Greens - naivete is not skin deep.
Jul. 1st, 2010 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pathology_docMy comments in bold.
From The Australian.
The Greens are unprepared for real-world politics
GREENS leader Bob Brown has once again relegated his party to the status of a protest movement, instead of aspiring to join the main political game where real policy change happens. Perhaps he has misread Julia Gillard, because it is plain the new Prime Minister could never entertain adopting the Greens's new five-point plan on climate change and a legislated carbon price designed to end coal-fired power.
Those last six words are the key.
Coal provides more than 80 per cent of Australia's electricity. In the absence of a large-scale nuclear power industry, which the Greens also oppose, that reality will not change in the foreseeable future. Coal also provides more than 40 per cent of the world's electricity and is the backbone of the cement and steel industries that are boosting the living standards of some of the world's poorest people.
Compare with France, which (as I understand it) derives 80% of its energy from nuclear. So far, nobody derives 80% of their energy from renewables - which our Greens tend to classify as either wind or solar. Given the inherently variable nature of both, I think this is no surprise. We might get somewhere with tidal or ocean-thermal systems, but we need something to tide us over (pun intended). Enter the mighty atom... but only if Labor comes to its senses and the Greens are thus able to be ignored.
Were Australia to commit economic hari-kiri and wind back our largest export industry, the consequences for jobs would be dire. It would be worse, not better, for the planet as Australia's coal customers - Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, India and Europe - turned to other producers. Generally, the anti-pollution standards of coal mines in Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, Colombia and Kazakhstan fall short of those in Australia. The Greens' cave economics have no place in mainstream debate.
Just what ARE they thinking? And what do they hope to achieve? Hopefully they'll eventually swing so far to the left that they fall off the political see-saw altogether. Nobody wants rivers so polluted they burn, but these people lack all sense of reality.
LABOR and trade union figures have ridiculed an offer by the Greens to back a carbon tax if the PM agrees to shut down coal-fired power.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, backed by the Australian Minerals Council and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, yesterday rejected an attempt by Greens leader Bob Brown to entice the Prime Minister into talks that would see a carbon tax in place within three months of the federal election.
I'd happily see a carbon tax over an emissions trading scheme, but only if the funds were put directly into research and construction of all-weather alternatives - nuclear, tidal, ocean-thermal. And only because the idea of letting the same people who gave us the GFC dictate the price of an intangible, invisible substance on which our industries would depend is nothing short of FUCKING MADNESS.
And while Ms Gillard did not comment on the Greens initiative, government sources said the Greens were "kidding themselves" and should have backed Labor's attempts last year to create an emissions trading system if they were serious about action on climate change.
But no, they blocked it because it didn't go far enough for them. Idiots.
In recent months the Greens' standing in opinion polls has climbed as voters abandoned Labor under Kevin Rudd.
Note the last four words. These are probably rusted-on lefties who wouldn't go near Tony Abbott with a barge-pole. Now that they don't have a leader who sucks donkey dick, they're flooding back.
But on Monday, after a Newspoll published in The Australian confirmed Labor had regained its lost supporters after it dumped Mr Rudd in favour of Ms Gillard, Senator Brown wrote to the Prime Minister offering to support legislation putting in place a fixed-carbon price of $23 a tonne from July 1, 2011.
The key to negotiating for what you want is to act from a position of strength. Bob Brown appears to have turned this on its head, a perfect reflection of his connection to reality.
Yesterday Senator Brown said the deal would involve "an end to polluting coal-fired power, a national energy efficiency target and an end to clearance of native forests and woodlands". "This is breakthrough politics," he said.
"Breakthrough" only in the sense of what the Germans did to British Fifth Army on 21 March 1918, which amounted to near-obliteration.
While Ms Gillard, who is reviewing Labor's climate change policy, refused to comment yesterday, Ms Bligh, whose state relies on its coal industry for export revenue, said Senator Brown could have backed Labor's ETS proposals last year.
"We can't simply exit coal-fired power when it makes up 80 per cent of the state's power," Ms Bligh said.
Absolutely correct. (Not to say that we wouldn't if we could wave our hands and get the power from somewhere by magic.)
CFMEU mining division national president Tony Maher said the Greens would never find a place in the serious debates about climate change until they abandoned their "stupid" call for the closure of the coal industry.
And their equally stupid objection - which the Australian Labor Party shares, BTW - to nuclear power.
Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, whose NSW seat of Hunter relies on coalmining, said constituents wanted action on climate change "but I'm just as confident they will reject any approach which fails to recognise that coal will have an important role to play in our economy for many years to come".
Smart man. Pity he couldn't be as smart about close associations with foreign nationals who had close ties to their military when he was DEFENCE MINISTER.
Minerals Council of Australia chief Mitch Hooke said Senator Brown's proposal would smash Australia's competitiveness, jobs and investment with no conceivable environmental benefit.
Because China will build the equivalent of Australia's annual emissions every year. If we were to wipe Australian industry out AT ONCE, the "environmental gains" would be lost in less than a year. That's if we completely ruined this country.
Show me alternatives to coal, gas and diesel, yes - but make them realistic or get out of my face.
From The Australian.
The Greens are unprepared for real-world politics
GREENS leader Bob Brown has once again relegated his party to the status of a protest movement, instead of aspiring to join the main political game where real policy change happens. Perhaps he has misread Julia Gillard, because it is plain the new Prime Minister could never entertain adopting the Greens's new five-point plan on climate change and a legislated carbon price designed to end coal-fired power.
Those last six words are the key.
Coal provides more than 80 per cent of Australia's electricity. In the absence of a large-scale nuclear power industry, which the Greens also oppose, that reality will not change in the foreseeable future. Coal also provides more than 40 per cent of the world's electricity and is the backbone of the cement and steel industries that are boosting the living standards of some of the world's poorest people.
Compare with France, which (as I understand it) derives 80% of its energy from nuclear. So far, nobody derives 80% of their energy from renewables - which our Greens tend to classify as either wind or solar. Given the inherently variable nature of both, I think this is no surprise. We might get somewhere with tidal or ocean-thermal systems, but we need something to tide us over (pun intended). Enter the mighty atom... but only if Labor comes to its senses and the Greens are thus able to be ignored.
Were Australia to commit economic hari-kiri and wind back our largest export industry, the consequences for jobs would be dire. It would be worse, not better, for the planet as Australia's coal customers - Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, India and Europe - turned to other producers. Generally, the anti-pollution standards of coal mines in Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, Colombia and Kazakhstan fall short of those in Australia. The Greens' cave economics have no place in mainstream debate.
Just what ARE they thinking? And what do they hope to achieve? Hopefully they'll eventually swing so far to the left that they fall off the political see-saw altogether. Nobody wants rivers so polluted they burn, but these people lack all sense of reality.
LABOR and trade union figures have ridiculed an offer by the Greens to back a carbon tax if the PM agrees to shut down coal-fired power.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, backed by the Australian Minerals Council and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, yesterday rejected an attempt by Greens leader Bob Brown to entice the Prime Minister into talks that would see a carbon tax in place within three months of the federal election.
I'd happily see a carbon tax over an emissions trading scheme, but only if the funds were put directly into research and construction of all-weather alternatives - nuclear, tidal, ocean-thermal. And only because the idea of letting the same people who gave us the GFC dictate the price of an intangible, invisible substance on which our industries would depend is nothing short of FUCKING MADNESS.
And while Ms Gillard did not comment on the Greens initiative, government sources said the Greens were "kidding themselves" and should have backed Labor's attempts last year to create an emissions trading system if they were serious about action on climate change.
But no, they blocked it because it didn't go far enough for them. Idiots.
In recent months the Greens' standing in opinion polls has climbed as voters abandoned Labor under Kevin Rudd.
Note the last four words. These are probably rusted-on lefties who wouldn't go near Tony Abbott with a barge-pole. Now that they don't have a leader who sucks donkey dick, they're flooding back.
But on Monday, after a Newspoll published in The Australian confirmed Labor had regained its lost supporters after it dumped Mr Rudd in favour of Ms Gillard, Senator Brown wrote to the Prime Minister offering to support legislation putting in place a fixed-carbon price of $23 a tonne from July 1, 2011.
The key to negotiating for what you want is to act from a position of strength. Bob Brown appears to have turned this on its head, a perfect reflection of his connection to reality.
Yesterday Senator Brown said the deal would involve "an end to polluting coal-fired power, a national energy efficiency target and an end to clearance of native forests and woodlands". "This is breakthrough politics," he said.
"Breakthrough" only in the sense of what the Germans did to British Fifth Army on 21 March 1918, which amounted to near-obliteration.
While Ms Gillard, who is reviewing Labor's climate change policy, refused to comment yesterday, Ms Bligh, whose state relies on its coal industry for export revenue, said Senator Brown could have backed Labor's ETS proposals last year.
"We can't simply exit coal-fired power when it makes up 80 per cent of the state's power," Ms Bligh said.
Absolutely correct. (Not to say that we wouldn't if we could wave our hands and get the power from somewhere by magic.)
CFMEU mining division national president Tony Maher said the Greens would never find a place in the serious debates about climate change until they abandoned their "stupid" call for the closure of the coal industry.
And their equally stupid objection - which the Australian Labor Party shares, BTW - to nuclear power.
Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, whose NSW seat of Hunter relies on coalmining, said constituents wanted action on climate change "but I'm just as confident they will reject any approach which fails to recognise that coal will have an important role to play in our economy for many years to come".
Smart man. Pity he couldn't be as smart about close associations with foreign nationals who had close ties to their military when he was DEFENCE MINISTER.
Minerals Council of Australia chief Mitch Hooke said Senator Brown's proposal would smash Australia's competitiveness, jobs and investment with no conceivable environmental benefit.
Because China will build the equivalent of Australia's annual emissions every year. If we were to wipe Australian industry out AT ONCE, the "environmental gains" would be lost in less than a year. That's if we completely ruined this country.
Show me alternatives to coal, gas and diesel, yes - but make them realistic or get out of my face.