Love in the time of coal

(Images: Australian Marine Conservation Society)

(Images: www.ecocitizenaustralia.com.au)


What will it take to kick our coal habit?

Can we stop this relentless march of coal mines that expands from the Hunter Valley to the Barrier Reef and beyond? In fact is anywhere in Australia safe from draglines and excavators?

Fast tracking development is wrong and the world has us on notice.

What is wrong with us?

...and is it already too late to save our reef?

Fight for Scone

(Images: Fight for the reef, Australian Marine Conservation Society, YouTube)


From our position of being bamboozled with 'options' for Scone, the bigger picture is masked.

But we need to turn our minds to that big picture...because it's one of coal mines and they require checking.

We need to be saying "no" to new coal mines, "no" to viral development, and "no" to community destroying infrastructture period

We mustn't be distracted by vested interests and politicians.

If we didn't have '[coal-mines] to the right of us,' '[coal-mines] to the left of us' and well as '[coal mines] in front of us,' we wouldn't be feeling quite so 'volleyed and thundered' (a million apologies, Lord Tennyson!!)

No kidding...(more apologies, Lord T)...ours is 'to reason why' and 'to make reply,' and ours is certainly 'not to do or die.'

Big coal projects can be cancelled (see "Fight for the Reef" above), or rerouted, and politicians can enact change. So heartening to read in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald that Mozambique Mineral Resources Minister Esperanca Biasrealise totally gets coal:

"...mineral resources are not renewable"

and

"how they are removed from the surface, underground or water may only be done once, but the impacts of that removal forever impact the natural and economic environment."

Furthermore according to Gareth Hutchens, the Mozambique government forced Rio Tinto...

"...to write down the value of its coal reserves In Mozambique's Tete province by $3 billion after the government prevented it taking coal, by barge, from the company's mine down the Zambezi River."

We could do this too - in fact maybe we could do both - (1) cancel the 2 new Gunnedah mines and then (2) reroute any leftover coal we haven't cancelled to a more suitable heavy industry rail corridor (word-on-the-scone-street is that the Ulan railway line is possible and could work).

So why not? 

The 'options' on the Scone table are too political and unsatisfactory, and we can't agree, so why not just put our feet down and make demands namely 'goodbye new coal mine plans?'

It's clearly possible.