Green with envy

I do not understand the green movement.

Don't get me wrong. I understand that the environment is important. I think minke whales should be protected, and that we should take steps to secure fresh water supplies, before China and India go to war over the glaciers in the Himalayas. I think that watering your prize-winning rhodedendrons is not as important as having enough to drink, and I don't much care for the exceedingly charred tan the hole in the ozone layer will probably give me sometime soon.

But there are some limits to what is common-sense environmentalism, and what is utter crap. And there's quite a lot of the latter going around at the moment. First off, the political party, The Greens. This is a little like Nick Xenophon. They have a party platform, being that they want Australia to be environmentally-friendly. Kyoto sounds like a top idea, carbon emissions should be reduced, and Mike Rann's head should be tapped as a source of geothermic energy. Sounds all very well and good so far. But what about issues other than the environment? If the Greens are primarily, as their name suggests, an environmental party, are they actually qualified to introduce bills regarding social justice, economics, diplomatic initiatives? This is especially difficult when we consider that they have not exactly said much about anything apart from Kyoto, carbon emissions and Mike Rann's head. It's a bit different to, say, the German Bündnis 90/die Grünen, also a "Green" party, but one which, in its campaign literature, also has a specific focus on other areas. As I said, the same problem can be seen with Nick Xenophon, and the Anti-Cruelty to Animals Party; it's all very nice if you don't want Australians to spend six zillion dollars on pokies, or if you think sheep aren't having a fair go, but what about taxes? How about free trade agreements? What are your positions then? Kind of limits the focus a little, don't you think?

But, admittedly, the Greens are not the worst of the green movement. Of course, energy is a primary issue these days, and we've been told lots that fossil fuels are bad. Okay then, I can understand that. But in the same breath, we are told that we should not, ever, have atomic power plants. Coal-fired power stations are bad and should be wiped out, but we can't replace them with a cleaner alternative. Apparently, this is due to the waste byproducts generated, which could be sunk deep into the earth, somewhere no one cares about (like Elizabeth), and left to degrade for a while. Also, though nuclear power stations have very few emissions other than steam, they're a shocking alternative, we are told, because they will explode. It seems that a catastrophic meltdown is a dead certainty, and those who oppose reactors point solemnly to Chernobyl. Because, of course, we would use outdated Soviet technology to build a fundamentally flawed atomic power plant on the intersection of three seismic fault lines. A quadrillion to one chance of an accident is too much for us to stomach. But then, what are the alternatives?

Our trendy green friends tell us that solar is wonderful, but it is actually very inefficient. At the moment, we really don't have the ability to store nearly as much power as we would need, meaning that any solar power plant would have to be supplemented by some other, more conventional means. Wind power is another alternative. This is a problem because:

• there has to be wind,
• we'd need to build hundreds of the turbines to generate a fraction of what a nuclear reactor could,
• the turbines are ugly.

No joking there. It is amazing how many of our rat-milk-latte-sipping environmental activists tell us how lovely wind power is, but then bitterly complain about what eyesores the turbines are. Not trendy enough, it seems.
Hydroelectricity is an excellent alternative, until it actually needs to be built. Then, our unshaven, earthy colleagues whinge about the environmental impact of building a dam. Any time a hydroelectric dam is even mooted, greenies point hysterically at China's Three Gorges Dam, and bitch non-stop about the number or rare mosses and earthworms that will soon be drowned. We can't even buy fifty billion hamsters and put them on treadmills to generate electricity, because then the environmentalists would shoot us for being cruel to animals.

Speaking of which, environmental militancy is on the rise again. Recently, it was suggested that, as Japanese whalers are stopping in our Antarctic Whale Sanctuary to butcher some whales for "research", the Royal Australian Navy could use force to get rid of them. I personally think it's a brilliant idea. Send one of the whaling ships to the bottom with a Harpoon missile or some shells from a Bofors deck gun, and see how many come back to try again. But then, our green friends would complain about the heavy metals that then litter the seabed. Probably because the Japanese are meant to be our friends, Mr Alexander Downer says that we won't blast any whaling ships out of the sea, which is a pity, but probably wouldn't be too politic. Okay, I understand that. But now some group says they'll be taking their small flotilla of boats down to the whale sanctuary, and they'll be ramming the Japanese ships. Given that these are green boats, I imagine they're made of some environmentally-friendly biodegradeable plastic or something, but five will get you ten that, whatever they're made from, a dedicated whaling trawler is going to make very short work of it. The damn things are designed for extensive cruises near icepacks, for christ's sake. The result of a ramming will probably be fifteen greenies manning the lifeboats as their own vessel sinks out from underneath them. And then what? Do they expect the Japanese to rescue them, or is the Royal Australian Navy expected to send a frigate to pick them up?

Just goes to show that it's often a good idea to think things through.

One final thought, and not to do with our v-neck, organic sweater-wearing colleagues. I was visited by two Jehovah's Witnesses today, who tell me that the Kingdom of Heaven will be ruled by God and 144,000 advisers. All, presumably, Jehovah's Witnesses. According to JW-media.org, there are currently 6,700,000 Jehovah's Witnesses. Let's assume, although the figure will be on the low side, that, since foundation of the Bible Students/Jehovah's Witnesses movement in 1876, there have been 10,000,000 Jehovah's Witnesses. This means that only about 1 in every hundred Jehovah's Witnesses will be chosen by God to go to Heaven. If you're a Jehovah's Witness, it must be pretty crappy knowing that you might have the same faith as every other Witness, ever, and yet you're pretty unlikely to be favoured by your god. Why would you bother?