Let's all be more positive towards nature. But how?

Have you heard about Nature Positive? It’s a global movement to stop all the damage we’re doing to the natural environment – to forests, rivers, plants and animals – and start reversing that damage. It’s an idea whose time has come. And it’s coming to Australia next week.Tuesday week will see the world’s first global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney, hosted by federal Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek and...

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If you care about your offspring, you should support 'nature positive'

The most pressing problem we face is climate change. It’s even more important than – dare I say it – getting inflation down to 2 per cent by last Friday. But we mustn’t forget that climate change is just the most glaring symptom of the ultimate threat to human existence: our continuing destruction of the natural environment.Economists are often accused of being too narrowly focused on markets and the market prices that move up...

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We need economic growth to make us better off, right? Well, actually

For all our lives, worthies – our politicians, business people and economists – have assured us we need economic growth to make us better off. Almost everything I write assumes this to be true. But is it?These days, there are more doubters than there used to be. Some people don’t believe that spending your life striving to own more stuff will make you happy. (Spoiler: they’re right.)But a growing number of scientists tell us...

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If higher productivity comes from new ideas, it's time we had some

Economists and business people talk unceasingly about the crying need to improve the economy’s productivity, but most of what they say is self-serving and much of it’s just silly. Fortunately, this week’s five-yearly report on the subject from the Productivity Commission, The Key to Prosperity, is far from silly, and might just stand a chance of getting us somewhere.It’s the first of several reports and, unlike the tosh we usually...

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The greenie good guys are wrong to oppose economic growth

Only a few sleeps to go before our annual Festival of Growth – otherwise known as the unveiling of this year’s federal budget. People will want to know whether Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has done enough to “stimulate” growth. And whether the government’s forecasts for growth are credible. But not everyone will be on the growth bandwagon.A lot of people who worry about the natural environment will be dubious and disapproving. “Don’t...

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How to lose water, waste money and wreck the environment

If you want a salutary example of the taxpayers’ money that can be wasted and the harm that can be done when governments yield to the temptation to prop up declining – and, in this case, environmentally damaging – industries, look no further than Melbourne’s water supply. The industry in question is the tiny native-forest logging industry in Victoria’s Central Highlands. The value it adds to national production of goods and...

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What the economy really needs more of: trees

I think the first economist must have been named Horatio. He’s the one who had to be reminded there were more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in his model. I try to keep my horizons wide by regularly consulting my second-favourite website, The Conversation (with academics who know a lot of interesting things about a lot of topics), to which I’m indebted for most of what follows. We’re meant to know all about photosynthesis,...

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Worsening school performance is everyone’s business

Amid all the uncertainty about where we'll be left by the many pressures bearing on us and our economy – climate change and digital disruption, for starters – there's one truth we can cling to: the more we enhance our natural capital and our human capital, the better placed we're likely to be. Unfortunately, seeing the sense of this is a lot easier than ensuring it happens. On natural capital – the preservation of species and...

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