(Yes, EC, I stole your inimitable description of Turnbull’s stupid policy.)

Moderator: link fixed – tigtog

MALCOLM TURNBULL: I don’t think it’s quite as bad as that, but it is very significant. It is a very significant reduction in economic growth. You’ve got to remember Tony when you look into that crystal ball 50 years hence you are making assumptions of enormous heroism. Nobody can predict what the economy is going to look like in 10 years time. People have to make forecasts because you’ve got to plan. But a 50-year forecast, you’re making heroic assumptions. This is the foolishness of these token targets because the one thing Mr Rudd knows is that if he makes a commitment to a target in 2050 by the time 2050 comes around he’ll be contributing to the carbon cycle himself. We all will be, we won’t be here.

That would indicate that anyone under 40 is not on Mr Turnbulls radar.

The quote shocked me when I heard it. Does anyone know if he is Rapture Ready?

I’m really angry about this. If Turnbull and Howard somehow imagine they’re capturing the votes of greenies like me with such a cynical exercise (Outsourcing environmental policy to Indonesia, FDB, that’s a great way to describe it), they are sadly mistaken.

TOOLS.

I think there ought to be some kind of overseeing body that could withdraw the operating charter of corporations behaving badly. Gunn’s should be wound up.

I haven’t heard anything from Rudd and co about the Tasmanian matter but on the deforestation initiative they have followed Bob Brown in calling it hypocritical.

Listening to parliament they were not given a copy by Turnbull’s office until after the beginning of Question time.

Comedy’s loss I say.

No end in sight for my spamification – every single time I go in moderation, then someone has to fish me out, and akismet doesn’t seem to be learning.

Boo hoo.

In which case he might look something like this:

http://warriorlibrarian.com/PIX4/johnny2.jpg

Since no evidence can be found that CO2 affects the climate one way or the other this amounts to a positive thing for biodiversity.

To maximise biodiversity at the least cost we want to maximise the extent of the rainforest.

Not to prevent the use of resources within mind you. A single train line here. A single road there. A paddock in the middle somewhere engulfed by the surrounding jungle.

It is not these things which wipe out biodiversity.

Rather it is the practice of one mans property running flat up against another without a nice wide nature corridor in between.

They ought let exploitation go on within and buyback the equivalent amount of land on the fringes.

Never let anything more then 100m X 100m be cleared in any one place and have a four hundred metre buffer of jungle around that.

No burning ever.

Sorry.

If any vile foreign Kiwi trees are befouling the purity of beloved south west, I for one say chop ‘em down! Booo, hisss!

In RattyWorld, pesky issues like the environment can be outsourced to the Indonesians the same way Australia’s Foreign Policy is outsourced to the Washingtonians.

All that needs to be added is an observation on the hypocrisy of Howard’s concern for coal miners’ jobs when the coal industry bosses have, with Howard’s support, been throwing everything including the kitchen sink at coal miners’ jobs, wages and conditions.

The Howard/Turnbull “contribution” to forest conservation is laughable, given the (relatively tiny) amount of $$ involved ($200 mill.), and that it is destined for areas “such as Indonesia”.

That ratty and co. are proposing to spend such money in a country where they could not intervene to stop the slaughter of E. Timorese without the permission of Indonesia, on curtailing activities that constitute one of the major funding sources of the Indonesian military, beggars belief (unless one was aware of the previous record of ratty and co.)

WRT the Gunn’s proposal, it should be remembered that Robin Gray, an ex – Premier (Liberal), and foundation “anti-greeny” of the Franklin Dam era, is on the board of that company, and that he lost Government attempting to impose a poorly designed pulp mill based at Wesley Vale on Tasmania, a few years ago. Gray has a history of fostering divisiveness, and was personally implicated in a bribery scandal where a prominent businessman attempted to bribe a labour member to cross the floor – although no evidence could be found to prove he knew of this attempt, of which he, and his legislative program would have been the prime beneficiaries.

So I’m not holding my breath for any Federal govt. intervention.

Lennon is cast from a similar mould as Gray, but from a union background, and his actions and demeanor suggest that he has always acted as a “standover” merchant to bully his way whenever possible.

Two commissioners (including the chair) resigned from the original RPDC evaluating the Gunn’s proposal, and the new chair (an ex judge) threatened to do so when approached (improperly ?) by Lennon, only agreeing to continue when Lennon’s threats were withdrawn. Then Gunn’s “pulled the pin”, in effect realising Lennon’s threats.

I am of the opinion that the Gunn’s pulp mill proposal has never been designed to succeed by the proponents, but rather intended as a device to further inflame divisiveness within the Tasmanian community, in order to feed the pathological hatred of the Greens which sustains much of the power arrangements in this state.

Why do I believe this ? If the proposal for a pulp mill -

1. Was located in an area of low population density
2. which was not subject to temperature inversions and associated smog
3. incorporated “world’s best practice” (chlorine free) in its design
4. did not require enormous amounts of potable water (proponents rejected the use of recycled water)
5. was situated centrally with respect to the supply areas
6. did not require native forest “feedstock”

then it would have been welcomed by a broad cross section of the community, and the RPDC assessment would have presented few problems to the proponents.

If such a scenario seems a trifle petty, remember, it was Tasmania, under a Liberal government. which constructed the (in)famous “road to nowhere”, at the cost of millions of dollars, through the Tarkine wilderness in an effort to remove its World Heritage values.

That’s absolute tosh. Everyone in forestry knows that Tassie is a rogue state and that Gunns are a rogue company. Gunns is the worst example and is not reflective of forestry across the board.