It's intersting that one minute the media duopoly complains hysterically that there are not enough workers to meet the needs of the Australian industry as we have become accustomed to from the Courier Mail in Brisbane, and yet the minute anyone suggests winding back our more environmentally destructive industries as Bob Brown did a few months back, the are condemned even more hysterically fro threatening to destroy jobs.

Col Rouge, do you truly expect anyone to believe that you care in the least about other people's livelihoods?

When it suits corporations, they defend the destruction of our environment on the grounds that it is necessary to maintain livelihoods as is happneing now with Tasmania's old growth forests. Then, in almost the same breath they will defend the destruction of jobs in order to raise their own bottom line as has happend recently when Telstra announce the closure of the Launceston call centre.

Anyhow, if a job is not sustaninable it should be eliminated and replaced with another which is. Australia's mining industry, most of all it's coal mining industry is helping to contribute to global calamity. Our life support system is extremely tenous and fragile as
shown by Chris Shaw (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6002#84712). Digging up and putting back into our atmosphere nearly half the carbon that it tooks many tens of milions of years of geological and biological process to get out of the atmosphere in little more than a hundred years is really pushing our luck a little far, wouldn't you think?

Daggett “Col Rouge, do you truly expect anyone to believe that you care in the least about other people's livelihoods?”

This is simple, when the economy is buoyant other people, as well as me, have livelihoods and when they don’t, nor do I.

You bet I am interested in “other peoples livelihoods”. Whilst I believe we are all responsible for ourselves, I still recognise the nature of market forces and how we all suffer when economies grind to a halt (recalling 1990/91). That is the reason I vote Liberal. Voting for misguided loons like Brown and Bartlett is like greasing oneself up and jumping on the runway to economic oblivion. It does no one any good at all, except appease the tree huggers and they soon start to whine when they realise their dole cheques are buying less and less (reduced production and fixed costs of government = hyper inflation).

So daggett, since you are so gung-ho about it all, I assume you are claiming to be “Carbon-positive” in all your lifestyle choices? In the mean time, I am still out with the skeptics regarding all the bulldust which shysters of the green and left are vomiting up and polluting the atmosphere with.

I wonder who will decide that your job is “sustainable” or not ? I know I could produce an argument for my job in either direction, it all depends on what spin we care to put on things and most folk are, like sheep, happy to follow anyone who can pretend to know what they are talking about (lets face it that’s how politicians get elected in the first place).

As for “Our life support system is extremely tenous and fragile”

The world has been around for a few years and outlived the dinosaurs. I am quite sure it will survive you and me and our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren too.

Col Rouge wrote:

"The world has been around for a few years and outlived the dinosaurs. ..."

This all true, assuming we have great-great...great-grandchildren, but completely misses my point. I think you should demonstrate some comprehension of the facts included in Chris Shaw's post (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6002#84713).
"We and our fellow life-forms live in a razor thin band of temperatures. We ... have enjoyed an almost impossibly improbable existence."

Many regions of the world that are now desert were once lush fertile regions covered with trees. This includes much of the Middle east and north Africa and regions of the United States. The countries of the northern shores of the Mediterranean, whilst they don't qualify as deserts, are nevertheless, barren and infertile compared to what they once were. However, the supposedly intelligent elites in control of the civilisations that once thrived in those regions also failed to understand how tenuous and fragile the ecology from which their wealth was derived was. As a consequence, the ecologies collapsed and their civilisations did also. (For some further information, read "Collapse" (2005) by Jared Diamond, and "Ecocide" (2002) by Franz Broswimmer).

The only fundamental difference between today's globalised civilisation and all those previous failed civilisations is that we have discovered fossil fuel. This has created the illusion that this civilisation is fundamentally more intelligent. However, the elites in control today are showing themselves to be every bit as selfish, greedy and shortsighted as those that were in control back then, and, if the course of events is allowed to continue, a similar collapse, but this time at a global level, and on a far more far catastrophic scale, is inevitable.

I doubt if your claims about being interested in other peoples' livelihoods are any more genuine than similar claims of those who drove peasants off the land in pre-industrial Britain in order to force them to work in the satanic mills and coal mines for hours much longer than their parents and grandparents had to.

And that is where we are destined to return if John Howard is not booted out later this year.

Daggett “However, the elites in control today are showing themselves to be every bit as selfish, greedy and shortsighted as those that were in control back then,”

Ah blame the other fellow. I guess democratic standards and adoption of universal suffrage were the same in the last ice age as they are today.

Somehow you assume that as well as fossil fuels small discoveries like electricity and the invention of sewer systems and computers have done nothing to advance humanity's plight.

When anyone makes grandiose pronouncements like “The only fundamental difference between today's globalised civilisation and all those previous failed civilisations is that we have discovered fossil fuel.”

You can almost see the foaming lather fly from their lips.

As for “I doubt if your claims about being interested in other peoples' livelihoods are any more genuine than similar claims of those who drove peasants off the land in pre-industrial Britain in order to force them to work in the satanic mills and coal mines for hours much longer than their parents and grandparents had to.”

HA HA – more lather. More irrelevant hyperbole and no substitute for reason.

When you descend to such “righteous indignation” you read as the simpleton of old, who because of his own limits presumes the rest of the world is likewise afflicted.

The best thing that has happened in Australian politics in the past 23 years was the switch from the rabble and mealy mouthed puppets of the union bullies to the Liberal/ National coalition, which has managed to turn around the economy for everyone and generated more hope and opportunity for those with the courage to grasp it. Thus those with the courage will generate employment for those who lack it, rather than the socialists who would rather reside over an equality of misery produced from recession.

Col Rouge wrote: "Somehow you assume that as well as fossil fuels small discoveries like electricity and the invention of sewer systems and computers have done nothing to advance humanity's plight."

Yes, if only the Greeks had dicovered electricity! They would have had no need for fossil fuels in order to be able to build computers, sewerage systems and to have matched all of the other achievements of modern civilisation.

Thanks for this illustration of how, unlike most of the rest of us, you aren't 'limited' by common sense, logic and a regard for facts.

daggett "Thanks for this illustration of how, unlike most of the rest of us, you aren't 'limited' by common sense, logic and a regard for facts. "

Maybe you could elaborate on your rambling. The lather you foam is turning quite bileous, I would suggest either some ant-acid tablets or maybe mummy put you down for some "quiet time"