Pension
I was pleased to see mention in the Action Updates (GLW Mar 9) of the fight to retain the age pension at 60 years for women. This campaign was started by three generations of women at the office of the Combined Pensioners Association in Sydney.
This came after considering the effects on themselves, their daughters and granddaughters and anger at the suggestion that equality should be seen as raising the women's pension age to that of the men, not lowering the men's to that of the women or lowering to 55 years for both sexes (who can get a job at that age nowadays anyway?).
The government says that women live longer than men and therefore have a longer duration on the pension. But this means that women who historically had less access to full time employment will have to meet their financial needs for longer periods but with less income than men of the same age. Women have traditionally worked in low paid jobs, in part time and casual work and are often made redundant at a much younger age than their male counterparts. Further, no account is taken of the value of women's unpaid domestic labour.
I urge everyone to join in the fight for social justice on this issue and bombard them with letters etc. Further enquiries can be made to Olwyn MacKenzie c/- Combined Pensioners Assoc of NSW, Suite 6, Level 5, 405-411 Sussex St, Haymarket, 2000.
Connie Fraser
Findon SA
Bob Marley
Did Marley "die" in 1981, or was he murdered? (Jane White, 9/3/94.)
Denis Kevans
Wentworth Falls NSW
Population debate
It is good that Jenny Goldie and Allen Myers (GLW #135) agree on the vital importance of empowering all women for sustaining the human race. Anyone who doubts that should read the chapter "People or Population" by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva in their new book Ecofeminism (Spinifex, Melbourne, 1993).
What are the implications for Aboriginal women in Jenny's proposal that nobody who depends on social security should be allowed by governments to have more than two children? Isn't there a danger that such ideas could all too easily be used by real racists to reassert draconian, shameful controls over Aboriginal fertility?
Is there a sense in which Allen rather than Jenny is arguing that people are the problem? Is it true that a great many people today are too brutalised or alienated by oppressive power relations to be able to create the conditions for sustainability? If the weight of acquiescence to inequality is so great, should we not seek hope in new children, who usually are resources of vision, creativity and intelligence?
Why did Jock Collins ignore indigenous peoples in his defence of recent migrants, despite obvious parallels such as struggles against assimilation, Blainey and the more difficult issue of environmental knowledge? Wouldn't tourism controlled by Aboriginal people be more sustainable than immigration controlled by capital? Of course, the choice is not that simple because many different interests are involved.
Roderic Pitty
Epping NSW
Human numbers
AESP was formed to counter a stubborn refusal to accept that human numbers were at least one of the factors determining the rate of environmental destruction. It was therefore heartening to read one of our opponents, Allen Myers, accepting some of our logic in his debate with us despite his headline "People are not the problem" (GLW 16/3/94). In particular Allen stated that if coal is to run out in 100 years time then halving the population will mean that coal will still run out in 200 years time. The implication is that such a population change would postpone our problems but other measurers are also necessary. AESP could not agree more with these sentiments but I write to point out a serious mathematical error in Allen's statement. I do this not to belittle Allen's mathematical abilities but to highlight the need for a greater understanding of logic and numeracy to go with our shared vision of a future which meets the needs of humanity and the environment.
Allen's mathematical error lies in his failure to distinguish between rates and compounding totals over time. If population was to suddenly halve but then immediately resume growth at 2% per annum, all other things being equal we would take just 131 years to use up the coal that we will currently use up in 100 years. This scenario or the equivalent scenario of halving per capita coal consumption but leaving population growth intact will give us just 31 extra years. If on the other hand, per capita coal consumption is halved and population stabilises at current levels, the coal would last 624 years giving us 524 extra years.
Human numbers are certainly not our only problem, but without an end to growth in numbers and consumption a positive future becomes impossible.
David Kault
on behalf of NQ branch AESP
Townsville
I=PAT
Yet again the famed mathematical equation I=PAT has hit the pages of Green Left (Write on, March 16). It's as if those who stand by this equation believe that merely invoking its name will win the population/sustainability argument. It won't.
I would like to direct Ms Evans and any other members of AESP who may have such limited reading as she to Barry Commoner's The Closing Circle. As far back as 1971, Commoner systematically investigated the populationist arguments of the Erlichs, and found them factually wanting. I can only hope that before Ms Evans ventures into the heady world of debate in future, she does her homework first.
Graham Matthews
Chippendale NSW
Rich and poor
Since time immemorial, the green world has been telling us that the world would destroy itself with greed, pollution, new technology and affluence.
The rich must live more simply so that the world's poor may simply live. The rich live off the sweat of the poor. The rich are world parasites.
Now new technologies, superhighways and information threatens to destroy employment, privacy, the poor, small business and governments. The Info Revolution Age.
More information, more personal details and more retrenchments than ever before. Soon everyone will know everything about everyone else. Interactive TV, pay-TV, superhighways, satellites, worldwide communication and television may well seem to give the illusion of a global village, and a world without borders, but it will bring only the rich and all riches, money and profit together.
Already 820 million people are unemployed or receive wages below the poverty line in the world even if only 120 million are officially unemployed. Already new technology, new computers, new technologic advancements have spelt retrenchments, unemployment, lower wages and poverty.
With a poisoned environment, the rapid advancement of technology, the widening spread of information, and the unemployment crisis, things don't look good for the next decade or the new millennium.
Who cares if Liberal or Labor win by-elections? We're all losers.
Assumpta Howard
Gwynneville NSW