Emerson pens serious arguments against the "Dark green barbarians." And there are certainly "deep green extremists" who wantonly are willing to retard the economic progress of our times. But he forgot to mention their close relatives, the 'shallow' green extremists, like his colleague and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who with his projected policy of green emissions will also impoverish Australia on the altar of his "superstition" of climate change.

http://avant-gardestrategies.typepad.com

Yes, But I've seen Emerson make the same sort of comments before. Yet he doesn't seem to feel that strongly about that otherwise he would leave the ALP. I say he's gipping us.

craig wrote...'Deep green extremists yearn for a return to a pre-industrial society, before the Enlightenment when faith and dogma prevailed over rational thinking and evidence-based science.'

not sure what 'deep green' is...but 'dark green' is expression of 'unbalanced-self-interests in planning or action'...ie if your 'eye of energies' is open and you have brought your spiritual senses into balanced play in each situations of ones daily life...

I think 'environmentalist' are the force that causes 'producers' to consider full life cycle of their products in a sustainable manner...and which is good for all...so in general hard to see any imbalance(deep-green) in this...

take for example small business...thanks to idi amin of Uganda showing the world what happens when small businesses removed from economy...by deporting all Indians...whom happened to run majority of small businesses...by crashing Ugandan economy...and thereforth called 'idiot amin' by British press...

now primary small businesses goods/services are life-essentials(eg corner delis/clothes etc), services(accountants,tradies), transport(taxi) etc...really not much 'directly' linked to 'producers' but more 'use of products'...'producers' where more directly linked to environment...most producer needs some form of natural resources...

applying 'rational thinking and evidence-based science'...government policies that encourage small business to source/use environmentally sustainable products while government acting to ensure there is not too much price disparity with competing 'unsustainable-production-industry' is right in the middle of your powers...so what measures has this department done to achieve this?...now that is information Im sure lot of people would like to know...

Sam
Ps~I think your biggest 'obstructor' will be 'the crown'...whom it seems owns most of the large 'producers'...

Craig, you know very well what the Greens want! They just want the POWER to say NO! Then they can enjoy the fruits of that power without ever having to endure the problems of that responsibility.
I am still waiting for a journalist to do a hatchet job on the Greens of any hue and especially their leader Bob Brown.
Those journalist who do this sort of work are far too busy attacking the current opposition.

Craig Emerson is a leading example of why so many people have deserted the ALP and either joined the Greens, or at least support them over the ALP at elections. If JBowyer wants to see a tabloid media "hatchet job" on the Greens, s/he just needs to purchase any Murdoch rag in the lead-up to a State or Federal election.

They do it every time.

How very refreshing to hear from a leading Government figure someone who has the guts to speak a little common sense.

Craig writes 'The message is clear: irrationality sells and any questioning of spurious environmental claims is an act of heresy.'

Wow, how we have seen this with the high priests of global cooling a few years ago and global warming now. The response by most of the contributors just illustrate how right Mr Emerson is. Keep up the good work Craig. You make a lot more sense (or maybe just a lot more honest) than Mr Turnbull. And that is from someone who has and probably will never vote Labour in my life.