Editorial: So we are all environmentalists now?

Abstract

The recently unseated and now ex-Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, is attributed with the remark that, in terms of who is ‘green’ in Australia today, “We are all environmentalists now”. From one angle, this assertion is a reasonable assessment of current community and political concerns. The past few years in Australia have witnessed a flourishing of both policy and public interest in the causes and potential consequences of climate change. This may be in part a response to the international attention climate change has received of late, with Australia no longer able to bear its status as a climate change policy pariah: a status often exemplified by our unashamed withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol. It may also be in part a reaction to the harsh realities of an on-going drought across the continent, which has been linked by some to climate change and has provided both urban and rural dwellers with a very bitter taste of possible things to come. Whatever the reasons, the outcomes are palpable. For example, recent public opinion research from the Lowy Institute – a Sydney-based policy think tank – suggests that Australians now believe climate change presents the biggest threat “from the outside world” to the future of the nation (Gyngell, 2007, p. 3).

Of course behind the story of international momentum and policy tipping points, there lurk ubiquitous struggles of differential power, framing and ideology. The neo-liberal-esque political economics and moral conservatism of the Australian ex-Coalition government has constructed a very specific take on what the now omnipresent “Australian environmentalist” looks like. S/he retro-fits their house with compact florescent light-bulbs and shower timers; regularly recycles bottles, cans and some plastics; sometimes shops “green”, when preferences dictate; and takes part in community tree-planting or other such apolitical, feel-good activities. Thus, this Antipodean reincarnation of the environmental citizen is firmly located within the ‘business as usual’ camp, with technological fixes, greater resources efficiencies, and a bit of the Dunkirk (or in this case, Anzac) spirit thrown in for good measure.