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The Forum > Article Comments > Adding more Salt to the wounds of Gen Y > Comments

Adding more Salt to the wounds of Gen Y : Comments

By Fiona Heinrichs, published 3/8/2011

Debating the past and the future with Bernard Salt.

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Can someone explain to me the payoff from "All hope is lost"?
What do you people get from believing in doomsday scenarios?
We can turn sewage into drinking water yet somehow we're doomed?
This is comedy to me.
Face facts, Fiona's future Blonde children won't be affected by climate change or peak oil or any of the other lavish expressions of White self indulgence.
Even if she marries an African her children will never know real poverty or hunger because they have a White parent.
Things have been "uncomfortable" in the past, the 1930's in White Australia was probably no picnic, but in 1930's China you'd be lucky if someone dragged your starved corpse off the streets before the rats got to it.

So in terms of "posterity" we're all A-OK.
See that's the thing, if White people are running around saying "all hope is lost" it invariably means everything is OK on our side.
If there were no White people around me indulging these extravagant, apocalyptic fantasies then I'd be REALLY worried about our posterity
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 7:42:33 PM
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"We can turn sewage into drinking water yet somehow we're doomed?"

Ah yes, with fossil fools you can do anything. Pity all the cheap stuff's already gone and that it will soon take more energy to extract said fossil fools than the fools contain.....

Oh and forget Malthus.... just watch Albert Bartlett's fine series of youtube videos.

And also, congrats to Fiona... you should consider gunning for Dick Smith's million dollar award.
Posted by Coorangreeny, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 8:26:37 PM
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Did anyone click through and read some of the supporting documents that Fiona linked to her article? Salt's "book review" did catch my eye. Far from being scathing or dismissive of Gen Y, it stated a few facts:

1. In Australia and most of the western world, life has been getting easier for years. Succeeding generations have been given more material belongings and have more opportunities than in the past.

2. Whilst some may see Gen Y's as precious/selfish, that tends to disappear when they have kids of their own and realise that their kids dont care if their parents have always been "special" - I'm the kid and I want your attention NOW!! Bernard's indirect comment is that having kids catapults young adults into being true "grown-ups" that have a better sense of their place in the world
Posted by Country Gal, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 9:28:34 PM
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I sent Bernard Salt an email some months back questioning some of his assertions in an article he wrote. He did reply to me but all he said was he didn't agree. That was it, no why not, no explanation, no argument, just that he didn't agree.
I suppose time is money and he is paid to produce his opinion so why waste time.

Well done Fiona.
Posted by Michael Dw, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 10:34:04 PM
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<< Well, the grumpy old misogynists are out in force today! >>

You’re not wrong there Michael!

.

This appears after the end of the article:

< Fiona is an Arts (Hons.) graduate from Sydney who is very concerned about population growth and environmental sustainability. She has recently authored a book titled, Sleepwalking to Catastrophe: ‘Big Australia’, Immigration, Population Expansion and the Impossibility of Endless Economic Growth in a Finite World. >

Excellent Fiona. Sustainability is the most important subject of our time and population growth is the most significant component of it. Keep getting stuck into the likes of Bernard Salt!

We so desperately need a major change of political direction away of continuous rapid expansionism and towards genuine sustainability. I thought we might have seen an inkling of this with the carbon tax, but alas, there was nothing of the sort.

Can I ask you; how much concern about real sustainability is there within Gen Y?

I haven’t encountered much at all, unfortunately. But it would be great to hear that there was a fair bit of concern and that there is real potential for harnessing it into a political or lobby force that could really have some clout, if that be the case. Here’s hoping!

Cheers.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 11:29:24 PM
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Exactly so Michael, Salt is about advancing influence and privilege, not accuracy and truth. Public humiliation is most likely the only remedy for his self-serving hubris.

Jay, add to your list of 'white person' feats the rapid drawdown of the intense but finite energy resource that fundamentally enables ALL of these accomplishments. A new energy source to replace this squandered bounty? All notions of one are no more than science fiction at this stage. Maybe we'll realise the use of one before our excess is drawn into oblivion by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The odds a this stage though indicate we most likely will not.

Your implicit certainty that we will is a form of religious faith, not rational understanding. Calling for a slowdown in population driven aggregate resource consumption is a sound and prudent action. Calling for more speed as you do is simply reckless.

Pericles, scorn is a commonly accepted form to use in response to hypocrisy and disingenuous evasion. Fiona has been relatively restrained in regard to Salt's display. Also, why do you so certainly presume a deficient approach to Salt by Fiona? You have no evidence for this view yet have made it a foundation to your argument. As such, the stridency of your assertion is no more than a baseless attack upon Fiona's credibility. Is it reasonable to do this simply because it suits your argument to do so?
Posted by wallumi, Wednesday, 3 August 2011 11:48:11 PM
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