Preserving ecosystems

Ian Lowe’s passionate, old-school environmentalism, and his call to “integrate ecological thinking” into public discourse and respect “environmental limits”, makes his article (“Environmental limits”, September 10-16) essential reading. But some of the ideas are so old school they are old hat. Lowe is focused on the nation state and on population, arguing against further immigration because of the need to “live within the limits of our natural systems”. Apparently roads, public transport and hospitals are already crowded. Our population should grow no faster than our per capita environmental demands decline, he says, otherwise our impact will grow. This is all fine, but we do not live in an autarchy. We live on a planet whose systems ignore national boundaries. Immigrants to Australia will presumably have come from some other, overburdened land. Should we shutter immigration to preserve Australian ecosystems? And who will explain this to the inevitable waves of environmental refugees? David Lisle, Mullumbimby, NSW everything anyone needs to know about the governor-general’s leadership foundation, with this quote from his official secretary, Paul Singer: “It’s a new and exciting initiative, which will essentially build a cohort of Australian leaders from sectors who are better connected, more collaborative and better equipped to make an impact in the national interest.” Here we find not only pretensions to, but specific intentions to, create an elitist leadership foundation. Potential leaders who are better connected. How? More collaborative. With whom? Better equipped to make an impact in the national interest. How, why, to what end and, again, with whom? It is always wise to distrust any and every military – or ex-military – individual who would interfere, or seek to interfere in social structures. The world has a very long history of such disastrous interventions.

– Brian Snowden, Fawkner, Vic