I was feeling it’d be nice to get something up this year. As a foundation stone. But the Greens chose to fight a longer term battle. It’s valid strategy.

At some point “the public” will have to reconcile its position that it wants “something” done, with its refusal to pay for that something. The Greens are waiting for that watershed moment.

The fact that our rulers don’t seem to realise that is precisely why I don’t think any of them take it seriously.

CO2 emissions make little Gracie cry. It’s just too much. The substance was right. Pity about the form.

BBB

I think I understand as well as any of the general public what needs to be done, but I am also aware of just what is politically possible.

I disagree. The failure to procure a senate majority for action on climate change reflected a vagary of our senate system, which, in an attempt to secure continuity, allows senators to remain long after the constituency that inserted them has changed its mind. The votes that blocked action on climate change came substantially from people who were elected during the ill-fated Latham election of 2004, when hostage voters with mortgages were bothered by interest rates and saw the ALP split in Tasmania on the forest question.

There can be little doubt that if November 2007 had been a DD, a senate in favour of strong action on climate change would have ensued. Fielding would not have survived. His presence was also an anomaly as he received a fraction of the vote received by the Green candidate in Victoria, but the desire of the ALP and the Democrats to keep the Greens out of the Senate resulted in them preferencing Fielding, with the result that when the Democrat failed a candidate with less than 1% of the vote was elected.

The morons were triumphant. In a way, this was a gooed thing because it marked a fitting end for the party that once claimed to be “keeping the bastards honest”. Their dying act was to help elect someone whom most Democrat supporters would regard with horror. It turns out they were bastards too.

But I digress …

The point here is that haste makes waste. Locking in a long term scheme tainted with the vagaries of a system to which senate selection processes were ill-suited when a short delay could see a better senate and a better long term policy doesn’t stack up. While waiting a year longer might be disappointing, locking in a scheme that sets back progress by 15 years would have been even worse.

And you will recall, I feel sure, that even had the Greens supported this rotten deal, it would still not have got the numbers.

Personally, were I in charge, I’d have pushed a much more aggressive scheme, and when it was rejected, moved to act by regulation as an interim measure, pending approval of the scheme after the next election.

I think I understand as well as any of the general public what needs to be done, but I am also aware of just what is politically possible. The change of government in ’07 changed the political landscape dramatically in favour of action on climate change, but not enough for the Greens to be so uncompromisingly purist.
Until you have a mandate from the electorate to push through your agenda unchanged you have a responsibility to work more pragmatically.

The CPRS would have locked in failure for years. The opposition of the Greens opens the door to a fundamentally better scheme.

It’s as simple as that.

The Greens are not posturing, as they have the only credible policy on climate change. The government’s scheme would have locked us into increasing our emissions, while at the same time enriching the spivs and coin-clippers who infest the finance and mining industries at public expense.

We have a good PM who is doing his best for us all in Copenhagen, constrained and limited not only by the Opposition but by the ridiculous posturing of the Greens who claim the high moral ground on climate change. Why, Brian, would I go to Christine Milne for her perspective on this, when I find her intransigent resistence to compromise more morally reprehensible than Steve Fieldings idiocy?

This is not Kevin Rudd’s failure. It is ours collectively and if you are a “Greenie” yours particularly for not doing more to persuade your party to work constructively in the Senate.

at copenhagen

the dictators prevail

leafless trees!