In the battle for the planet’s climate future, Australia’s Adani mine is the line in the sand
There is nowhere else on the planet right now where the dichotomy between two potential futures – one where we address the climate change crisis, one where we ignore this momentous threat and continue with business as usual – is playing out in such a dramatic and explosive way as Australia. In the US, Donald Trump is decimating decades of hard-fought environmental and climate standards – it’s all 18th century all the time. But the ageing fossil fuel assets and recent “market failure” of the Australian electricity grid is pushing political leaders to all-out brawling, pitting conservative inaction against the demand for solution-focused action. A recent wave of blackouts and near misses and the proposal of the biggest coalmine in the world – the Adani Carmichael mine in Queensland – has created tinder-dry conditions that only needed one spark to go up in flames. The spark finally came recently, via Twitter, from renewable energy entrepreneur Elon Musk who offered to sell the batteries that would remove the last argument against renewable power. It turned the deadlocked debate over how to fix Australia’s fossil fuel-ladenand often failing energy “market” into an open war between those backing the dying coal industry with those set on using the moment to transition to renewable energy. Indeed, one of the icons of the ageing coal fleet, the dirtiest coal power station in the developed world – Hazelwood in Victoria – turns off its turbines this week as it shuts down. The symbols couldn’t be clearer: Musk’s batteries or Adani’s mega-mine and dirty coal power. Which one represents the future? As you formulate the answer, remember that the war is of course playing out against a tragic backdrop: the ongoing destruction of the Great Barrier Reef that is Australia’s great natural treasure, the thing it’s been charged by the world to protect. That horror is a human-created disaster, caused directly by man-made global warming that is increasing ocean temperatures by an alarming rate.
Posted by admin
on Mar 27 2017. Filed under Climate change.
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