What's wrong with the carbon tax?

The so-called 'carbon tax' which came into effect in Australia on July 1st has been one of the most divisive policies in recent political history. The apparent widespread opposition to it suggests that many Australian's are either unconcerned about future sustainability or they have been hoodwinked by some clever political campaigning. There are certainly serious shortcomings in this legislation but these do not appear to be why so many people oppose the 'tax'. What's more, the carbon pricing mechanism is to all intents and purposes the same as what the Rudd government proposed back in 2008 (known as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme - CPRS) when it was wholeheartedly embraced by the Australian populace, even being suggested as a reason for Rudd's drop in popularity when he backed away from it. So what's going one here?

The first law

There is little doubt that the term 'sustainable' has been appropriated for all kinds of inappropriate uses over recent years. But how are we to discern what is really sustainable? A systems approach leads one to think about this in terms of the characteristics of a complete system that is sustainable, where ideally the system is the entire humansphere, but also potentially (and somewhat problematically) sub-systems such as a country, an industry or a business. To be sustainable, a system must be able to theoretically continue in its current basic structure for an indefinite period.

A question of ethics?

I have often argued that sustainability is an ethical issue. Ethics, most broadly, concerns the choices we make that affect the interests of others, and the basis upon which we judge those choices to be good or bad. Environmental ethics broadens ethical questions to consider the interests of non-humans, and most broadly, the entire environment. But it is human choices that ethics concerns, since we do not ascribe sufficient foresight to other creatures to expect them to make ethical choices. One could plausibly make an argument that the most ethical choice for humans would be to go extinct and therefore stop inflicting such harm on the environment. But this really misses the point.

What's the point?

There are days when I despair for the human species. There is compelling evidence that we need to make major changes to the way we live if we are to avoid catatrophic collapse in the coming decades. Yet our leaders fail us at every turn, clinging to a 'business as usual' paradigm - no foresight, no vision, seemingly no idea. But worse, people everywhere seem not to care. Sure, many are just trying to get through their busy lives, to make ends meet and to pay the mortgage. But many others are actively in denial. As a good friend of mine wryly quips, 'they've got it coming'.