Wrong again Clownfish. The difference between Flannery and the mining barons is the need for mining barons to launder their ill-gotten gains. In addition they remain guilty of complicity by their silence over the industry’s professed policy of “sustainable development” which continues to be one that drives growth regardless of the impact it is having on what remains of the natural environment.

Most perplexing are your accusations when from all the issues I have raised, you are incapable of acknowledging one.

And with debate over climate change emerges the framework of the new "greenwash" push of transnationals and their parasitic shareholders. Now Australia’s Rio Tinto is eagerly trying to prove the unprovable: that mining Madagascar’s unique biodiversity is sustainable for the environment and the people.

However today in Madagascar, the giant lemurs are extinct and many native forests, vanished. Most large trees that you see are introduced species of pine and eucalyptus, very useful for making charcoal and building furniture, but as they are not native to Madagascar, they provide few resources for the island’s animal species.

Coastal erosion has not been addressed by the mining company even though it presents considerable risks to communities living near coastlines and could still result from the deforestation for sand mineral extraction.

Alas, what generally follows with land grabs by foreign multi-nationals, who deprive impoverished people of their fertile lands is unrest. While many Malagasies believe that mining will lift them from poverty, that remains to be seen:

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLU447313

And while you obviously believe that the expansion of mining is healthy for the environment, you may just dig a hole for yourself since that will save you the effort when this nation is inundated with the arrival of thousands of uninvited environmental refugees who mistakenly believe that the drought stricken and desecrated lands of Australia will have something better to offer. Only then shall we understand that “what goes ‘round comes ‘round” for all things are bound together! I sincerely trust that our fourth world thinking leader, Mr Five Percent, understands that too!

Here we go again, merrily down the garden path of irrelevance with Protagoras ...

Um, when did I once "obviously" say that the expansion of mining is healthy for the environment? What has your diatribe about wicked mining companies to do with this article anyway?

Please address the topic, hm?

At least Q&A tried: "Australians are increasingly convinced they are facing the early impacts of global warming." A quick skim over some surveys indicates that most Australians accept that the climate is changing. But that doesn’t mean the assertions Schneider makes are even remotely true.

Deeper in, the statistics becomes muddier. The numbers vary by age and gender, but overall only slightly more than half believe humans are mainly responsible for climate change. When it comes to taking action, the numbers are even less happy for Keith Schneider.

But Schneider wasn’t content to just claim that “Australians are increasingly convinced, etc.”, instead he went on to make a raft of risible claims that may have played well to an American readership, no-one in Australia should fall for.

He shouldn't confuse the 2007 Australian election with the 2008 US election. As I said, Australians did not vote for “change”. Much as he would like to be, Kevin Rudd was not Barrack Obama.

“...the first national election in the country’s history in which a scientific issue - climate change - played a decisive role”? Did it b*ll*cks!

If the 2007 election was fought on any issue, it was Workchoices.

Schneider also insinuates that the national water policy was some sort of magic brainchild of the “progressive party” (a howler itself). Srly?

Schneider should also stop pretending that the money Rudd committed to the network was anything other than an expedient political bribe, to buy some much-needed votes in the Senate.

As for the Black Saturday bushfires: Again, it may be expedient for certain politicians to cry “climate change!” and try to curtail embarrassing scrutiny of their role in contributing to the scale of the disaster, but that doesn’t mean it’s not b*llsh*t.

‘“...the first national election in the country’s history in which a scientific issue - climate change - played a decisive role”? Did it b*ll*cks!’

You know Clownfish, I do like your pseudonym – it really suits you!

I take it you're going to keep dodging the issue, then?

More than dodging the issue, Protagoras will throw up any hilarious distraction s/he can. Er, climate change, global warming, mining, er, bacteria on my dish rag, giant lemurs?!? These are believed to have become extinct some 500 years ago. What has this got to with global warming? Of course, nothing, so you respond with an insult. Well played clownfish.

Thank you Fungochumley – you got that bit right since the most recent radiocarbon-dated bones of giant lemurs reveals that lemurs survived human occupation in Madagascar by at least 1500 years. In addition, anthropologists from the University of Massachusetts have found definitive evidence of butchery resulting in their extinction “most probably associated with hunting, of giant extinct lemurs by early human settlers in Madagascar:”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16225904

Which brings me to the issue of mining in unique and rare biodiversities. Whilst agriculture is held responsible for the principal cause of habitat destruction, equally destructive causes of habitat destruction include mining, logging, invasive species, geological processes, urban sprawl, smuggling, industrial pollution and global warming.

Alas Fungochumley, since you function on a lower vibrational plane to the more evolved homosapiens here this information is not for your benefit. The more enlightened will connect the dots between biodiversity, ecosystems, the Sixth Extinction and global warming.

“In broad usage, the current Sixth Extinction event includes the notable disappearance of large mammals, known as megafauna, starting 10,000 years ago as humans developed and spread.

"In the course of a couple of generations, one species — ours — has managed to raise the temperature of an entire planet, changing its most basic systems. The majority of biologists agree that the world's ecosystems have been plunged into chaos. Not even the vast oceans remain untouched by human presence.

“At closer scrutiny it is clear that during the last few centuries what has looked like progress for humans has amounted to crisis for mother nature. As our industry and technology has escalated, in most cases, so has the level of devastation.

“Much of that indifference has been fanned by a small but determined group of skeptics who have devoted countless resources to the cause of undermining climate science. I often tell people that I work in a town where everyone likes to say they’re for science-based decision making, until the overwhelming scientific consensus leads to a politically inconvenient conclusion. Then they want to go to plan B.”

http://thesixthextinction.org/

http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html