The previous was an unpaid Advertisement for the Australian Greens.

By all means turn Australia into a completely Urban Country. Then we starve, die and the polution goes to Zero.

All too simple really , What a Master Plan !

Silly me. I thought it was satire.

Yet there are all these people taking it seriously.

"The Greens can help us face the real facts of the nation."

Just so long, that is, as it doesn't involve anything to do with earning a living, or contributing to the economy. The "real facts" of the nation are that we, as individual citizens, will be dependent for our prosperity on our mining industry for the foreseeable future. As yet, there is nothing that can remotely take its place in a timeframe that will mean anything to our children during our or their lifetimes.

That is a "real fact".

Without employing either wishful thinking or mindless sloganeering, would anybody care to contradict that statement?

"A Green agenda to date has been against things and not for them"

So true, so very true. This places them in a difficult position, as the transition from negative to positive is never easy. And in the case of the Australian Greens, may even prove to be an insurmountable hurdle. Thankfully.

In truth, I cannot see the Greens promoting policies that are designed around the welfare, economies or development of our cities. To date, they have been fixated on preventing or stalling any project that is even remotely useful or beneficial. Given the sporadic outbursts of urban Greenery that so far have been visible - I live in Sydney, by the way - I can't see any initiatives that even remotely approach the writer's proposition.

Nah. It was satire, wasn't it, and I have been sucked in.

Some interesting ideas there, but it's all a bit platitudinous isn't it? While I obviously agree that the Greens' outlook is more positive than that of the 'major' parties, they can't do anything without the support of at least one of them.

Also, the article apparently comes across to some people as if it is an official Greens position - which it is not. Greens policy with respect to mining, logging and agriculture is rather more nuanced than the caricatured version that Blakely presents.

@ Pericles:

I thought it was satire at first too, but obviously for different reasons than you.

With respect to your observations about mining, I agree that our economy is overly dependent upon it, to the extent that phasing out the mining of coal will cause real economic and material pain, particularly to those organisations and individuals who have been hitherto profligate in their consumption of non-renewable resources. No doubt about it, if you measure living standards in purely material terms you're going to suffer in the decades to come.

There could have been less suffering had the world acted earlier than now on AGW, and there'll be more if we don't - and it has absolutely nothing to do with Greens' policy. The Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber of Australian politics have been running the show, and between them have been able to achieve pretty well nothing except spread FUD on the one hand, and earnest handwringing on the other.

The Greens are little more than messengers and catalysts with respect to policy and legislative initiatives. You're appalled that your lifestyle is unsustainable and is about to become very much more expensive unless you amend your profligate habits. It won't be the Greens who'll be implementing the inevitable, since they're highly unlikely to achieve majority support in the short term, if ever.

On most topics I respect your analysis, but when it comes to politics what you have in common with the crassest Tea Party types is a propensity to go after the messenger - in this case the Greens - rather than to actually countenance the unpleasant probability that they're substantially right.

It's a real shame, because the energy you waste on personal negativity is energy that's not being directed towards mitigating a painful future, regardless of whether the Greens even exist.

Stick with me please, I may not be as of topic as some think.
My thoughts about the greens have been developing over the past 3 years.
I first saw their refusal to pass that version of paying for climate change in Rudd's time as, well leave that.
I noted Browns not wanting to preference Labor, and his Triumphalism on gaining the nine Senates seats.
I had always, yes always, understood and feared the impacts of the policy's they have in their own web page.
And the ones many from within the party add, in open comments
In short I believe, totally, they can, at best, push Labor in to opposition.
Maybe after reading the thoughts and well wishes,sarcasm too from the last contributor, in my thread below.
I say thanks for the well wishers.
But please I understand what I write, I know I can be wrong,but do some of my detractors?
Maybe I am not the average contributor, income/education/inclinations.
But I truly think, yep true, the ALP is victim to over emphases of its failures and refusal to closely look at Abbott/Murdock/Howard's blind stupidity behind policy's so destructive they have to be non core.
Not fragile no hidden reasons look at the level of insults from csteel and Ammonite.
Have I the right to think the greens are a dead weight on my country?
Or that given the increasing nature of insulting comment, once the property of the tea party right, makes .
I will post less and for a time not in general comments.
My fear dislike of the greens was made by them.
This working class Aussie shares the view of most such, they defame the word conservation.
Labor is bleeding, it must come to understand more votes are lost to conservatives than greens it clearly shows in any poll.

I think this article falls into the Lucky Country trap of belittling primary industries. This has occurred in the past due to the decline of the importance of these industries in industrialised economies, and then the plateauing of demand for commodities in post-industrial economies. However demand swung upwards with a range of countries undergoing economic development. Assuming this process continues there will be continued strong demand for resources as infrastructure is built followed by demand for agricultural products by the growing global middle class.

The economic synergy between town and country has been known of for hundreds of years. The development of towns leads to more capital and technology available to increase the productivity of the country which enables more commodities to be available for the towns to continue to develop. This process is vital to any Green agenda of the development of environmentally sustainable societies as it is the process by which deep structural change to economies and societies occurs. Ignoring the nuts and bolts of the economy to focus on the desires of their fairly small inner city Leftist voting base will render their policies largely superfluous in long term development.