Known and hated (at least by me) is “Foxtel News after Dark”. One after another, know-all hosts ad nauseum, all with the same pro-coal, climate change denying rhetoric, and ungracious bitter anti-Turnbull tirades. Night after night. Week after week. Same old topics! I’m rarely tuned-in unless I want to be reminded of how violently I disagree with them. In fact, I would be prepared to pay a premium to have their programs excluded from my Foxtel subscription. I often think of cancelling my contract, but could I live without the AFL and the A league football?
I hoped, vainly it turns out, that since the ascension of coalophil Scott Morrison, we might come to enjoy some ABC inspired investigative journalism, and perhaps even a few Indigenous performing arts programs on Foxtel. Not yet. Little has changed, even although the Coalition won an election the polls for the last three years under Turnbull consistently showed they would lose. Surprise! Surprise! They also now have a mandate for coal power up North! How successful is “Foxtel News after Dark”?
Okay! Okay! I get it! You’ve won! Please Foxtel News, give it a rest. Don’t just malign us Environmental Liberals turned Greenies over this issue. The burden of proof on global warming is with you, not us. Bring it on and show us it can be done safely.. If you are wrong, voters won’t forget.
Scott Morrison has already presided over what Tony Abbott wanted but hadn’t been able to achieve by the time he lost his safe Liberal seat. i.e. Regulatory approval for a new thermal coal mine in Central Queensland.
No ordinary mine, Adani is ambitiously the world’s largest, and the probable fore-runner of several others in the coal-rich Galilee Basin. It has been suggested that at full production with the help of other eager would-be developers such as Gina Rhinehart and Clive Palmer, Australia’s coal exports could be doubled to over 600 million tonnes per year.
This, plus the regional new coal-fired power station Clive Palmer is keen to build, how many new jobs might be created?
This is the vision that they argue won the election for the Coalition and has given them a mandate for coal! Jobs it may bring, but at what price?
How many coal miners will lose their lives or health? Who was it that said, don’t be scared of coal? Like asbestos, it is harmless when undisturbed, but potentially lethal when handled, and is carcinogenic.
Will adjacent land owners and others be concerned about depletion of the precious aquifers in drought-prone Central Queensland, and the risk of pollution of the Great Artesian Basin with lethal heavy-metal poisoning?
The Abbot Point Port Terminal operated by Adani (AAPT) has a handling capacity of 50 million tonnes per annum exporting metallurgical coal from mines in the Bowen Basin. To handle stockpiled coal from the Adani mine via the 200 km long Carmichael Railway Network (CRN) with anticipated production of 60 million tonnes per annum, it will be necessary to increase the capacity of the Port entailing dredging and new constructions.
Already under threat, Australia’s unique Great Barrier Reef in the vicinity of Bowen, is highly likely to be damaged from these changes, from shipping accidents and from cyclonic flooding of the huge coal stockpiles.
Over-riding every other consideration however is what effect ramping-up Australia’s thermal coal production will have on global warming and climate change.
Although the Coalition decisively won the May 18 Australian federal election, it can scarcely be viewed as a referendum on climate change. We expect our politicians to be responsible and reduce carbon emissions from the burning of coal for electricity generation.
This Everyday Australian 