Today was a dark day. The Australian political system has locked in failure on the issue of climate change. Instead of tackling carbon pollution, we're going to make a property right out of it, and we're going to use the proceeds of selling this right to compensate polluters for having to pay!
This is called carbon trading.
This is not the Australian environment's first encounter with "markets" as a solution to environmental problems. Once upon a time Australia introduced water trading, to control water use in inland Australia.
But to buy off opposition, many more permits than were sustainable were handed out. And once a property right has been made out of something, it's hard to scale that "right" back when it comes time to use less water or emit less carbon.
Today as it was announced that the CPRS (Australias carbon trading scheme) will be enacted in it's disastrous current form, I took the Lavalonian flag to the site of another market failure.
Lake Hume is the largest water storage in inland Australia, it was artificially created by damming Australia's mightiest river. You can see the impact of the drought, and of the failure of water trading to solve the problems of water shortage, with your own eyes, as the trees once submerged by the flood waters rise well above the surface.
After the wettest winter in some time (still abysmally dry), the lake has still not filled, and I can still wade in and stand next to these once submerged giants.
