The glaring error in this article is that it doesn’t identify who the ‘we’ is who is to take the action. ‘We’ – all human beings, taken individually - are already taking action to provide ourselves with the the resources we want in the future, in order of our priorities and in view of the pay-offs.

But as soon as we talk about policy, the ‘we’ means the state’s power of compulsion and coercion. We are talking about using force - police and prisons - as the basis of social co-operation.

It is an error to see all the problems in terms of positive science. This is because the science does not give us the end values people are striving for. The use of policy necessarily imports the requirement of ethically justifying the use of force. Once we ask whether the use of violence or threats is justified to achieve the chosen ends, the argument crumbles, both as to ethics and pragmatics.

What makes the author think that he has got a better grasp of the problems and solutions, the costs and the benefits, than the billions of people who are already working on the problem according to their own values and their own time preferences? The entire arrogant approach of presuming to abstract the problem from the individual values of the people involved, decide in aggregate what the solution should be, and then using force or threats of force to implement it, is erroneous and should be condemned. It has failed over and over and over again in human affairs. There is not the slightest reason to think that bureaucrats can centrally plan the world’s ecology. There is not the slightest reason to think they can centrally plan the efficient use of the world’s resources.

Sustainability is merely the catch-cry for the new generation of officious meddling totalitarians, making all the same mistaken assumptions as the last lot. Having failed to achieve the ideal society by central planning of the economy, they now aspire to achieve the ideal society by central planning of the ecology *and* the economy.

No, Diocletion. Look deeper - it's about peace, not war.

Spare me the pretension of superior insight.

So the idea is to systematically use violence or the threat of violence on a global scale in order to achieve a more peaceful result than peaceful production and exchange, is it?

If as you say it's about peace not war, then why not just *not* use aggression in the first place? Why is violation of life, liberty and property the answer? Why is policy the answer? Answer please?

Do you think causing human death is justified in order to achieve sustainability? Answer please?

How many people should die to achieve your vision of ecological sustainability? Have you even thought whether your policy program involves causing human deaths? Answer please?

If you restrict the use of a particular resource to achieve sustainability, how are you going to know whether it has the effect of causing human deaths? Answer?

If forcibly restricting the use of resources that now serve to provide food, medicine, or other necessaries, results in human death, how are the 'sustainability' school not advocating the causing of those deaths? Answer please?

The new totalitarians want to use violent coercion against the whole of society that disagrees with them, and then have the gall to talk down to others about their purpose being peace not war.

Diocletian, you wrote;

“Sustainability is merely the catch-cry for the new generation of officious meddling totalitarians…”

Oh collywobbles!

Whatever happened to our discussion about this on the ‘Framing language, changing meaning’ thread? You dropped it like a hot potato! http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8323#131323

“I propose we stop worrying about who is right and wrong in the climate change debate, and move as fast as we can to sustainable energy.”

I certainly support that Philip. But why stop at sustainable energy? Why not go all the way to a sustainable society…and with considerable urgency?

Concern about climate change needs to evolve into concern about overall sustainability, which necessitates stabilising our population and developing a steady-state economic system.

There’s not much point in moving into a sustainable energy regime if our population is just going to continue to rapidly increase and our absurd continuous-growth based economic system just blunders on, thus increasing all sorts of resource and environmental pressures.

An outstanding contribution Phillip. I agree that moving as fast as we can to sustainable energy does require true leadership and resolute political will. Obama seems to appreciate then need for bold, whole of government renewable public policy. By contrast, our carbon pollution reduction policy mix is a confusing mess that is doomed to a humiliating failure in a few years after its introduction.

Charging for pollution permits and then giving most of the money back to the big polluters has set an awful precedent and gives all the wrong signals to the markets, the public and the world at large.

Rudd's assitance to NSW in building new rail links to boost coal exports to China, in deferance to our coal barons, will one day be regarded as his crime against humanity. As the polar and tundra regions melt and a new hostile climate equilibrium approaches, we need to take a rational planned approach to reducing the greenhouse gas content of our atmosphere involving population control and simpler living where we strive to attain clean energy self-sufficiency for most housholds and as a nation.