Posted by Cheryl, Thursday, 20 January 2011 9:41:59 AM

You seem to be having some trouble coming to terms with Browns Philosophy.
Think of it this way ; Does Brown have a future ? Can a Baby be made out of a dunny bowl? Normal people can claim to be part of the future they are producing the future .

Garum Masala, I cant quite relate your post to what I'm trying to get at in mine. I'm saying that in the coming election the Greens are likely to be given the treatment that the asylum seekers have been given in elections in the past. Demonised and misrepresented in order to do some dog whistle politics. I think the next election might well be one of the dirtiest that I've seen. Whatever preference deals have happened in the past between the major parties and the Greens, may well be in the past as a deliberate tactic of targeting the Greens comes into play.

We had a taste of what may be to come after the Victorian fires with that unfair and inflamatory article. Interestingly enough, the Australian today ran (again) another anti-green article, this time from someone with Labor connections. Maybe I'm not going to be to far off the mark.

Thanks, HoHum, I needed a good laugh.

Oh ... you take that mystical guru shtick seriously? Oh dear ...

Hasbeen I have not seen any evidence that CFCs were not contributing to the hole in the ozone layer but if you can link to a scientific study do so by all means.

Science is not perfect. Science merely works towards an answer or a solution even if it goes off on tangents or is influenced by funding arrangments.

We have to put some measure of trust in science if it is well peer reviewed and the conclusions tested and then tested again. Climate change is probably one of the most complex of scientific debates in the modern day, given the varying scientific opinions.

It is not always simply about science especially when there are powerful interests dependent on those outcomes including in areas like GM, cloning, stem cell research etc (the list is endless).

The tobacco industry succeeded for many years in their claims that their scientific studies proved smoking did not cause illness, specifically lung cancer. So, yes claims of scientific evidence are not always valid especially when industry related and tested.

To quote the head of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research's Climate Analysis Section “Certain events would have been extremely unlikely to have occurred without global warming, and that includes the Russian heat wave and wild fires, and the Pakistan, Chinese, and Indian floods”. He could probably add the long drought and the recent Qld floods that broke it as well.

Alan Anderson is as guilty as Bob Brown of political opportunism here. Why attack Bob Brown for claims that large parts of Australia will very likely suffer more extreme droughts in the future when these are what climate science is saying? Do I really need to say that one extreme flood event does not make a trend? Or that the likelihood of future extreme droughts are not reduced in any way by it? Or that more and more extreme weather events have been a stated probable consequence of global warming?

This isn't the only recent article at OLO trying to pin the 'green religious ideology' label onto pronouncements that have their true source in organisations like NCAR, BoM, CSIRO that study climate. Why is it radical ideology when repeated publicy by those like Sen. Brown when he attempts to see policy reflect scientific knowledge? I am suspecting either group-think at work amongst the opponents of action on emissions or else we are seeing the result of quiet co-operation amongst them; perhaps focus-groups and polling on the power of phrases like 'green religion' to resonate with those who would prefer their illusions about fossil fuels and climate not be upset?

The real ideology on display here - ideology that appears completely detached from science based reality - is that underlying the increasingly fervent attacks on the Greens. The consistent and continuing campaign to blame the loudest voices - like Bob Brown's - for this awkward issue being on the agenda distracts attention from the quasi-religious fervor of opposition to taking climate change seriously. And the complete lack of credible policy that goes with that 'no regulation' ideology.

Ken

so far as I'm aware, the NCAR, BoM, CSIRO et al have not blamed the Queensland coal industry for the floods. There is a world of difference between saying that carbon emissions are responsible for more frequent severe weather events, and saying the coal industry should be penalised for causing Queensland's floods.