Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s decision to go for 5% emissions cut by the year 2020 was that of a responsible national leader.Â
He has steered an economically responsible course that sends a message to the world that we will take action equivalent to any other country but will not cripple our economy by running to far ahead of the rest of the world. If world leaders reach an agreement in Copenhagen next year we have scope to ramp up or reductions to 15%.
The reaction of The Australian Greens and Eco-Fundamentalist since the announcements has shown that these groups are really the ratbag green fringe element of Australian society.
I had been beginning to think that The Australian Greens may have been evolving into a credible and responsible alternative political force in Australia. This weeks events have revealed them for what they really are.
The alternative – that Australia lead the climate change parade rather than sitting comfortably in middle of the pack – is the kind of moral narcissism only the Greens and like-minded eco-fundamentalists can afford.
Bob Brown, who has the luxury of a public platform without the attendant responsibility, will always take the most extreme position, as he did on the weekend. He claimed that a target of 5 per cent to 15 per cent reductions by 2020 was “effectively running up the white flag on climate change”.
The absolute craziness of the Greens proposal is that we could do as Bob Brown insists and cut or emissions by 100% and it would make not one zot of difference to global emissions.
What Brown and his overzealous supporters don’t tell us is that whatever target Australia chooses is irrelevant to global greenhouse gas concentrations.
Australia’s emissions are such a tiny percentage of total global greenhouse gas emissions that we could adopt a target 10, 20 or 100 times more stringent than what Brown advocates but have zero effect on saving the reef, Kakadu or the snowfields if China, India, the US and other big emitters don’t join in.Â
So what is the real agenda of Bob Brown, The Australian Greens and their Eco-Fundamentalist supporters like dangerous left-winged academic Clive Hamilton:
The dishonesty underlying the position of Brown and activists such as Hamilton is of an altogether more sinister kind.
They want Australia to adopt targets they know will decimate Australian industry without producing any noticeable benefit for total global greenhouse concentrations. Underlying their policies is an undisclosed secret agenda.
Brown and many of his followers don’t like industry, think Australians are too materialistic and should be forced back to a simpler but poorer life: a compulsory downshift, if you will, imposed by stealth.
Yes Bob Brown and his followers have shown this week that their real agenda is to turn Australia into their vision of a Green Nirvana – or as Agmate Jeff correctly blogged earlier this week:
“the dark green element that want to turn this country into a forest with no industry, no power,and it’s population living like the Amish sect in the US.”
Kevin Rudd or Bob Brown – Give me a politician who cares about the well being of All Australians, not just the 6-8% of Australians who look down their Green Snobby noses at the rest of us. Rudd has demonstrated that he’s a responsible national leader.
Bob Brown has proven this week that he is a radical leading a minority extremist fringe element of Australian society. I could be cynical and say that Rudd has done a wonderful job of marginalizing the Greens. However Bob Brown and his followers in truth have done a wonderful job of marginalizing themselves from mainstream Australia.
( thanks to Agmate Jeff)
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