The fundamental left-right distinction, it appears to me, is between those who consider that people who are left to use their own initiative will get things more or less wrong, and those who consider they will get things more or less right. The left, I take it, assumes that people need to be taught, led and guided in order to make correct decisions: the right assumes that they can work things out for themselves. Looked at it this way, obviously both sides are making wild and incorrect generalisations. But for any given situation one or the other assumption is usually correct, and any rational person will make a decision based the evidence they can gather from that particular context. I am 'left-wing', for instance, when it comes to State education. I am 'right-wing' when it comes to child welfare payments. I am left-wing about unemployment benefits, right-wing about single parent benefits, right-wing about climate change and left-wing about religion; and so on. Other people see me as left or right wing depending on their own ideologies, but all I am doing is making a decision based on the evidence. And anyone who is not doing that is a fool.

the first actual greenies i met were north shore liberals, whose life was 'every prospect pleases', except for a worrisome air-quality aspect.

then the trots imploded, and their psychological drives led them to the green movement as a way of connecting to a society that had laughed them into irrelevance. the 'watermelon warrior' was born.

discussions about who is lefter than whom can be amusing, but not these. in oz, left or right matters not, only 'in' or 'out'. of parliament that is. the rest are chatterati, eternal adolescents chock-full of opinions but utterly unable to realize them. so far are they disenfranchised that they do not even know they are impotent politically, nor can they conceive of a different reality. they are enslaved by social conditioning even as they imagine they argue for 'truth justice, and the australian way'.

the mothers of australia have failed in their duty, raising only believers in the emperor's new clothes.

Interesting analysis.

The notion that one has to be left wing to be green is relatively new. When the Franklin Dam protestors were battling the united front of unions and big corporates I am sure they would not have perceived the cause of workers and greenies to be synonomous.

I think it is nothing more the shrill chatterings of the ultra-right wing. Whenever an issue poses a threat to economic radicalism and extreme capitalism it has to be painted with a left wing hue in an attempt to sway the middle class hoi polloi to their viewpoint.

Cinders "the RPDC was commissioned to undertake an international search to develop world class guidelines for a pulp mill.

Clearly the left is about supporting working families and jobs in sustainable industries"

Is Cinders telling us that the irrational opposition for the Gunns Pulp Mill only came from Liberals on the mainland?

Finland can have pulp mills dotting their lake shores but Tasmanian lefties have fought a loosing battle to construct a world class pulp mill?

Please elaborate Cinders

As another blogger at Strange Times, I pretty much agree with what Barry is saying in this article. First of all, I'd define "Left" in a similar way to Rhian: that is, Left-wing people believe that "material progress is good, technology is beneficial, and human welfare and freedom, not the environment, is the central progressive value"

One of the most important differences between a full-on "Green" point of view, and a left-wing view, is that a left-winger looks at environmental damage as a cost that needs to be dealt with, and the more extreme type of Green views it as a sin that must be avoided at all costs. It's interesting to see how angry people like mike-servethepeople and michael_in_adelaide get - they appear to assume that Barry is advocating environmental damage for its own sake:

"The root cause of our civilization's unsustainability is the very triumphalism promoted in this article....Our denial that we are part of Nature, and our belief that we are superior to it are products of our recent ability to harvest large quantities of finite fossil energy"

Well, I proudly believe that we _are_ superior to "Nature". "Nature" condemned us to live short, fearful lives, enslaved to the seasons and wild beasts. Instead of accepting that in a "sustainable" way, humans rebelled against it and built the society we live in today. The problem with our society is not that it is too far removed from Nature: the problem is that only a part of humanity has been able to get rich so far. We need more civilisation and more material progress, not less. Humans are perfectly capable of working out how to mend any environmental damage that happens along the way.

It's definitely pseudo-left to just be "against capitalism", to pretend to be interested in human liberation, while having ideals that would slow down human progress, and keep the poor as they are. At least B.A. Santamaria had the guts to admit he was a right-winger who hated the modern age, and dreamed of a return to a time when we all lived as peasants.

Many of you seem to have the view that the world is like a picture of Mickey Mouse, with the economy the face, and the society and the environment the less important ears. Actually, they are concentric circles. If you trash your environment, you trash your society and your economy. Putting human welfare first is just like sawing off the branch you are sitting on.

It is easy for any mathematically literate person to show that endless growth in population or consumption is a delusion, although some economic growth can continue if it means working smarter and not using up more stuff. Our present population growth rate here in Australia, carried on for 800 years, would bring us to the point of standing room only on every square meter of the continent. You might take a look at the Worldwatch Institute site for the statistics on what is currently happening with regard to shortages or losses of arable land, fresh water, fish stocks, biodiversity, fossil fuels and minerals that are vital for our technology, and capacity of the environment to safely absorb wastes.

As for technology solving all our problems, this really belongs with the religious fundamentalists' idea that we don't have to worry because Jesus is coming soon. Land the Sumerians salted up and wrecked 6,000 years ago is still wrecked. The dodo and the thylacine are still extinct. The truth is that there have been a number of collapses of societies in the historical and archaeological records. Some are described in Jared Diamond's "Collapse". The human suffering they caused was immense. It is actually you people who are antihuman.