Fundamentals favour soil carbon

There is only one way to see the way ahead clearly in a sand storm such as has engulfed the ETS Legislation and the Liberal Party: go to the fundamentals. They dictate the outcomes, even though they may be obscured for a time by the dust kicked up by the excited partygoers. The fundamentals in Malcolm Turnbull's "Last Stand" are these: 1. Only the rusted on core 30% of old Liberal voters support the anti-ETS/denialist position championed by Nick Minchin and Tony Abbott. 2. The flood of emails pouring into the inboxes of conservative Liberals are generated by well-organised 'astroturf' operators - experts at creating the impression of grassroots support, using small numbers of people with multiple identities and multiple affiliations. 3. Liberal Party polling reveals that it will lose 20 seats if it fights an election on climate change. This would mean the Party will be reduced to a rump that can expect to remain in Opposition for at least 2 and even 3 elections. 4. Major corporate backers are expecting action on Climate Change. 5. The majority of the Parliamentary Liberal Party want to see the Party modernised and distanced from the old Howard imagery, rejected by the electorate in 2007. 6. Only in the hothouse atmosphere of Canberra could the arch-conservative wing of the Liberal Party believe that it can take control of the Parliamentary Party and install Tony Abbott as Leader of the Opposition. 7. Joe Hockey, were he to accept the Leadership from the hands of the rebels, would be a glove puppet of the Right. 8. Malcolm Turnbull is not John Gorton (who cast his vote against himself, allowing Malcolm Fraser a rails run.) 9. The longer the coup takes to finalise, the less likely the rebels are to win. 9. The longer the delay in actioning the soil carbon solution, the more demand for a solution will rise, the more open to our solution people will become, the less insistent on compliance with strict Kyoto accounting rules will officials become.