There is a common perception that environmental issues rise to near the top of the public and commercial agendas when the economy is booming and drop well down when the economy goes into recession. Given the Asian economic crisis it is just possible that a global recession will occur in the near future. If that were to occur, it might seem to be quite the wrong time to be trying to raise the issue of Australia committing itself to a transition to an ecologically sustainable economy. Careful consideration of the dynamics of the business cycle, however, suggests counter- intuitively that now is in fact a very good time to start such a profound discussion. The time to do dramatic new things is in the upswing of the business cycle.
People are optimistic, there's money to do things and people are prepared to take risks.
If we want Australia to embark on the transition to an ecologically sustainable economy as soon as possible and if we want to make a major leap in that direction then we need to be ready to capitalise fully on the next boom period. The boom times are windows of opportunity for dramatic change and they only come around every 7-11 years. They are opportunities that should not to be squandered. During the next boom we need to encourage new consumption patterns and support them with appropriate products, we need to put in place new supportive infrastructure, encourage the spread of sustainability-promoting transformative technologies and we need to make sure that a strong ecotax package is put in place. All of these things have long lead times so we need to start preparing the ground now.