Every day we are confronted with evidence of the assault on the Earth's biodiversity. Topsoil is blown away, water is polluted and forests are destroyed. Some action to reverse this destruction must be undertaken by governments on behalf of their citizens. While most of us can do little more than suggest solutions to the bigger environmental problems, it does not mean that we, as individuals, cannot make a difference. In fact, the way we use water and energy, the way we design our homes and dispose of wastes, and whether or not we plant trees, all have a significant impact on the environment.
However, governments have much greater control over impacts on the environment than we do as individuals. Both the control they have over business and industry, as well as the incentives or disincentives they offer to business and industry, have broad and lasting impacts. And largely, governments are failing locally, nationally and internationally, meaning that we will not pass the environment on to the next generation in at least the state we found it in: more than three-quarters of the world's species are declining or facing extinction and almost three billion people will be severely short of water within 50 years.
Two reports published in 1997 indicate that the state of the world's environment is not getting any better. Firstly, the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington DC think-tank which publishes annual environmental reports, has calculated that Western governments spend up to $100 billion a year subsidising the destruction of the oceans, atmosphere and land, subsidising power stations that worsen global warming and encouraging destructive farming, overgrazing and overfishing. Most of these subsidies go to the rich.
Secondly, the Panel On Sustainable Development, set up in 1992 by the former British Prime Minister John Major, reported that government spent $32 billion of taxpayers' money on environmentally damaging industry, energy and agriculture grants. This figure would be almost tripled if hidden subsidies, such as tax exemptions and government procurements, were included.
While governments represent citizens, not many of these citizens have enough knowledge or influence on governments to make their voices heard. However, scientists are also citizens, but they are citizens with knowledge about the state of the environment. In order to affect decisions made at a governmental level, scientists need to speak publicly, on behalf of all citizens, about globally important environmental issues.
Des Griffin
Australian Museum
Copyright © Australian Museum, 2003
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