Going to Work or Staying Alive - which would you chose?

The very excellent Ross Gittins is keeping the spotlight on Australia's shabby climate policies by noting that most economists dismiss them as ineffective and inefficient.

He criticises Tony Abbott for saying he'd never put the environment ahead of the economy and jobs. Gittins says,

This separate-box thinking is like saying you'd never put staying alive ahead of going to work. Lose your life and whether you get to work or not hardly matters.

Economists recognise that the economy is a "wholly owned subsidiary of the environment" as noted by Professor Herman Daly of the University of Maryland.

Gittins spells it out.

The point is, all human activity - all our producing and consuming - depends directly on the natural environment. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the shelters we build and the energy we use all come from the ecosystem that surrounds us.

Why is this hard to understand for political leaders like Tony Abbott? How can he not see that going to work can't happen if you're not alive. The economy can't happen if the environment is trashed.