 90 environmental goals.

Meanwhile, a team of scientists warns that life on Earth may be on the way to an irreversible "tipping point".

The UN Environment Programme (Unep) urges leaders to agree tough goals at this month's Rio+20 summit.

Where governments have agreed specific treaties, it says, major change has transpired.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18339905

In "rich" countries like Australia, we are less likely to feel the impact of a soon incoming catastrophe and to quote our little shit Abbott, the destruction (including modification) of the environment at large is more like a python squeese that a cobra strike... But, some people and some species will hit the wall...
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Almost a third of threats to animal species around the world stem from trade to meet the demands of richer nations, a study concludes.

Forests are cut down for coffee and cocoa plantations, removing animal habitat; elephants and rhinos are poached to provide ivory to East Asia.

Researchers analysed the overall impact of all this on threatened species.

Writing in the journal Nature, they say management of supply chains and product labelling could help stem the trend.

The mainly Australian research team looked at nearly 7,000 threatened species drawn from the internationally recognised Red List.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18344411

 

 

From Peter Costello

No one has suggested a carbon tax would be good for jobs or the economy, or a method by which to increase family tax benefits and pensions. We were told we had to do this because, if we didn't, the planet would heat up, the seas would rise, the polar caps would melt and the polar bear would be threatened with extinction.
As we come up to the date for the start of the carbon tax, all the government wants to talk about are benefits and payments. But this tax is not being imposed to fund benefits and payments. It is being done to save the planet. Why won't the government tell us that the pain is worth it? Why can't it mention the word "tax" and tell us how much our pain will contribute to global survival? Surely the justification to burden industry and households is that we must rise to this great moral challenge?
It looks to me that the overblown claims of the climate change lobby have been exposed - from the melting glaciers of the Himalayas to the prolonged droughts where the dams would never fill again, the government has lost the faith - bit by bit. They no longer spruik the threat of imminent damnation. Yet they still recommend the same way to salvation.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labors-carbon-tax-is-enough-to-leave-you-speechless-20120605-1zu60.html#ixzz1xS8jC1dM
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As the "cold" rain pelts down by bucket loads in Sydney and in Melbourne (the home of the laziest treasurer on the planet),  as the weather feels cold and crappy in most of Europe — except central Siberia with temperatures approaching 40 degrees Celsius — one can easily dismiss the idea of "global warming"... and especially of any concept of tackling the problem, which in many people's mind does not exist because Alan Jones says so.

The global reality is, of course, totally different. The surface of the planet is warming up FAST... Only idiots would dismiss this observed reality through very precise scientific measurements. 

One has to realise that the GST so gloriously touted by Costello is only a means to simplify the way the government of the time could place its mitten into your pockets.... Glorious simplification indeed. A pedestal-ed 50-foot tall statue should be erected in the middle of Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane to celebrate the man — the treasurer of simplification... Not in Sydney though... this would be pushing the bad luck, since this is where the real originator of the never-ever tax — the GST — came from, i.e. Rattus himself who got bundled out by a clever former ABC journalist who herself got bundled out by a  former tennis star pushing an old conservative racket...  Life is weird that way...

But the charts are there, the earth is WARMING UP... And the mention of polar bears by the ex-chief bean-counter is a cheap shot, proving that Costello is an ignoramus of natural processes, apart from going to the dunny to relieve himself.

Should we spend a bit of time studying the climate of this planet we would understand that out of recent years some were out of kilter with the general warming trend, due to specific events that induced "cooling"...

For example the years that were below average in temperature trends were the subject of massive volcanic eruption or were under the influence of La Nina... Krakatoa (1883) , Agung (1963), La Nina (1973-76), Mt Pinatubo (1991)... In contrast, recent warmer years than average included 1998 (with a super El Nino effect) and recently 2010 (DESPITE A VERY STRONG La Nina effect still continuing to this day). These last few years have been defined by NASA as the years when our fossil fuel usage "trumped" La Nina... No bull.

Thus the carbon tax, though not perfect is far more visionary than the GST (that was basically a simplified "grocer's tax"). The Carbon tax is the start of down-payments on an insurance against the biggest threat faced by this planet for more than a million years, possibly 100 million years (apart from asteroids impacts) — global warming induced by the human usage of fossil fuels.... 
As it is, the carbon tax will help reduce Australia's carbon footprint by several hundred million tonnes of CO2 per year... From the country that consumes more carbon per inhabitant on earth, this is a necessary start.
That Costello's crap be read by hundred of thousands of people as if it was the bible, while Gus's own rebuttal here is only read by a few hundred, shows how the media works... That is why the government is not prepared yet to tackle the issue of the danger of global warming when the media in general is willing to publish rubbish...