May I ask that posters read this Morning the hard copy or on line edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Richard Glovers piece, maybe his first attempt to laugh at/with us all, for our ability to get lost on any issue.
Death threats hate so very much less than what we, in the west,expect from our selves.
We talk of bringing a Democratic way to the world while we seem to have lost our own way.
A better world demands constant reviews of our direction not surely blind support for heading in wrong directions.

Belly

Did you mean this article?

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-climate-change-wave-of-hate-20110609-1ftix.html

Richard Glover writes many articles, not everyone lives in NSW and can grab an actual copy of the SMH. Therefore, I would've considered it "civil" of you to supply a link.

Glover writes:

"Here's how it started. Last week, in this spot, I wrote a piece about climate change. It was critical of both the left and the right and contained some comic hyperbole about both: that environmental zealots wanted us all to live in caves and that climate-change deniers should tattoo their beliefs on their bodies so they couldn't later deny their role in preventing action on climate change.

So far, so hum-hum. On Saturday and Sunday, the piece never made it to the Herald's list of ''most read'' opinion pieces. I had nine emails - four of them saying they agreed, five against, but all expressed pleasantly. No one thought the piece was offensive or even that remarkable. The comic hyperbole was seen as, well, comic hyperbole.

Then - sometime Sunday night - a link to the piece was put on a right-wing website in the US, offering me up as another communist trying to ruin the world through the ''hoax'' of climate change. The piece started multiplying in cyberspace, mainly on websites dedicated to exposing the leftist conspiracy about climate change.

Suddenly I was the toast of town: about 300,000 people read the piece on smh.com.au between Sunday night and Tuesday morning. I had more readers than anyone else in the Herald. Only problem was: many of them wanted to kill me."

Now, Belly say "thank you" for doing your work for you.

Yes indeed thank you, very much, now let me be honest I have learning difficulty's.
Can not explain it, most know my education is self made.
I can remember phone numbers I last used 20 years ago.
But can not yet cut and paste, and have no idea how to find the web address of a site.
Maybe Forrest or some one can start a thread answers for dumb old fellas.
My 486, first PC came in a box , my then boss showed me enought to use words and send e mails.
Come a long way but not a seconds formal training, I how ever was one of three, from ten, union officials who could use a PC.
In any case how sick was that, the hate, stupidity , dumbness of those hate filled e mails.
A question, are we worried that America our long term Friend and all is infested with so much mental illness?
And second are we headed that way.

Thank you both for that. Interesting piece.

I'm not so sure that it represents a decline of civil debate, rather the inclusion of an audience that never was into civil debate.

Around OLO some are civil almost all the time, others are continuously involved in less than civil discussions on far to regular a basis for it to be coincidence.

The extremes of any ideology rarely do well with conflicting opinions (or even opinions with some common ground but less than wholehearted support).

R0bert

RObert <"I'm not so sure that it represents a decline of civil debate, rather the inclusion of an audience that never was into civil debate."

RObert hit the nail on the head with this comment. The climate change debate is something I rarely get into for this very reason, and I am sure Glover has some regret now too!

You either have the rampant greenies planning your death if you dare to deny climate change, or the religious zealots praying for your untimely death if you dare support climate change.

I have decided to sit on the fence on this one.

Belly, I don't believe there is a decline in civil debate, nor are the bulk of Americans "...infested with so much mental illness".
It is merely two sides of a debate that will never agree on anything!

Belly

Now I feel awful. Was a little impatient with you due to some of your personal comments to me on the RSPCA thread. I respect you efforts learn, always have even when I fully disagree. Even when you are rude to me.-

On topic. Yeah Glover got a dose of the far, far right in USA. Makes our Liberal Party look like fluffy bunnies. Just for perverse entertainment I posted on a right wing site just to see how long my posts would stay on. I wasn't saying anything particularly rude, just that I was against the death penalty because innocent people had been killed. But that was enough for a torrent of abuse and a record of my IP address, so I couldn't log on again under other names.

However, these people are not mainstream, they are fringe; dark and nasty yes, but not indicative of a decline in civil debate. Well, unless you consider Col Rouge the shallow end of the civil pool.

As for climate change. Looks like we will find out one way or another in the next 20 - 30 years. Shame, we are not transitioning to clean sustainable technology simply because it makes good sense, irrespective of your belief in science.

I guess it is just coincidence that more tropical fish are being found in Sydney harbour, low lying Pacific Islands are being swallowed by the sea, we can now travel through the North West passage in the Arctic in summer, well there's more but no-one wants to hear.

La La La La La