Comments
Rene,
Do yourself a favour and read Gunns’ proposal (it’s too late to comment though), then tell me this is a clean and green pulp mill.
Please don’t parrot the RPDC, it seems they are part of operation “fast track”.Look up “Dioxin” and “Organochlorines” in the encyclopedia and tell me how good this mill will be for Tasmanians.
How in 2005 can we propose to dump anything into our precious waters and call it “world’s best practice?
If Dioxin is ok and those who seek to preserve our way of life are scaremongers, then maybe you would be happy with 240 tonnes of Dioxin every year dumped at your children’s/grandchildren’s favourite park?
Perhaps we could run Hobart’s (I assume that is where you live) power supply by burning 500,000 tonnes every year of green wood waste and “black liquor” and let “mother nature” take care of it?
Hope your research goes well.
DavePosted by Dave Groves on 05/12/05 at 09:34 PMMr Hidding
Although I respect much of what the liberal party does, I must condemn you for your ridiculous ranting in support of the proposed pulp mill. I am not a Green Party member, but I recommend you read Mr Cheek’s viewpoint of Green policies in his recent book, that he clearly ‘silently’ supported and admired during his time as Party leader. He did not have the courage to take these policies under the Liberal Party wing - because you all thought it was political suicide.
I have also spoken privately to some Labor politicians who are also supportive of most Green environmental policies, but feel thwarted by their leadership. What moral fortitude do any of our Liberal and Labor leading politicians have? Can’t you get together and do what is right for a change.
The main objection to the pulp mill is simple and real - ongoing massive scale destruction of native forest.
I remain breathless and almost lifeless at the stupidity of the State Liberal and Labour parties.
Tasmania’s only hope is that our major parties embrace modern environmental thinking - but what I fear is that you will continue to only recruit to your ranks those that tow what is now an obsolete party line.
Regards
Simon
Posted by Simon on 06/12/05 at 01:13 AM“Refreshingly, money was not on the agenda.”
That’s just the problem, Dave.
I was there and so were my grandchildren. Not even Lara Giddings believes that having the mill will be better for the environment than not having it, or even for the economy in the long run.
The real issue is neither the environment nor the economy. Why should anybody give a flying woodchip about either if they can make a profit out of Gunns shares in the short term?
Money must be on the agenda, otherwise it is all a waste of time.
Show John Gay and those who do his bidding in parliament how he can make more money than by floating the present pulp mill idea and he will change his tune.
Anyone who can turn Evercreech from a profitable dairy farm into a marginally more profitable plantation has only one motivation.
Posted by Justa Bloke on 06/12/05 at 03:23 AMSo once again Rene demonstrates his hysterical forestry fetish to the Tasmanian public and drives a further nail into the coffin of the Tasmanian Liberal Party.
Rene’s complete dismissal of the rally attendees and refusal to address or even acknowledge their concerns just beggars belief.
Labor and the Libs don’t even have fresh ideas when it comes to Green bashing these days. They tried it in ‘89 and the result? A Labor government overseen by the Greens. They tried it in ‘02 and the result? The Greens increased their representation in the lower house from 1 to 4.
Press releases like that from Rene’s office do nothing short of making my blood boil. Won’t it be truly wonderful watching Rene concede defeat next year?
Posted by Greg Price on 06/12/05 at 05:34 AMActually Bob Cheek’s flirting with Green ideas on issues like old-growth forests was a significant part of the reason why the Liberals got so badly thrashed last time.
Resource industries are a very significant swinging constituency in Tasmania and Hidding has a lot of fences of this sort to mend to give the Liberals a chance of an equal position rather than another towelling.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 06/12/05 at 10:14 AMForestry may play a key role in swinging constituencies, although the logic of this defies me given the declining jobs in forestry in those areas.
However, am I totally naive to believe the coming together of our major parties on the issue of logging and thereby taking it off the political agenda is possible?
Are our politicians willing to destroy our forests for personal gain?
Posted by Simon Parsons on 07/12/05 at 10:23 PMDr Bonham hits the nail on the head.
Latham foolishly failed to learn from Cheek’s fate. My recall is that Cheek lost his seat and that was unprecedented in Tasmania for a leader of a major party, even with the vagaries of the Hare-Clarke electoral system.
Maybe Simon’s logic is founded on a falsehood. The forest industry has always argued that, for various reasons, the greens declining jobs mantra is untrue propaganda. Could it be that the electoral clout of those who work in the forest industry is evidence that the decline is not true? A recent BRS study also supports this observation.
rat
Posted by rat on 08/12/05 at 04:29 AMI think it is better to say that it was not Latham or Cheek who were foolish, but the voters.
If I am correct then what we need in Tasmania is a public education program supported by both major political parties informing us of a better way to manage our forests.
This would require a bipartisan acceptance of the Tasmania Together findings as a legitimate process (or a State wide referendum on the issue) and the courage to move forward against big business interests - sounds impossible but it can be done.
Naive again?
Posted by Simon Parsons on 08/12/05 at 06:50 AMActually that’s another of the few things Rene Hidding is doing right - attacking Tasmania Together.
Whereas the Greens and Labor are happy to selectively use the pointless motivated-response wafflefest to support their views selectively, the Libs have called for the farce to be cut down to size. It is good that there is one party willing to express that view.
As for “a better way to manage Tasmania’s forests”, Simon, what makes you so qualified to say that the rejection of Green-leaning forest policies from those sympathetic to the industry resulted from lack of education rather than, for instance, differences in values? Precisely what “facts” should the people be told?
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 08/12/05 at 09:20 AMKevin, you ask why a more ‘green’ approach to forestry is not merely the expression of a subjective, and hence not necessarily ‘right’, value.
The argument I think comes down in the end to the degree of objectivity contained the aesthetics of nature, and assumes we can physically exist without any nature as we now know it.
I say that for the aesthetics of nature to be of no objective value is implausible - you would have to be inhuman to view the sunset from the top of Mt Wellington and see or feel no value in it.
Thus the rightness and wrongness of cutting down our forests has an objective base and thus cannot be solely a value judgement.
Then the debate, you will say, comes down to a value judgement regarding to what degree our forests can be cut down and it still be right.
I would say that objectively the world does not have enough forests (talking aesthetically only) because it is 80% deforested already and that the objective value of nature supercedes any subjective lack of value of that remaining. (I choose my words very carefully here.)
Thus we cannot afford to cut any more forest down.
Maybe I need educating! Any philosophers out there?
Posted by Simon Parsons on 10/12/05 at 12:56 PMObjectivity in the aesthetics of nature? Hardly. The recent studies of aesthetic responses to different forest management strategies in Tasmania showed that members of conservation groups have one set of aesthetic values relating to forests, elements within the forest industries have another, and the general public have a third, albeit closer to the former than the latter.
There will probably always be people who aesthetically prefer the built environment or gently rolling cleared pastures to old growth forests, and there will be others who, while aesthetically preferring old growth forests, will not be too fussed about exactly how much old growth forest remains so long as there is plenty to go and look at if you want to.
This is especially significant because most old growth forest will never be logged and virtually nobody will ever get around to visiting and aesthetically appreciating even all Tasmania’s protected old growth forests in their lifetime. It is not as if we are talking about a choice between having it all and flattening the lot. I also don’t see how every human being loving the sunset off Mt Wellington would translate into every human being loving the look of old growth forests most of them could not possibly access, even if the former was true (which I doubt.)
To say that there is an assumption “that we can physically exist without any nature as we know it” is again incorrect because no party supports a policy of logging all forests. And, for what it’s worth, I am a philosophy grad too, and one of the units I studied was ... aesthetics!
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 11/12/05 at 05:50 AMKevin
I do not claim to be a philosophy graduate. I have made an attempt to answer your concerns re the facts that I may have at hand that justify a protectionist approach to nature.
Before commenting again I recommend you reread what I wrote - carefully. I chose to ignore the issue of man’s physical dependence on nature as this will always be a matter of degree.
My analogy of a sunset from Mt Wellington was just that - an analogy. My point being that it is plausible to believe that nature has some objective aesthetic value. Walking through a rainforest might make a better example.
Now if you accept that there is some objective value in the aesthetics of nature, forests in particular - then:
1. You do not have to see something for it to have intrinsic value - it is irrelevant that people will never see many of our forests, just as it is irrelevant that the oceans are of value despite the fact you can only see to the horizon.
2. If 80% of something of value has already disappeared then simple arithmetic (utilitarian approach I guess) losing any of the 20% remaining is ‘bad’ - unless something good is gained objectively from an aesthetic perspective by the loss of nature (forests in this case), such as their replacement by rolling hills as you suggested some of us prefer over forests.
3. Your argument about some people preferring rolling hills then becomes meaningful - except that the facts are that is our public forests the native forest is replaced by clearcuts/burnoffs/immature regrowth - one can reasonably say all of objectively lesser value than the mature forests they replace.
So I think my argument remains intact.
You might win if the forests were replaced by rolling hills and these were preferred by the majority of people - but I believe this argument is implausible also.
Posted by Simon Parsons on 19/12/05 at 06:22 AMSimon, you appear to have no facts at hand - just waffle and overambitious philosophical speculation.
Also your insinuations that I needed to reread your previous post were silly - having made the mistake of rereading it I feel inclined to invoice you for my time and add an extra 20% to cover the boredom involved.
My reason for challenging your Mt Wellington example was that even if it demonstrated an objective aesthetic value in nature, it would not prove that such a value applied to forests. You now use “walking through the rainforest” as an example. Can you prove that all humans can (or should) find aesthetic value in this? Even if you could, this would not prove aesthetic objective value, only subjective consensus among all living humans. If someone came along who found rainforests incredibly ugly, what would you say to convince them otherwise?Re your argument 1, an argument against destroying something based on aesthetic value only develops any hint of force when an agent capable of appreciating that value is thereby deprived of the chance to see it.
Following this, argument 2 does not work, because despite the loss of 80% of something, the remaining 20% can still be far more than is needed to satisfy aesthetic requirements. Since you’re so fond of analogies, here’s one: imagine that there are a million copies of a famous painting and 800,000 of these are destroyed. Is there now a conclusive case for destroying no more under any circumstances on aesthetic value grounds? No, there isn’t, because you only need to have a far smaller number of copies to ensure that everyone who wants to can perceive the aesthetic value of that painting. (Natural forests are, of course, not identical copies of each other, but in terms of the potential for the average person to derive aesthetic benefit from them, many may as well be.)
Also you ignore the extent to which logging contributes indirectly to the construction of all kinds of objects of possible aesthetic merit by humans - not just transformations in scenery that are perceived as aesthetically negative by many (but not all).
Finally, your comment about hypothetical majority preference is irrelevant because majority preference demonstrates nothing about objectivity.
You’re supposed to be showing here that there are facts that the public need to be informed about, but you can’t even make a convincing meta-case that there is an area of facts about which the public is ignorant, let alone (so far) state what these facts are. Aesthetics seems like extremely weak ground to base such a case on to me. I was expecting you would try something in either economics or environmental science.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 19/12/05 at 11:16 AMKevin
I am sorry but I cannot continue this interesting debate as the ‘vibe’ of your responses is unpleasant. I suggest you take a more polite approach in the future.
Regards
Simon
Posted by Simon Parsons on 21/12/05 at 12:57 PMSimon, since you claim to care so much about “politeness”, permit me to point out that it was exceedinly impolite of you to write “Before commenting again I recommend you reread what I wrote - carefully.” This clearly implies that I had not carefully read what you wrote the first time, which is absolute bollocks, so any impoliteness you may discern in my response you brought entirely upon yourself. As a result it is clear this line about “politeness” shows poor self-reflection as well as a lack of awareness that public debate generally isn’t nice and hippy, and is an excuse for bailing out from an argument you have no hope of success in maintaining.
No regards whatsoever,
Kevin.
Posted by Dr Kevin Bonham on 22/12/05 at 01:36 AM
