Twenty five years ago, on this day, September 19, 1998, the Australian Public Health Association calls for “life-saving green taxes”
A LEADING health advocacy group has called on main political parties to include ecological levies in their taxation plans to stem environmental degradation and its ill-effects on humans.
The Public Health Association, in warning that mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and Murray Valley encephalitis could spread as far south as Sydney in the next 20 years, accused the Government and Opposition of ignoring “a most serious health issue”. In a resolution passed at its annual conference in Hobart on Wednesday, the PHA said the Australian electorate deserved tax reform that would contribute to a sustainable future, advocating “ecotaxes” such as on carbon, which have been implemented in many European countries.
PHA spokesman and director of the National Centre in Epidemiology and Population Health Bob Douglas, who moved the resolution, says there was already evidence that climate change was affecting human health.
Ross River fever has been increasing substantially over the past five or six years; outbreaks of Japanese encephalitis have occurred in northern Australia; while multiple sub-types of dengue fever have emerged in Townsville over the past few years.
Malaria also threatens to again become endemic.
“There are very serious concerns that in a worst case scenario the survival of humans is under threat,” Professor Douglas says. “If we go on having rising temperatures with changes in the level of the sea, increased susceptibility to immune paralysis by ultraviolet radiation and if the temperatures make less our food sustainability, we are in some danger of an ecological collapse.”
The proposed eco-taxes would be on activities releasing pollutants such as fossil fuels, for a carbon tax, or nitrogen and sulphur oxides, the components of acid rain.
“We believe most Australians are concerned at the need to constrain greenhouse emissions, which, if they continue at their current rate, will result in ecological changes profoundly damaging to human health,” the resolution says.
Anon. 1998. Association calls for life-saving green taxes. The Australian, September 19, 1998 Page: 044
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that 25 years ago it was patently obvious what was coming. This was before the creation of Environmental Doctors for Australia or whatever it’s called. It was also obvious that John Howard was not interested in doing anything about environmental issues. There was an election coming which he was to win …
What I think we can learn from this is that, again, the ideas to fix the problems are all around us but they are rendered politically impossible by powerful organised vested interests.
What happened next – no eco taxes were brought in. We have squandered the past quarter of a century and are not prepared for the amplifying concatenating public health crisis and this my friends is why I’m very glad that I did not breed.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.