The Lowy Institute, a think-tank, has been asking Australians to say how quickly the country should respond to the threat of global warming. As you report, some forty percent currently think that action should be immediate, about as many think that action should be gradual, and nearly twenty percent think there should be no action whatsoever (“An Expensive Gamble,” July 16, 2011). Six years ago the percentages were quite different, though. Nearly seventy percent of Australians were for immediate action, around twenty-five percent for gradual action, and a bit more than five percent were for no action at all. Times have changed, indeed. The economic crisis has not helped a bit. If the doldrums persist, which is rather likely, those for immediate action and those for no action will exchange places in another six years or so. And global warming will be swept under the rug together with the Greens. Of course, Australia cannot be all that different in this regard than other developed countries in North America and Europe. The Greens are facing extinction.