Binding greenhouse emission targets came up when I was talking to Newcastle radio this morning. Was Kevin Rudd ever going to sign up to them in Bali? I was asked.

The answer, of course, was no. Rudd is a social democrat. I said he wasn’t going to unilaterally trash the Hunter coal industry then issue all the newly-unemployed with higher power bills.

There had been a concerted campaign by NGOs and the like to railroad the government over Bali. Labor policies have been misrepresented in a way that would – should – do the opposition proud.

Labor’s position is clear. Kevin Rudd has commissioned a report by Ross Garnaut on the impacts of emission cuts. He is waiting for that. In the meantime, Rudd has ratified Kyoto and got Australia involved in the process, to use his words, of working “on a road map for the next couple of years, within which countries then embark upon long-term commitment”.

There’s also an “in the meantime” task for us. We need to recap what was in those civics lessons that you slept through. Politics is all about compromise. Compromise in the best possible sense – a settling of differences in which each side makes concessions. You heard this all in social studies class years ago, but it’s worth repeating.

Parliaments are made up of representatives of varying interests. Varying interests who have all agreed to pursue those varying interests under the one set of rules – law. Parliaments exist to talk things through. True, a lot of crap gets spoken. Hour after hour of passionate debate is settled with votes where nobody betrays any independence of mind and everybody follows the party line. But it’s better than the other options.

To do the schoolteacher act again, the word “parliament” derives from the Old French expression parlement, from parler, meaning to talk. And for all the weakness of our parliamentary system, talking things through and reaching a compromise is better than settling differences though the other two alternatives – violence or dictatorial fiat.

Now, I know that a large number of Crikey cosmopolitans don’t believe in democracy. Going by the letters, they appear to want to be ruled by a wiccan priest-king.

Democracy, fortunately, is what we’ve got – and I don’t just say that because I know who’d be first in the wicker man.

Democracy means that the NGOs in Bali can talk about “greenhouse denialism” – preposterous rhetorical hyperbole that link people who want discussion, not absolutism, with those who deny the murder of six million. It means the same groups can make perversely jingoistic claims that “our international reputation” will suddenly be besmirched if we fail to immediately sign up to binding targets.

Rudd is dodging these Bali bombers. His efforts have been acknowledged by none other than Al Gore. “I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority,” he said when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo earlier this week.

Dimensioning a crisis is the first step to successfully solving it. Like working out if amputation is a proportionate response to a stubbed toe.

That’s exactly what Rudd is doing in Bali.