{"id":15941,"date":"2014-03-19T17:04:35","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T06:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=15941"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:58:13","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:58:13","slug":"big-coal-gets-hot-heavy-protestors-georgefwoods-responds-nswmc-resourcesqld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/big-coal-gets-hot-heavy-protestors-georgefwoods-responds-nswmc-resourcesqld\/","title":{"rendered":"Big coal gets hot and heavy with protestors: @georgefwoods responds to @NSWMC and @ResourcesQLD"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Open<\/a>

Open cut brown coal mine for the Loy Yang Power Station, Victoria, Australia. (Photo: Marcus Wong. Source: Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

By\u00a0Georgina Woods<\/a>\u00a0 @georgefwoods<\/a><\/p>\n

19th March 2014<\/p>\n

The industry bodies that represent the coal export industry in NSW and Queensland have recently taken to lambasting<\/a>,\u00a0belittling<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0smearing<\/a>\u00a0the intentions of individuals and organisations that have dared to face up to them and speak the truth about the consequences of the unchecked expansion of coal in Australia. Some politicians, particularly in\u00a0Queensland<\/a>, have joined this\u00a0chorus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I am glad that it is a matter of public record that these people have tried to shame people and groups opposing the expansion of the coal industry. Our children need to know that this was a fierce\u00a0battle of right and wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0underdog pose<\/a>\u00a0being struck by the coal industry associations in the debate about the future of coal belies the inordinate power the industry wields. In the two years since the Stopping the Coal Export Boom\u00a0strategy document<\/a>\u00a0was ‘revealed<\/a>‘, the coal industry has continued to wipe out country towns, gobble up high security water licences, clear bushland and expand production. Last year, in fact, export volumes jumped 11 per cent. The\u00a0victim card they\u2019re playing<\/a>\u00a0is a ruse to make us forget about the real victims: the people whose\u00a0home towns<\/a>,\u00a0farms<\/a>,\u00a0water<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0health<\/a>\u00a0is being sacrificed for our unthinking commitment to expanding coal mining.<\/p>\n

Of course, in addition to having dramatic local impacts where it is mined, burning coal has a global impact. It is Australia\u2019s\u00a0biggest single contribution to climate change<\/a>, and,\u00a0unlike much our domestic greenhouse pollution<\/a>, it is\u00a0growing rapidly<\/a>. The world has warmed\u00a0less than one degree<\/a>\u00a0Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, yet Australians are\u00a0suffering<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0impacts<\/a>\u00a0of the changes in global and local climate and weather systems this has caused. We are being told by reputable scientists that the opportunity to prevent global warming at levels that will bring irreversible\u00a0disruption to our food production systems<\/a>, leave whole cities with\u00a0shrinking water supplies<\/a>, and bring dramatic\u00a0rise in sea-levels<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0nearly lost<\/a>. And yet, the coal industry pundits try to shame us for daring to propose that the expansion of our biggest contribution to this problem be stopped.<\/p>\n

Well, I am not ashamed. I am not ashamed that I oppose the expansion of the coal industry and do everything in my limited power to prevent it. I am not ashamed that I co-operate with people who stand to lose their livelihoods, their homes or their health to coal mining and help them fight for what matters to them, because it matters to me, too. There is no pretence to any of this: people that are affected by the expansion of the coal industry\u00a0are co-operating<\/a>\u00a0because they have found out how much they have in common. Perhaps they have different reasons for doing so, but that doesn\u2019t make the myriad local, regional, national and global impacts of the industry any less real or valid.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re one of the many thousands of people in this country that believes that ordinary people should not be expected to pay the terrible price we\u2019re being told to pay for expanding the coal industry any further, don\u2019t let them shame you. Be proud that you are standing up for what is right, and raise your voice louder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Georgina Woods\u00a0 @georgefwoods 19th March 2014 The industry bodies that represent the coal export industry in NSW and Queensland have recently taken to lambasting,\u00a0belittling\u00a0and\u00a0smearing\u00a0the intentions of individuals and organisations that have dared to face up to them and speak the truth about the consequences of the unchecked expansion of coal in Australia. Some politicians, particularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":15962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,651,1469,585,859,1163],"tags":[1577,1278,168,1279,1365,2659,1260,766,1023,870,317,326,1468],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/COAL-MINE.jpg?fit=800%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-497","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}