"The long-term prosperity of the human population on the planet is both a political and a moral challenge."

I don't know about the prosperity of the planet, but I know the best way to ensure the prosperity of my children is to educate them about the dangers of environmentalist scams -- like the ones that have helped bring Europe and the US close to financial disaster. Do you seriously think that you should be putting, say, Spain, Italy or California forward as examples of our Glorious Future?

And for those who haven't heard, by the way, a new round of Climategate emails has been released. They expose a good deal of venality and double standards among 'climate scientists', to say the least. Perhaps you should explain why you trust these people, Graham.

Jon. J,

"....dangers of environmental scams - like the ones that have helped bring Europe and the US close to financial disaster..."

More like it's been a marathon game of pass-the-parcel between bankers, speculators and governments.

Here's an interactive view of the debt connections:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/23/sunday-review/an-overview-of-the-euro-crisis.html

Graham Harris construed a few odds and ends from the public debate into a shift away from the pursuit of growth and profit. Nothing of the sort is occuring. I would urge Graham to get out of his ivory tower and start talking to business people, or examine social trends. Can he find anyone who wants less profit next year, or is prepared to take a wage cut? While there are people he will find they are few and far between.

What he will find if he takes the trouble to examine social trends is a shift towards family life and lifestyle. People are less willing to swap money for time away from their families. That does not mean they take less money, but they have to be offered more inducements to, say, work an eight day on-six day off, fly-in fly-out roster at a mine in the outback. There is a similar trade off for the environment but activists are now beginning to realise that its very much smaller than the family trade off. If money is coming out of their pocket, people quickly lose interest in the environment.

Graham needs to get out more and do some research.

Our sin along with Israels enemies will ensure this planet experiences extreme climate change. This fact is based on reliable sources rather than the pseudo sceince fantasy of man made gw. Those humble enough will be like Lot or Noah and escape. Bow the knee to Your Saviour or face the consequences of your sin. I know what I will be doing.

The anti-pops are masquerading as touchy feely love children of the fundamentally back to the earth socialist che guevara (he was a Catholic!) dawning of the age of Pol Pot zero growth ZPG and god only knows what thrown in but the root of their barking mad propositions they hate three things:

capitalism
markets
women

In that order.

They remind me of the awful smell of young men, sitting together in a darkened room playing online war games for days on end. They'd like to read books on market theory, modern capitalism and even meet some women, but it's just too hard and the world is an awful, awful place.

Graham has managed no mean feat in making his article as silly as its title.

Who but the 10% minority of Australians sufficiently deranged to vote green, would tolerate his proposition that we should continue pursuing the cause of “sustainable” energy into bankruptcy? It has been done in Europe, and there is no basis for us to follow suit.

His description of his visit to “a small printing company in northern England” reminds one of the visits of the lefties to communist Russia. They came back reporting that they had “seen the future”.

The true story of the disaster of communism took years to surface, but I am sure that Graham’s nonsense would take little research to expose right now. It no doubt relates to some insane subsidy for wasting time and money on solar power.

Our prosperity arises from mineral wealth and occasional good economic management, the latter being something which is completely lacking in the current government.

There must be some useful roles you have the ability to perform, Graham. Writing about a topic which you do not understand is not one of them.