But when I saw that Clive Hamilton is going to run as a candidate for Higgins, I was suddenly possessed by an unfamiliar feeling. I want Kelly O’Dwyer to beat Clive Hamilton hands down for the seat of Higgins.

Disclosure: I know Kelly personally, although I haven’t seen her for a few years. I don’t agree with her on many issues, but she’s willing to discuss questions in a cordial way. If there’s one Liberal I’d like to see elected in this country, it’s her. She is strong, smart and articulate. I like her. I note that she has been copping some flak for being young and female. I think that it’s fantastic to see a woman get ahead.

Now on to Hamilton. I’ve never had much time for him. I think that there is a definite place for environmentalism and environmental concerns. But it is a theory of mine that some in the Green movement combine the worst elements of paganism and the worst elements of Christianity.

On the pagan side, I have seen dippy ideas about the great balance of “Mother Nature”, without remembering that in pagan religions, there is a threefold division between Creator, Preserver and Destroyer. Nature is a bitch. Think of cuckoos – laying their own eggs in the nest and throwing out the legitimate eggs so that some other bird has to bring up baby. Or sharks eating baby seals. Or whatever.

I have also discerned a kind of hideous neo-puritanism in the Green movement. Perhaps they have borrowed this from the Christians, but lack any of the compassion which true Christians display. According to this neo-puritanical view, we are all reaping the rewards of our environmental sins, and the only way we can rid ourselves of these sins is self-denial (along with a bit of self-flagellation). We must deny ourselves airplane travel, car travel, big houses, exotic food, procreation, etc etc. (Well, “the masses” must deny themselves these things…of course, those who are elite intellectuals in the Green movement can be trusted to be wise). There is a strong millenarian streak in this brand of environmentalism – the end of the world is nigh unless we take urgent action now. The meek shall inherit the earth because they burn cow dung and do not use electricity. Hamilton typifies that latter category.

Someone in comments at Andrew Norton’s place likened Hamilton to an Old Testament prophet, but I wonder if Saint Paul isn’t a better comparison. There’s that fervour mixed with piety and self-hatred. Like Andrew Norton, Pollytics isn’t impressed either. On the other hand, Guy Rundle thinks he has a chance. and Mark at LP think he has a chance. Mark at LP thinks it’s yet another instance of putting in a high profile candidate which may backfire.

Personally, I would never vote for Hamilton, and Sinclair Davidson’s excellent post at Catallaxy illustrates why. He simply contrasts Hamilton’s statement that he is taking a principled stance with a quotation from a 2007 article by Hamilton in the Courier Mail:

Very few people, even among environmentalists, have truly faced up to what the science is telling us.

This is because the implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes. [my emphasis added]

This guy is not to be trusted. He thinks that he knows better than anyone else what is good for them. And if they don’t know what’s good for them, he’ll force it down their throats… I wouldn’t touch him with a six foot barge pole. Go Kelly!

Update:

What was I saying about dippy paganism and environmentalism? [Incidentally, I am reliably informed that serious pagans call dippy paganism "fluffwicca", a name which I love]

Andrew Bolt has collected some quotes from Clive Hamilton, including this beautiful ripe one which rather proves my analysis above:

So I think where we’re going is to begin to see a Gaian earth in its ecological, cybernetic way, infused with some notion of mind or soul or chi, which will transform our attitudes to it away from an instrumentalist one, towards an attitude of greater reverence. I mean, the truth is, unless we do that, I mean we seriously are in trouble, because we know that Gaia is revolting against the impact of human beings on it.

[Hamilton on Philosopher's Zone on ABC radio]