Sue, I agree that the political direction in Australia, from both Liberal and Labor, at both federal and state levels, amounts to a dictatorial assault on our environment.

It is a crying shame that the Greens are also so far off-track in the way that they address this, or abjectly fail to address it, I should say!

There are two all-important things that you didn’t mention, which we need to be addressing::

Continuous rapid population growth. We absolutely need to be reducing immigration right down to net zero and ditching the baby bonus bribe and heading directly towards a sustainable population, and a sustainable society.

Separating government from big business. Get rid of political donations and take whatever other steps we can to give government the ability to make decisions independent of the enormous pressure from the vested-interest manically pro-growth totally antisustainable big business sector.

Then and only then, we might see some sensible environmental policies come out of our federal, state and local government arenas.

I actually think that many people in government want to take a much greener and more sustainablility-oriented approach, and that this would gel very well with the majority of voters, but that the pressure … and the financial support and all manner of other favours … from big business prevents them from doing so.

THIS is the sort of stuff that the Greens and all good environmentalists such as yourself, should be absolutely concentrating on!!

Ludwig:

Hear hear.

Sue,

Women have children as a business, to make a life, NOT for love. Those children have to make a life and short of stealing they are given a right of passage to chop down anything that grows and shoot anything that moves.
That in a nutshell is the cause of environmental destruction today. You can blame big corpoartions, who only work to the marketplace women's children create, but you can't stop them, for they are underwritten by WOMEN'S rights and needs.

In fact, isn't it true that while women have a vote, there is ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE of stopping environmental degradation and biodiversity slaughter. This because women will always lip-sevice environment protections but vote against them when it comes down to their children getting ahead in life.

This grand fraud is your enemy and I know that not all women are so corrupt and self serving. But if YOU want to save Australia's environment you must demand that women no longer have a vote in Australian politics. Then institute, on behalf of the environment a one child policy like in China. While women can vote that will never happen.

Otherwise I am afraid you are wasting time in a losing battle with a very selfish, powerful and cunning force that will brook no REAL justice for any living creature great or small. NOT EVER!

Sue:

Unfortunately, there is NO political voice for the environment anymore. The so called "Greens" have all but abandoned the environment in favor of peripheral issues like gay marriage and boat people. The result is that the major polluters are literally getting getting away with murder. The murder of the ecosystem and inevitably, our grandchildren.

Sue, there is no doubt as to your commitment and passion to environmental causes, as is clearly the case with most Greens.

However, in the struggle to secure community support for your positions, can I suggest that it would be a good thing for the Greens to focus more on the real science relating to these issues - not the emotive propaganda that masquerades as science in many circles.

Take, for example, the "problem" of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It is evident to the lay person that the inordinate attention to this issue has resulted in the imposition of a catastrophic carbon dioxide tax that is already damaging Australia's international competitive position in many industries (the sources for our jobs, income taxes and yes, support for bureaucrat salaries and green initiatives) and raising the cost of living for Australians, without actually having any discernible impact on the problem.

At the same time, when asked about the evidence that anthropogenic CO2 is a problem, the concerned advocates can only point to computer models that contain assumptions that don't accord with reality.

All that might be OK. But what worries me is that the inordinate focus on CO2 means that other much more damaging impacts of man's activities are being ignored. Deforestation, interference with natural water systems, industrial agriculture and many more human impacts are creating real problems in many areas of the world. It is these, and pollution from particulates, SOX, NOX, hydrocarbons etc that we should be focussing on.

Get real, and you will win support.

The Greens can't win. If they fight for the environment, they're slagged as a one-issue party. If they advocate for renewable energy, they're slagged as dangerously ignorant of economics. In fact, if they advocate for ANYTHING, they're slagged as dictatorial. If they expand their policies and activities into the social and economic arenas, they're slagged as abandoning their environmental origins.

May I remind the Greens-slaggers that the party has been in a tenuous junior partnership with an unpopular government for little over a year. Yet they're expected that be using that tenuous position to achieve overnight everything from stopping the boats to saving the bilby to peace in the Middle East.

Let's inject some reality into this overheated beat-up of a still minor party on the political scene.