Comments on: The Opposition and climate: what’s really going on

By: Ben Aveling

Ben Aveling — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:00:17 +0000

Yes, official capital-G Green is increasingly mainstream and don’t-scare-the-horses. For eg, “Human induced global warming through the burning of fossil fuels is a fundamental threat to ecosystems, human societies and _economic security_”. (http://qld.greens.org.au/election/policy/climate-change-and-energy , my emphasis. Were I a cynic, I’d suggest there is in evidence a rising tide of both pragmatism and good sense.)

My point about these ‘sentiments’ is that it’s irrelevant to the Nationals what the Green’s actual policies are. The Nationals know what they think Green policies are, and based on that, they have a great dislike of the Greens, and everything associated with the Greens. To me, the Nationals appear to unthinkingly assume that, if the Greens say Global Warming is a problem, then Global Warming isn’t a problem.

By: rasta arlen

rasta arlen — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 09:44:15 +0000

I’m sorry but both of those posts are just more of the same vague speculation. Those links quite obviously have nothing to do with specific Greens’ policy but I’m curious what you are trying to say about their sentiments? There is no doubt that animal food production has a huge carbon footprint and reducing consumption will be unavoidable if we are to reduce emissions to the level required. The fact about all this is that for us to reduce emissions equitably under something like the contract and converge scheme, where each individual has an equal amount of emissions allocated to them, it would require the world to become much more like the socialist ideal than anyone has ever imagined possible.

James, I’d love it if you could provide me with specific examples of issues you believe the Greens are deliberately avoiding. Obviously they don’t have the man power of the major parties or even the democrats at their peak so I don’t see how it would be to their advantage to spread themselves too thin.

By: james mcdonald

james mcdonald — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:10:52 +0000

Rasta, the nice thing about being a member of the Greens is being able to cherry-pick issues that can be made to look like good-vs-evil to the idealistic undergraduate set. Ben Aveling’s comparison to a stopped clock is brilliant, that’s exactly what the Greens are like. They don’t hold a candle up to the old Democrats who, before that party broke down, used to take on a lot of stuff that was too complex for even the major parties to respond to effectively.

I’m all for reducing carbon aggressively, far more than Rudd proposes to, because if you can’t trust the scientific experts then you might as well give up on all education and research as ways to run the world better. You might as well give up on the whole Enlightenment.

But the purpose of market-based CO2 reduction is to modify behaviour away from high-emission behaviour. Inconveniently, producing food is more high-emission than other industries like telecommunication or entertainment. If you include farming in the behaviour-modification program you have to follow that road where it leads, which is population reduction.

By: Ben Aveling

Ben Aveling — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:20:43 +0000

How about “Climate change is partly an issue about the sustainability of capitalist production. … Tackling global warming means building a radical movement that targets the system and connects up with the struggles of other movements for change.” (In fairness, that’s socialistworker, not the more mainstream Greens. http://www.socialistworker.org.au/575/single-issue-conservatism-wont-tackle-global-warming/)

Or this “The most effective way to fight the global warming crisis is to stop eating meat, eggs, and dairy products.” http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalWarming.asp

Or this ” global warming and climate change now kills the as many people every year as died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.” http://www.globalwarmingblog.org/

Or this: “environmental sustainability can only ever be achieved if we get rid of this rotten capitalist system” http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/747/38650

By: rasta arlen

rasta arlen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:45:33 +0000

that should say “can’t specify”

By: rasta arlen

rasta arlen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:44:55 +0000

People like to throw around these claims about the Greens promoting “rubbish” and all that but very often specify exactly what they are referring too. In my opinion, they are the only party that is seriously interested in developing rational policy responses to what really is a crisis like no other.

By: Ben Aveling

Ben Aveling — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:28:05 +0000

Where to start? Perhaps by saying that (as far as I can tell from here), from a Green point of view, food imports are actually a bad thing - food should be produced locally, and everything else too. I’m tempted to believe that at least some Greens want us all to grow our own food and weave our own clothes.

But that’s to wander off the point.

Even if you maintain that the Greens are as reliable as a stopped clock, a stopped clock is right twice a day. The Nat’s seem to assume that the Greens are always, always wrong, and therefore Global Warming can’t be a bad thing, it just can’t be, whatever the science says.

In my opinion, it’s a pity the Greens have become involved in the Global Warming debate, because they’ve tried to load all sorts of baggage onto it, and a lot of people have assumed that because some of it is rubbish, that all of it must be rubbish, and unless a lot of people who are smarter than I are all wrong, we’re heading into a world of pain and we’re still in denial about that.

We cannot prevent Global warming. We can make it a bit worse, or a bit better, and we can prepare for it. Or not.

By: james mcdonald

james mcdonald — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:30:04 +0000

The Nats have got a point, sorry to say. The Greens have been trying to paint primary industry as environmental vandalism second only to an oil spill. Or if I’m wrong about that, well, that’s how their advertising comes across. They’d be happy for us to have a service-based economy and we can all import our foodstuffs according to relative-advantage theory, and close down most of our farming and grazing.

I’d question whether something so critical to survival as food should ever be allowed to depend on trade over the ocean. The Europeans and Americans seem to feel the same way and show every sign of insulating their primary production from any penalties. Why wouldn’t we do the same?

By: Ben Aveling

Ben Aveling — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 10:27:26 +0000

As far as I can tell from here, the Nat’s thinking goes like this: “Greens believe global warming bad. Greens always bad. Greens always wrong. So global warming must be good.”

By: james mcdonald

james mcdonald — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:20:04 +0000

Dr Nelson’s parting advice on carbon reduction won’t help the situation: Expediently wait and see what other countries do “on principle” rather than decide for or against “on politics”. WTF?

The irony is that Turnbull has more and broader interest in carbon abatement than Rudd does, including the highly interesting bio-char research http://www.csiro.au/resources/Biochar-Factsheet.html with potential not only to sequester carbon but to do it usefully, improving farming soil and rainfall. But his party thinks bio-char is something you put in a barbeque.