The wind farm meets the Metro

THE movie The Age of Stupid, which opened last week, paints a pretty damming picture of the mad fix we're in after 100 years of cooking our planet.

It features a rural English family who build wind turbines, apostles for self-sufficiency who faced stiff opposition at every site they have tried to install them on. Apparently, those who profess a strong commitment to fighting global warming do not want a wind farm interfering with their view.

At a rally at Rozelle last Saturday a bunch of people said much the same thing. They were pretty upset, and one, who accosted me with a flyer, had that frothing, wide-eyed look of truly righteous fury.

No way did he want a Metro mass public transport system anywhere near him.

The rally was organised by the Mayor of Leichhardt, Jamie Parker. He is a member of the Greens, the party that supports public transport as an alternative to gas-guzzling methods of getting around. Lately though, he has been describing the Metro as "a perfect storm".

I was being told to oppose the most ambitious, greenest mass transit scheme ever proposed for Sydney.

The route starts at Central and goes to Rozelle, extending through Drummoyne and north-west, linking up with the new Epping to Chatswood underground line.

The second bit, another spur of what will become a much more extensive network, going east, north and south, runs from Central, under Parramatta Road via Sydney University and Camperdown as far as Leichhardt. Then it heads north to Five Dock, Newington and on to Parramatta.

But why is a green mass transit system not wanted in the one bit of Sydney the Greens run? The mayor says property owners may be inconvenienced, have their charming village vistas interfered with. So he wants nothing at all. Except "a perfect storm" for a government minister in a knife-edge seat.

In The Age of Stupid, we watch Sydney consumed by flames. Global warming has destroyed everything we treasure, including our property and of course, all our precious views.

In Perfect Storm the George Clooney character summed it all up well. He could have been talking to any one of those curious anti-Metro greenies at the rally.

"Last time I thought you had something to offer. But you know, you're just a punk."