. We have often been critical of The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) Business Editor Terry McCrann in the past, but we must congratulate him on his latest article which appeared on Tuesday, August 18, 2009. Following is the articulate, brilliant article

Emissions debate in outer limits

REMINISCENCES of Woodstock are all the rage this month, in many cases proving the accuracy of the dictum about remembering the 1960s. Perhaps this is why we seem to be

literally living through a never-ending episode of the 1960s science fiction TV show The Outer Limits - where aliens take control of people's minds, from the prime minister down. How else

to explain the otherwise inexplicable? Where we have Kevin Rudd, Penny Wong and previously rational people like Lindsay Tanner and Craig Emerson marching in lockstep, as if down one of

those dodgy 1960s mainstream US film sets, chanting "emissions must be reduced, emissions must be reduced". Seeming to stand against them is an unlikely, and it has to be said,

unconvincing hero. For is Malcolm Turnbull's "Opposition" just one of those rather predictable twists they usually managed to squeeze into the episode - to build to the final

climax? As all hope is finally lost. when the camera zooms in on the back •of the "hero's" neck to show the same mark of mind-possession. The screen goes black in eerie foretaste

tomorrow's reality.

That seems to be all too depressingly the case. For while he might be shouting to the victims - - simply, us-"1'm here to save you", he's also chanting sotto voce "emissions must be

reduced. emissions must be reduced.That literal or figurative mind possession also demonstrates the pointlessness of posing the obvious question: Why? There is, of course, no answer.

Rational discourse is completely impossible, given the aisAut0 commitment by Rudd and Turnbull to doing something so utterly pointless.

Australia reduces its emissions of carbon dioxide by 100 per cent and the - purportedly beneficial - consequences are zero. We reduce by the suggested 20 per cent and the answer

remains exactly the same -20 per cent of zero is still zero. Not so negative consequences. They would - will? -be devastating. And, they don't only start some time in the

future once emissions are reduced but as soon as you commit to their reduction.

Indeed, they are happening already, with our bi-partisan "commitment to commit" to their reduction. A commitment which applies seemingly irrespective of what the rest of

 the world does.Which raises the interesting question why aliens only took over these Down Under minds.Those negative consequences are not simply the failure to build new -

sensibly, coal-fired - base load power. But increasingly to spend the money needed to maintain what we already have.

Also, the pouring of money into useless so-called "renewable energy". The only things renewable about the politically correct favorite, wind, are the billions needed to subsidise it and to

"renew" parts when the wind does blow, ahem, too hard. The separation of the two pieces of legislation might make political sense. For both government and opposition "alien"

Emissions will fall if you force power companies to provide and consumers to buy alternative ­read, expensive and intermittent - wind power. But it makes no sense in an un-

alienated world. Especially as the separation is to be temporary.  Now while Malcolm has the "`mark" on his neck, Barnaby Joyce and Wilson Tuckey have clearly managed to escape;

 and so has senator Nick Minchin, at least so far. If he does look for the "mark." And confirm our living nightmare. We're not just living in the 1960s but a make-believe version of it.