Crunch Time
Tony Kevin
'Keynes would not, Kevin argues, be shunting the critical question of global warming to the sidelines. Today's leaders should be drawing on Keynes to redefine economic policy, especially environmentally unsustainable notions of economic growth. Also contains an excellent potted introduction to Keynes' ideas.'
Steven Carroll (The Age)'Crunch Time will appeal to any audience who has a concern about the future of Australia both economically and environmentally.' FOUR STARS
(Bookseller & Publisher)'Crunch Time is good, provocative reading for the thinking person. There are ample facts, figures and references to worthwhile analysis, combined with controversial assertion. It will provoke strong support from some, violent opposition from others. That is just what we need to generate and heighten debate on these important issues.'
John Wicks (Eureka Street)‘We are saddling our kids with a $300 billion national debt, and so far we have offered them only a promise of $1.5 billion worth of renewable-energy infrastructure in exchange. It is a poor bargain.’
As the world struggles with twin economic and environmental crises, a new urgency has entered into discussions about what needs to be done.
In America, President Obama has launched a massive series of government reforms and economic interventions, linking them with a serious environmental agenda. His inspired adoption of green Keynesianism stands in sharp contrast to Australia’s pursuit of short-term economic fixes, and its continual downplaying of our environmental problems.
Kevin Rudd has announced that ‘we are all Keynesians now’, but this adoption of Richard Nixon’s famous line is only true on the surface. Apart from embracing deficit-funded spending in search of infrastructure ‘multipliers’, our political elites refuse to make rational policy connections between the economy and the natural environment, and to think about these things in an integrated way. Instead, disruptive global warming has now been rolled into a policy siding, as the national policy train roars on in desperate pursuit of revived economic prosperity.
Tony Kevin argues that this approach is no longer defensible or practical. We have reached a crunch time, and we need to apply the genuine, profound insights of John Maynard Keynes to help feed and employ us while we reinvent Australia as a renewable energy-based economy that will sustain our children’s and grandchildren’s climate security.
'Crunch Time provides a forensic analysis of how the Rudd Government's efforts to confront climate change have fallen short of initial expectations.'
Jessica Irvine (Sydney Morning Herald)'Kevin tackles the climate change "sceptics" head on.'
'Crunch Time is a valuable book. Not only does it suggest possible solutions, it points the way for constructive future debate.'
Stephen Keim (Australian Policy Online)'an enjoyable ride and a worthy contribution to the debate around how we respond to climate change.'
Ian Porter (ReNew)Tony Kevin
Author photo
Peter Hislop
Tony Kevin holds degrees in civil engineering, and in economics and political science. He retired from the Australian foreign service in 1998, after a 30-year career during which he served in the Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister’s departments, and was Australia’s ambassador to Poland and Cambodia. He is currently an honorary visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in Canberra.
He has written extensively on Australian foreign, national security, and refugee policies in Australia’s national print media, and is the author of the award-winning books A Certain Maritime Incident: the sinking of SIEV X, and Walking the Camino: a modern pilgrimage to Santiago. His most recent book is Crunch Time: using and abusing Keynes to fight the twin crises of our era.
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Extent: 320pp
Size: 234mm x 153mm
ISBN (13): 9781921372933
RRP: $32.95
Pub date: September 2009
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