At our first session in August the Sustainability Group revisited Treasury's new take on measuring how Australia is going; called the Wellbeing budget. This approach is the same as addressing sustainability. The wellbeing budget, as with indicators measuring progress across environmental, social and economic sectors. Only when we achieve sustainability in all three sectors is true sustainability/wellbeing achieved. The wellbeing budget is a first attempt at moving budget measures away from purely the economic elements (usually measured by Gross Domestic product per capita) to establishing measures, targets and policies across the three primary elements mentioned above. This approach still has some way to go in its development but starting down the community wellbeing path is an achievement in itself.
At our second session we had free flowing discussions based on a number of recent articles including one debunking extremist comments that the north Atlantic Gulf Stream (which keeps western Europe warm) will collapse in 2025. Another concerned threats to wildlife which occupy niche habitats in alpine Australia and have nowhere to migrate to in a warming climate and another reporting on a local scheme in the Goulburn Valley to establish a community based solar energy farm and battery.
John Lane
At our second session we had free flowing discussions based on a number of recent articles including one debunking extremist comments that the north Atlantic Gulf Stream (which keeps western Europe warm) will collapse in 2025. Another concerned threats to wildlife which occupy niche habitats in alpine Australia and have nowhere to migrate to in a warming climate and another reporting on a local scheme in the Goulburn Valley to establish a community based solar energy farm and battery.
John Lane
