In interesting little piece in The Spectator on 15th July points out that the Greens have been going backwards over the last decade. (“About that climate change election ….. “ by Tarric Brooker)”.

Not only did the Greens fail to capitalise on what they were so sure was an election on climate change – they just retained the senate seats they had, and received a derisory 0.2% swing – but their percentage of the primary vote was 13% lower than when Bob Brown was leader in 2010. So much for the “larger degree of influence” and the “broader appeal among the wider electorate” predicted by political “experts” over the last 10 years. Those pesky ‘quiet Australians’ weren’t listening.

The depth of the Greens’ problem is caused, according to Brooker, by “ innumerate reporting, which confuses percentage points with percentage and fails to record a drop from, say, 10 per cent of the vote to 7.5 as a fall of a quarter, focusing instead on the 2.5. Further masking the ineptitude of the Greens is the Left inspired media’s insistence on being positive about the Greens, probably thinking that if they keep up the patter, everyone will believe it.

Brooker, saying that the Greens are going nowhere fast, believes that left-leaning voters are “increasingly turn back to the Labor party after years of frustration with the Greens ‘everything or nothing’ political tactics”.

Makes sense to me. Australians are not ready for a proper conservative party; and it seems that they are not interested in the opposite either.

Fair enough Shadow Minister sorry I in part got it wrong
However Renewables are here to stay, subsidies or not
And as expert after expert is trotted out, [not one in the field they judge] it remains clear we are going to take action
Action on climate change and too the rubbish we produce and litter the planet with
It will cost us, but not as much as doing nothing will
See Germany has developed a polymer brick, makes using desert sand possible
We should look at reusing plastic as a road sealer

Dear Hasbeen,

Prior to going into humanities I studied engineering completing a degree in mechanical engineering, which involved a lot of maths, chemistry & physics. I'm no scientist but I can follow their arguments on global warming, climate change, etc.

Also, there is now a growing body of evidence for anthropogenic global warming over the past 250 years in support of what the scientific community is saying coming from environmental research now being conducted in the humanities by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and archaeologists.

CO2 is actually a trigger in the atmosphere that starts the global warming process. The real culprit is water vapour which in itself is the most powerful of the greenhouse gases. CO2 is present in small amounts but lasts in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and therein lies the danger because we keep adding to it instead of depleting it. One of the big problems is that the oceans hold about 40% of the earth's CO2 when cold but releases it back into the atmosphere as the ocean waters warm up, which makes more CO2 available to trigger the production of more water vapour which in its turn heats the planet even further.

Question is, irrespective of who is right and who is wrong, should we risk putting more and more CO2 into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels? What if the climate change scientists are correct in their warnings and we realise too late that they are right? Do you want to allow the global TNCs of the world who are driven by the want of more profits to drive us towards a hotter planet devastated by droughts, floods, environmental degradation and species extinction? Do you want to take that risk Hasbeen?

Mr Opinion, we know that the climate scientists, & the gravy train riders are con men of the highest order. Yes we should put every bit of CO2 we can in the atmosphere. If the con men are even partly right, it might delay the onset of the next ice age, due very soon.

It might at least green the planet as it is now doing on the fringes if the Sahara desert among others. Currently NASA has advised that the flora of the planet has increased by 14% over the period of satellite mapping of such things. If you think that is bad, please tell us what is good.

Belly old mate, there is no way that current alternate energy, as in wind & solar can power more than 25%, of our power requirements ever, & that would be at a cost no country could afford.

Try looking at something other than lefty sites like the ABC, & get some facts.

Dear Hasbeen,

So that's it. You and others who want to keep business as usual are willing to take the risk that the scientific community has got it wrong on global warming and its consequences.

I've always held the view that it would be the conservatives and climate change denialists and those who think that it is someone else's problem would win the day on this debate. You're willing to risk everything because you don't want your world to change in order to prevent the destruction of the planet and life on it How selfish!.

Once again I agree with Bob Brown, wind farms do spoil the view, one has only to drive between Inverell and Glen Innes to see the effect of wind farms; another point is that they should never be built in sight of a winding country "highway", gaping motorists become a danger to themselves as well as to others.