Pericles
I accept your disinterest in the wilderness, many people may find the subject boring. But it is not all about you (or me).

It leaves me awake at night worrying (:)) why you make the unfair assumption that my hopes for heritage listing for the Tarkine are to keep it for my own personal enjoyment. That is not my style. Opening up these areas for mining is not going to do any more to the access issue that you are concerned about.

Houlley
Yes I'm on the payroll of big oil and must fight the carbon tax at all costs. :P

Environmental protection measures have to work that is the issue with the carbon tax. Not much point in making something more expensive so people use less if there is going to be compensatory measures. I reckon we are better off just weaning off fossil fuels and getting on with supplementing those energy sources with renewables.

PS: I can see you in a little ranger uniform sporting a green tree frog badge. Very dapper I'm sure.

oug and Lexi
The environment does not stir much interest in some quarters but no matter where we live the impact of environmental degradation impacts all of us, even those darn tootin' inner city types. The greenie bashing types sometimes fail to examine the potential impact these decisions may have in the long term. oug I share your concerns about what gets pushed out into the oceans.

runner
Jobs are important in the Tassie economy but there are many other ways to create employment in Tassie other than destroying it's natural beauty. There has been and could be further projects to decentralise some of the government's functions that do not require centralised access to bureaucrats and politicians. Nothing is too far away in Australia. Australia enjoys almost full employment at the moment, but I agree there should be more to retain young Tasmanians via other means. Tourism brought about by environmental preservation is one of them. Mining is another way but where does it end? Is mining to always override any other factors?

Poor assumption, pelican.

>>Pericles I accept your disinterest in the wilderness, many people may find the subject boring.<<

On the contrary, I find the whole topic absolutely fascinating.

After centuries of plundering, the developed nations have suddenly realised that there are far fewer unspoilt corners of the world than there used to be. So a bunch of folk with time on their hands, plus a bad case of the elongated existential guilt-trips, have decided to make it a "cause".

So exactly when, in your view, did it stop being ok to rip up tracts of our wide brown land in order to build a prosperous economy, and instead to wring our hands at each and every sod that is turned in the dirty name of corporate profit?

1900?

1950?

2000?

March 15th 2011?

I only ask, because I am interested in whether you are an Idealist, a philosopher or a thinker.

Any thoughts?

(We can discuss gold mining in Colombia another time, perhaps)

http://www.economist.com/node/17525904

Fear Not,
Tis March and only a few short months to the Day when 'Humanity'
"I love my fellow men" Brown will assume control of the Senate and all of these Government excesses will be reversed.

The boys and I went to support the crew at Lake Pedder, the United Tasmania group canvassed all the uni's for support. When we went down there was no Bob Brown, the cops were brutal and the forestry guys would give it to you as well, but now the Tassy greens are entrenched down there, why are there not activist down there making EVERY process involved with this Bleach Mill a battle.

The greens have become too big for their boots and like deluded Labor the only issues that they gravitate to are global. Bob is letting them defecate on his doorstep and crying about GLOBAL carbon emissions. What a chardonnay green bunch these pathetic self serving limelight seeking cretins are. The grotesquely mundane green mayor of Marrickville council is spending rate payer’s time and money hooking into Israel. The only reason that the green mayor and selected cronies are involving their local council in statesman like communications and announcements is to further their own careers at the cost of the rate payer. Garbage, roads, parks and street lighting are not important to the greens, as I said they are a global fixer not a local fixer any more.

Pericles
It became not alright when the rate of destruction grew exponentially with greater pressures on resources through industrialisation and population growth.

Of course there are less forests now than in the early 1900s. There was no need for a cause. People don't protest where there is nothing to protest is the simplest way I can put it.

To argue there is no line where the rate of destruction works against human interest rather than for it is just plain wrong. Perhaps we just disgree that NOW is the line in the sand.

Not every decisions should be based on the basis of economics or the profit motive IMO. A mixed economy includes deference to environment as well as social wellbeing. It is all interconnected. A healthy democracy should encompass some corporate responsibility as regards damage to the environment.

Despite the disdain in your tone, there is nothing derogatory in a cause. It all depends on your POV. I find many of the causes of the far right wing quite abhorrent.

If you think we can continue at the same rate as regards forest removal then so be it. I suspect neither of us will be dissuaded but I reckon people are pretty savvy by and large and will realise before it is too late that we can't wait until there is only one tree, or one forest standing to say enough is enough.

SOG
So you think the heritage protection should be removed? I am not sure what your post is arguing other than a rant about the Greens. The Greens may be too big for their boots but no more than any other political party who thinks they have a mandate.

Is Mise
Have you posted in the wrong thread. Government excesses are something the Greens have fought against, but this is about heritage protection. What is Ms Hanson's policies on heritage protection? Does she believe there is a place for environmental safeguards?

Dear Pelly,

National parks, wilderness areas, and wildlife refuges are admired the world over for their awesome grandeur and the flora and fauna they protect. Even so, there is constant pressure on these lands by economic interests that claim the federal government is "locking up" land needed for oil exploration, logging, mining or housing and recreation facilities. To some, the disappearance of other species as a result of human activity is a matter of no particular consequence. To others, it represents the height of human hubris, in that we are making ourselves the ultimate arbiters of which species may survive and which may be obliterated. Actually, there are many practical reasons why human society should protect other life forms. Forests are a stabilizing factor in the global climate, for they absorb vast amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Many plants are medically valuable: most anticancer compounds, for example, come from plants of the rain forest, and this pharmaceutical cornucopia is still mostly untapped. Wild species are a "storehouse" for agricultural scientists who interbreed them with domestic species in order to create more fruitful or resistant strains. The rain forest itself is a vast and irreplacable "library" from which genetic engineers of the future may draw their raw material. Many species among the millions of uncatalogued plants could prove to be edible, and could become major crops in the future. And the trees and the flowers, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, are an aesthetic treasure, capable of delighting our senses and giving us some vision of what we are so carelessly destroying. The breathtaking diversity of species has evolved in delicate and precarious balance over many millions of years. Most of them have been here longer than we have. Our technology has fleetingly given us domain over them. In awe, respect, and humility, we might just let them be.