Bass Coast calls for sustainability category in Nobel Prize

FACT is stranger than fiction they say and the idea that the Bass Coast Shire Council would be offering one of the most august organisations in the world the benefit of its experience certainly falls into that category.

As scheduled, at last Wednesday’s council meeting, Cr Ron Bauer moved a Notice of Motion, that he acknowledged was the most “left field” motion he would ever move, to recommend to Sweden’s Nobel Foundation that they try to “bring the relevance of the Nobel prize into the modern world”.

His suggestion involved the organisation adding the new category of ‘Sustainably of the Planet’ to their award list.

However, if that was left field then council’s response was out of the park.

On a vote of 6:2 with Crs Clare Le Serve, Rochelle Halstead, Bruce Kent, Michael Whelan, Brett Tessari and of course Ron Bauer in favour, Crs David Rooks and Leticia Laing against and Cr Les Larke abstaining, the following motion was passed:

“That a motion be placed on the agenda of the next MAV meeting stating that the MAV petition the office of Prime Minister to write to the governing authority of the Noble Prize in Sweden to include a new category ‘Sustainably of the Planet’ in their award list.”

The new category will go right up there alongside the Nobel Prize for Medicine, the Nobel Prize for Physics, Chemistry, Literature and of course the Nobel Prize for Peace, which this year goes to Ales Bialiatski, a human rights advocate from Belarus, shared by ‘Memorial’, a Russian human rights organization, and the Centre for Civil Liberties, a Ukrainian organization.

Cr Bauer claimed the Bass Coast Shire Council was “ahead of the curve” when it came to action on climate change and with the Nobel Foundation welcoming grassroots feedback, it was appropriate for local government to bring forward such a suggestion through its peak body the MAV.

Cr Bruce Kent, who seconded the motion, said he was supporting it because it was simply a good idea/

“As anyone who knows me could tell you, I’d say fix the roads and the rubbish first but I’ll be supporting this because it’s a good idea,” said Cr Kent.

Cr David Rooks wasn’t supporting it, saying it was well outside council’s sphere of interest but he was happy to see an award for an outstanding contribution to sustainability locally.

Cr Leticia Laing said the Nobel Prize had already recognised achievement in climate science by awarding the Nobel Prize in Physics to Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann in 2021.

But despite that, a majority of councillors agreed to go along with it.