Ian Christesen puts some questions to Professor Tim Smith PhD who is the Director of the Sustainability Research Centre at University of the Sunshine Coast (USC). Prior to his appointment with USC, Dr Smith was a senior research scientist with the Resource Futures Program of CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.  He works on a number of projects around climate change adaptation and the issues around coastal community vulnerability. The Sustainability Research Centre also has prepared a set of sustainability indicators for the Sunshine Coast Regional Council.

Professor Tim Smith

What role to you see the University playing to assist the Sunshine Coast diversify its economy away from retail, construction and tourism? Firstly as an employer and more generally as an education provider?

The University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) is Australia’s fastest growing university, now with over 7,000 students and almost 600 staff (including over 200 academics).USC continues to develop new teaching and research programs to help diversify the Sunshine Coast economy. It is also the only university in the world that I know of that has a mission statement revolving around both sustainability and regional engagement. This places USC at the forefront of both developing and enhancing a sustainable knowledge economy for the Sunshine Coast, which is focused on sustainable outcomes through attracting and retaining highly qualified staff, contributing to sustainability industries through research and development, and training the next generation of sustainably-minded individuals (e.g. there were 150 students who enrolled in our 1st year “Foundations of Sustainability” course this year, and our enrolments in our major in sustainability and our post-graduate programs continue to grow). USC is also committed to a business incubator on campus (the Innovation Centre), which houses a large number of sustainability-related business such as Auzion who deals with solar and sustainable energy solutions.

What do you consider to be the greatest challenges we face in creating a more sustainable economy on the Sunshine Coast?

This question requires many PhD theses in order to properly respond … however, in a nut-shell the diverse communities of the Sunshine Coast need to collectively believe that we can create a more sustainable economy and take affirmative steps towards making it a reality. The problems of addiction to growth and short-term economic rationalism too often supersede any meaningful focus on quality of life—we have numerous measures of economic performance but no commitment to measuring our quality of life, hence our policy decisions and investments by government are dominated by improving the performance of the things we measure (and this unfortunately does not include quality of life).

What would be your top 3- 5 actions government and or business need to take into building a truly sustainable region and economy?

My personal view on the top 3 actions needed to build a truly sustainable region and economy consist of:

1. Measuring quality of life and focusing on improving these indicators instead of a focus on improving short-term measures of economic activity;
2. Establishing a line management structure whereby Treasury (at all tiers of government) reports to departments that deal with sustainability (in an integrated way) and not vice versa; and
3. Formation of consortiums between businesses, universities and communities to collectively lobby for greater support from communities and governments to build a sustainable region and economy—with the dominance of SMEs on the Sunshine Coast, we run a risk of not being seen as having a major influence on decision makers.

Do you think that the Coast can use its natural environment and lifestyle as attractants?

Of course— I moved here! The Sustainability Research Centre recently received funding to be part of a national project on coastal management with 7 partner universities. When we advertised for PhD students, USC received more than twice the number of applicants than any other university. It is not only the natural environment and lifestyle but the quality of our businesses, university and communities that attract people to our region. If we build on our combined strengths we can’t go wrong.

What strategies should be put in place to attract the new industries with the new jobs?  For example should we just agree that development and the construction industries will just continue as always with high levels of population growth and therefore we need to be working to make sure this industry cleans up its act and approaches it differently more sustainably?

People have both rights and responsibilities—we often forget about the latter. We all need to take a proactive approach to building the future we want on the Sunshine Coast. Make your voice heard and do something about it! There are so many examples of good work going on that inspire me on the Sunshine Coast and we need to support those who are doing it. Even in the construction industry there are examples of a genuine commitment to sustainability such as Adam Dew EcoBuild.

Any other comments you would like to make?

The Sunshine Coast is reaching a critical tipping point, there are multiple pressures from issues like population growth and climate change. We need both strong leadership combined with collective action to achieve a sustainable future for the Sunshine Coast.

In this edition we take an Up Close look at their lifestyle and why they decided to home-school their daughters.

“The most revolutionary thing you can do is to provide your children with a connection to nature.  If you feel you are a part of something, you will naturally respect it,” says Sally Johnson. She says it in a way that tells you that this is a statement made after many years of searching and learning.

Elly and Jessie play under the shade of a tree. Image: greghardwick.com.au

With so much news bringing almost daily predictions of pending doom, climate change has caused many people to simply switch off. Crowded by a growing population, along with an increasing trend to self-impose busy lifestyles upon ourselves, many people are starting to perform a collective head-in-the-sand reaction.

“It’s getting a bit depressing and we’re getting a bit immune to it. People don’t want to listen to it any more — it all sounds too bad to do anything about it,” says Sally.

However, she believes there is something we can all do — change the way we relate to the environment.

“I feel that there needs to be a shift, you push something on people through fear, and it never works.  People have to make a shift inside themselves and let that gradually take over”.

Local academic and author Dana Thomsen recognises our disconnection from nature as a major problem. She wrote, in her recently published book Sustainability innovators: Agents of change on the Sunshine Coast: “ Media coverage of climate change has raised awareness of human-environmental interactions on a scale not seen in recent times where the general trend has been an ever-increasing disconnection with our natural surroundings.”

Sally, her husband Paul and their two young girls, Jessie, 4 and Elly, 6 have lived on their property in the Noosa hinterland for the past seven years. Paul and Sally, both in their late thirties, have that healthy look that comes from years of eating well and spending time outdoors keeping active. Both of them have a keen interest in creating a sustainable lifestyle for their family. Their girls have a youthful sparkle in their eyes and they seem equally as relaxed handling the chickens, helping in the gardens or doing as children do, playing together under the shade of a tree.

Driving down their dirt driveway, cone-shaped piles of mulch are waiting to be placed around native plants. The familiar deep-green-leaves of local Lilly Pilly species line the left of the narrow driveway and on the right, healthy looking chickens quietly graze under a home-made dome, inspired by Linda Woodrow’s The Permaculture Home Garden.

The last big rains flooded the local area earlier this year and now the ground is dry and almost scorched in the midday sun. Trees, lining local streams, still have flood debris lodged a metre or so up the trunk, yet the stream beds are now dry with dead leaves and branches, all poised to be washed away by a summer deluge.

Paul and Sally Johnson. Image: greghardwick.com.au

Fruit trees dominate a northern slope close to their house as lorikeets swoop down to feed from a native grevillea. Despite the dry, hot and sometimes energy-sapping weather, the house and the surrounding land provide a calm retreat from the Sunshine Coast’s growing population.

Pointing towards the north-facing slope, with a keen smile on his face, Paul tells me of his future plans.

“We would like to do more with the gardens, like they do in Bali with directing water, playing with swales and deep ripping, so that the water stays in the ground rather than having to store it in a dam.”

The size and the number of fruit trees, along with the vegetable gardens displays just how much work they have done.

“Its small steps,” says Sally.  “While we still look at the big picture, at times it’s easy to think you’re getting nowhere. But we can now look back and see how far we have come.”

We sit down in the shade of the veranda. The modest timber clad house is cooled as an easterly breeze flows up the valley. The corrugated roof above us supports a 2 kilowatt grid-connect solar power system which sits beside a solar-hot-water panel and tank.

They chose the property due to its location. Few neighbours surround them and yet the area is known for its strong sense of community. For Sally, there was something more.

“The reason for wanting to live here, for me, was my childhood link with nature.  What I connected to in my childhood is what I want for my children.  To allow Elly and Jessie to have the same connection with nature is very important for me.”

Paul, has worked in the landscaping industry and now works for a tree-lopping business and Sally, who has studied applied science and wilderness management spends her weekdays home schooling her daughters.

Home schooling the girls, says Sally, gives them time to continually connect with nature.

“At that young age the connection with nature is the most important thing.  There’s plenty of time for the computers and watching TV when they’re older.”

There aren’t any concrete statistics in Australia for the number of children being home schooled, yet some believe there could be between 17,000 – 40,000 school-aged students, nation-wide. While the Sunshine Coast is thought to contain the highest number of home-schooled children in the country.

The most frequently asked question about home schooling is a concern about socialising. Yet local gatherings with up to 10 other home-schooling families, just in the Cooran area, means their children often get to mix with different age groups, free of the usual and sometimes difficult peer pressures of the school yard.

Through home schooling Sally wants her daughters to experience the small subtleties of nature. As she points out, if your first experiences are the bright flashy lights of new technology, then nature can seem almost dull and uninteresting.

It’s a problem that is recognised around the western world. “Right now children are spending their days inside and their evenings and weekends plugged into electronic media,” said Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club — America’s oldest grassroots environmental organisation.

“They are missing out on the daily childhood joy of playing outside that their parents’ took for granted just twenty years ago,” he said.

According to the 117-year-old conservation organisation, research shows that when children spend time outside they are more creative and better focused.

“Children also have that curiosity of the world, that sense of wonder.  They like to see how things connect,” adds Sally.

“We’ll go for a walk with the girls and Elly, the eldest, will say; ‘Oh, that’s why that happens’ — she is putting things together that she learnt a few weeks ago. “

“We’ve learnt so much too,” says Paul.

“Children are so simple and uncomplicated — they often live in the moment.”

They also make interesting and quite profound comparisons. After watching a kangaroo with a joey in the pouch, Elly quickly noticed how differently we humans live.

“We need prams and lots of other stuff,” she said. “I think it would be better if we made things from nature and lived in smaller houses”.

Further information

Motivation and inspiration: Hunter Campbell “Patch” Adams, M.D.

Currently reading:
Walden: or life in the woods (Henry David Thoreau)

Professor Ian Lowe. Image greghardwick.com.au

Eco: Ian, what do think is the motivation for the Queensland government’s fascination with  continuing the mantra of population growth?

Prof Lowe: Well, there’s a superstition and it is only a superstition that growing population means a growing economy which gives the impression that things are going well.

I was at a conference a few years ago in Canberra, in which John Coulter, a former Democrat leader in the Senate, produced some figures that showed that there’s actually a negative correlation between population growth and economic indicators like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita.   So even if you’re so naïve as to think that the GDP is a measure of well being and that its growth means people are better off, places with a higher rate of population growth are doing badly and the places with a stable or even declining populations are actually doing well.

And there’s a simple economic explanation for it — if the population is growing, you need to invest in things that are in economic terms unproductive, like houses, sewage, water and roads. Where if your population is stable and you are only replacing old houses as they fall apart you can invest in having a more productive economy. So even in economic terms it’s just not very smart.

But the point is, of course, if there are more people here, then you need more houses, and more clothes and more food so the overall size of the economy is bigger and the government can say: “The economy is growing at three per cent, aren’t we good?”.

But again as John Coulter pointed out, if you have a rational economic system you would set against the increase in wealth, the decline in natural assets. So for example, if you sell Gorgon gas to China, yes you would have some money but you wouldn’t have the gas which would mean you that you didn’t have an asset for future generations of Australians to use and similarly if you concrete over your best agricultural land to accommodate another 500,000 people living in Queensland, yes you have the asset of those extra houses but you have the negative of having lost that agricultural land.

Eco: How do we overcome that issue, where especially here on the Sunshine Coast we’re almost addicted to growth.  In terms of the economy we are very much dependent upon the housing, construction and development sectors. How do we make the transition away from this and reposition ourselves for the future?

Prof Lowe: Well, what we need is a coherent, long-term economic strategy. Anyone with half a brain can see that it’s not sustainable to have 60 per cent of your jobs in the construction sector because you get this negative cycle that people are coming here because there’s jobs, but the jobs are only here because people are coming here.

Eco: So it’s like a Pyramid selling scheme?

Prof Lowe: Absolutely, yes. Well, you could argue that it’s a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme is a particular type of corporate fraud for which you go to jail in which you produce generous dividends for the shareholders by selling the capital stock of the company. We’re running down the capital stock of the Sunshine Coast to provide generous dividends for this generation of shareholders in ‘Sunshine Coast Inc’ and that’s clearly not sustainable.

So if you were serious about the long term future of the Coast, you’d be thinking about which employment sources are genuinely sustainable. Now, local tourism aimed at people within Australia is a lot more sustainable than international tourism and that’s probably an area we can sustain but we should be investing in the knowledge-based industries that are likely to grow in the future, rather than assuming that we’ll always be able to find another wetland to concrete over to build houses for people who have come here to concrete over the wetland.

Eco: It appears, and one of the big discussion points has always been, that we don’t want the Sunshine Coast to become another Gold Coast. But it looks as though the new South East Queensland Regional Plan has basically said that within about 20 years we will have a population equivalent to that of the present-day Gold Coast.  Do you think it’s possible to have a population the size of the Gold Coast on the Sunshine Coast and still retain the sort of values and character that makes the Sunshine Coast what it is?

Prof Lowe: I can’t see how that’s possible. I mean if you look at the Gold Coast, it’s a similar area of coastline and the only way you can accommodate that many people and not damage as much of the coastline, would be to have more of them in the sort of  high-rise developments of the Gold Coast that no-one on the Sunshine Coast wants.

So, there’s a  fundamental conflict if you want to accommodate 500,000 people you either have to have a sprawling low-rise development which in transport terms and carbon terms is not sustainable, which then means you lose all your agricultural land and your natural assets, or you have 20-storey high-rise towers which produces an urban landscape that people see at the Gold Coast and they don’t like.

So, a more rational strategy would be to say we want to keep the target population of the Sunshine Coast at a level that would enable us to maintain our natural assets. And if you think about where all this began, Noosa Shire basically took that strategic decision to limit residential numbers and tourist numbers at a level that would maintain their natural assets. In economic terms, it’s entirely rational because tourism is their biggest industry.

Tourists don’t come to admire high-rise buildings or listen to inspired speeches from politicians, they come because of the natural assets. If we want the Sunshine Coast to continue to have a viable tourist industry, our first duty is to maintain those natural assets rather than concrete the joint over and turn it into another Gold Coast.

Eco: The Sunshine Coast Regional Council’s response to the draft South East Queensland Regional Plan was that they wanted the state to take any population targets out of the plan for the Sunshine Coast until they undertook what they called a sustainable carrying capacity exercise which not only looked at the biophysical constraints but also the character of the Sunshine Coast.  What do you think? What is the sustainable carrying capacity of the Coast? What does it really mean?

Prof Lowe: Yes, there’s no doubt you can cram more people into the same area if you want to have a different quality of life. I point out to people that Brisbane is roughly the same surface area as greater London and greater Tokyo which have respectively 8 and 12 million people compared with the 1.25 million of the greater Brisbane area. So there’s no doubt you can accommodate 5-10 times as many people in the same area but at a very different quality of life.

So, I agree with the principle that we should be looking at the carrying capacity but that carrying capacity is not an absolute number. There are different numbers based on different standards of living, different qualities of social experience. I mean in a sense we had that discussion as part of Maroochy 2025 and those people who were involved voted strongly for limiting the population and maintaining our natural assets. And, I would argue that the mayoral election on the Sunshine Coast was essentially a referendum on the future of the Coast.

The people voted 70/30 for the vision of not extending the Maroochydore/Caloundra approach to Noosa, but extending the Noosa approach to Maroochydore and Caloundra. I suppose what I would like to see is our elected representatives standing up for the platform on which they were elected and saying we were elected with an overwhelming mandate for limiting the population for the Sunshine Coast to a level that maintains our quality of life

Eco: I think it was interesting that when a recent survey was done in the Sunshine Coast Daily in conjunction with the University of the Sunshine Coast, it showed that 77 per cent of people considered that overpopulation of the Sunshine Coast was the most important issue which is almost identical to the current Mayor’s polling. So there is a high correlation, I think, between those two. One of the things that politicians are scared of, I suppose, is that the state government will take over planning powers away from Council and just ram through poor quality development. What’s your view on that?

Prof Lowe: Well I would rather they stood up and had a fight with the state government than adopt what one of my colleagues calls the “pre-emptive crumble”. Rather than have the state government enforce lousy planning on us we’ll do it for them. They were elected for the mandate to stand up to the state government and fight for the Sunshine Coast and I think in the current political climate the state government would be very reluctant to overrule a popularly elected regional council.

Eco: Especially the fourth largest local government in Australia?

Prof Lowe: That’s right. So I would rather the Council stood up to the State government and said we were elected with a mandate to protect the natural assets of the Coast and we’re going to do it. If you want to take us on, we’ll fight you politically and might even think about fighting them legally. A state government has powers over local government but the commonwealth government has powers over the state. Now Kevin Rudd’s probably not going to want to pick a fight with Anna Bligh but there’s no doubt that quality of life is a political issue. I’d welcome it becoming a political issue rather than just accepting that the state government caving into the developers is going to overrule what the people want.

Eco: Exactly. I know you’re a busy man Ian and I would like to thank you very much for your time and sharing your views on this important topic with Eco News.

“I live in great luxury, in a magnificent Queenslander high on Point Vernon,” says the Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation. Andrew McNamara’s definition of luxury, however, is unexpected: while his home has neither air conditioner, nor clothes dryer, nor swimming pool, its wide wooden verandas catch the prevailing breezes and solar panels heat its water.

He has plans to convert the whole house to solar power, becoming part of what he predicts will be an explosion of demand on the heels of the Queensland Government’s solar bonus scheme. From 1 July this year, the government will pay households and businesses 44 cents for every kilowatt hour generated by solar power systems and fed into the grid.

“I think (the tariff) marks one of those turning points in solar power. It reduces front end electricity bills and the repayment time on the systems comes down from ten years to three. I think it will now be picked up by governments and houses across Australia.”

His endorsement of solar power seems a big leap for someone who, before entering parliament seven years ago, sat on the board of Ergon Energy. Environmental interests and energy interests are usually thought to pull in different directions.

“That is traditional thinking,” he says, “but it’s completely wrong. Our wealth is built on the natural environment we inherit and the energy we extract from it. They’re not just linked, they’re the same thing.”

Ergon proved a valuable training ground for the future Minister. In 1999 the Beattie government declared within five years Queensland would generate 13 per cent of its electricity from gas. The announcement caused consternation in the Ergon board, of which Mr McNamara was a member.

“I learned the power of targets,” he says of the experience. “Governments setting targets for industry can drive enormous change. To take the gas industry from almost nothing to 13 per cent of Queensland’s power within five years was remarkable.
“For me, being on the Ergon board when the 13 per cent gas target was announced, and in Cabinet when the solar feed-in tariff was announced, was a sweet double.

“The rooftops of Queensland represent an unbelievable resource for gathering power and I expect the day will come when every roof is a solar collector”

“I think the solar tariff will change our power mix in Queensland significantly. What really excites me is that it’s a huge step towards recognising we need distributed power systems.”

In an energy-constrained world, losing 20 to 25 per cent of power by sending it vast distances is too inefficient. Local solutions provide answers.
“The rooftops of Queensland represent an unbelievable resource for gathering power and I expect the day will come when every roof is a solar collector. It’s shameful how far behind we are,” he says. “Copenhagen, with a third of the number of our sunny days is producing 35 per cent of power from solar. It’s just embarrassing.”

Mr McNamara predicts the Federal Government’s carbon trading system (announced in March and planned for 2010) will transform the energy sector, providing a massive boost to renewables. However, he also admits government action is too late.

“We needed to get our act together 30 years ago. We are pretty well locked into two degrees of global warming no matter what we do. So the battle is on two fronts: firstly to try and stop the two degrees we know are coming turning into four, and secondly to adapt to the two we know are coming.”

Adaptation work, he says, includes giving Queensland’s biodiversity the best chance of survival by ensuring clean waterways, north-south and east-west connectivity of nature corridors, and redoubled efforts on pests and weeds.
As part of staving off the spectre of a four-degree rise, Mr McNamara is currently reviewing last year’s Climate Smart 2050 policy. While the strategy committed to a 60 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2050, he says “it doesn’t go far enough in addressing the scale of the problem. It focuses too much on stationary energy and not anywhere near enough on emissions from other sectors”.

Some 40 per cent of Queensland’s emissions are from stationary energy, and much of Climate Smart 2050 looked to “clean coal” power stations for answers. However, the technology does not yet exist and is predicted to take well over a decade to deliver any greenhouse gas savings.

In the meantime, Queensland’s coal powered stations continue to pump between 40 and 50 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere every year, overwhelming the relatively small emissions savings made elsewhere, e.g. the 13 per cent gas policy.

It’s just as well, then, that in early March Mr McNamara convinced the government to require assessments of greenhouse gas implications, mitigation options and alternatives in all cabinet submissions.
“It’s an enormous reform and I believe we’re the only government in Australia doing it. I think the British government’s just introduced something similar, but not quite as extensive.

“I think it’s a very significant change in mindset that should filter through everything we do. It’s something I’m very proud of.”

The reform precedes a review of the Integrated Planning Act by Deputy Premier Paul Lucas, which Mr McNamara predicts will require all councils to take into account the implications of climate change in development applications and approvals.

It remains to be seen if Mr McNamara’s initiatives, designed to help steer the climate change juggernaut away from disaster, keep the support of a comparatively conservative cabinet.

Well versed in the evidence and predictions of climate change, he is confident that the public opinion tide has turned.
“There’s a much broader acceptance and understanding across the community about the challenges. I’m still not sure people have quite got their heads around the scale of the impacts that are already locked in.”

Peak bodies from the building industry have approached the government offering to roll out vast improvements in energy, water and carbon emissions if they are mandated. While encouraged by the approaches, Mr McNamara admits such improvements in the sector will hinge on regulation, “because you need to keep the playing field level”.

Coastal development is about to feel the early effects of disrupted weather patterns, Mr McNamara forecasts, driven not by regulation but by risk.

“I believe the insurance industry is on the verge of reassessing risk in relation to coastal communities as a result of climate change. When the insurance industry changes its premiums for coastal development or withdraws the offer of insurance, the finance industry will withdraw the offer of finance, and we will see a fundamental shift.”

Towards sustainable development?

“The word ‘sustainable’ has been brutally misused down the years, as if putting it in front of something grants sustainability; like magic – sprinkle the sustainable word over it and it’s good,” he says.
“I’d like to reclaim the word, and I was glad the Premier made me the Minister for Sustainability because it implies interaction between human use of the planet and the environment.”