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The Forum > Article Comments > It's priceless being green > Comments

It's priceless being green : Comments

By Alanta Colley, published 2/12/2008

How many shopping days left until D-Day? The rise of the Non-Practicing Environmentalist.

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Non - Practicing Environmentalist is a beautiful expression.

It is so easy to blame everybody else. It's all Kevin Rudd's, John Howard's, George W. Bush's or Sting's fault. It is never our fault.

Anybody who wants to oppose any environmental recommendation only has to say, it will cost money or it will cost jobs and the environmental recommendation is eliminated or watered down to nothing. And we all agree. Geosequestration will never save 10% of the greenhouse gases produced by coal fired power. But it will allow us to continue to think we are doing something, which is more important than really doing something.

Making money is the most important thing. Money makes us happy. Environmentalism and sustainability are esoteric concepts not real values. Money has a real value.

Maybe our kids will understand better. They have been getting environmental education for a few years now. They might understand that the earth is finite and there are limits to what we can take. I hope so, but they will have to be a lot stronger than we are.
Posted by ericc, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 6:13:18 PM
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Non - Practicing Environmentalist is really an awsome term :-)
But unfortunately there are many of them - they just talk and don't act.

I think it is a pitty that many companies are turning to environmentalist thinking out of the wrong reasons - namely money! "Green" products are a real trend right now, but I guess most of them are not as green as they claim to be...
Posted by nochy96, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 8:31:51 PM
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Being Green has become a bit of an industry - some with shaky credentials to boot.

Like most things it will be the grass roots who will make the difference without fanfare or fuss they will just get on and do it while the rest are still harping on about exchanging ETS points so the polluters are still able to pollute.

Overtime there will no doubt be some change due to necessity. But, at the moment until there is proper investment in alternatives, a stronger public transport system, some decentralisation and discussion about population and growth mentality the talk will be seen as image spin and nothing else.
Posted by pelican, Wednesday, 3 December 2008 8:34:42 AM
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One of the worst things we can do as a practicing environmentalist is to react based on a single newspaper article or a skilfully presented image. Environmentalists even those non practising ones should take the time to be fully informed.

As Alanta points out its worth checking behind the headlines, but then ignores her own advice as describing the approved Tasmanian pulp mill and logging as more “detriment than good”.

If she had checked behind the rhetoric she would have found the pulp mill will use the latest modern technology to safeguard the environment including Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF) bleaching. ECF has been described by the World Bank and other experts around the world as complying with international standards for Environmental, Health, and Safety Guidelines for Pulp and Paper Mills. See http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/enviro.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/gui_EHSGuidelines2007_PulpandPaper/$FILE/Final+-+Pulp+and+Paper+Mills.pdf

With another check we find the pulp mill will reduce shipping to a quarter of the present shipment of woodchips, saving a million tonnes of greenhouse gas each year.

In addition when the carbon capture and storage resulting from sustainable forest management and the establishment of new forest is counted and balanced against emissions from harvesting, slash and from timber product, Tasmania forestry is carbon positive.

So much so that Tasmania has, according to the latest Department of Climate Change figure, reduced its greenhouse emissions by 25.9% from the Kyoto base year. Clearly the workers within the Tasmanian forest industry are practicing environmentalists.

Logging and the new pulp mill, not only create jobs but also a better environmental future by producing renewable, recyclable and carbon positive products
Posted by cinders, Friday, 5 December 2008 8:58:48 AM
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Cinders -

If all of this is true. Why ram the project through without the standard Environmental Impact Statements and public reviews? I was in favour of the pulp mill until I heard that they didn't want to follow the normal procedures.

The EIS is a good system for laying all your cards on the table and saying here is how we intend to operate this plant, here is where the pulp will come from and here is how much pollution will be generated. The public can then say "your calculations or assumptions are wrong" and dispute the statements in the EIS with their own calcuations and assumptions. The pulp mill then has to commit to opertating the plant in the way they said they would or they lose their licence to operate.

When the pulp mill developers didn't want to go through this process under the normal time frames, it looked like they had something to hide.
Posted by ericc, Friday, 5 December 2008 9:34:49 AM
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It is understandable that ericc is not aware of the environmental credentials of the pulp mill. The ‘30 second’ news report or the front page headlines has concentrated on the sensational claims, rather than the benefits.

So it is also understandable not to be aware that the developer did submit an Integrated Impact Statement in accordance with normal procedures to the Resource Planning and Development Commission. The IIS cost $11 million with over 350,000 hours to prepare over 40 reports in conjunction with 43 consultants. These and additional information can be found at http://www.gunnspulpmill.com.au/iis/default.php

The impact statement was part of the assessment process which started in 2003 with a world wide scientific and engineering investigation to develop a set of environmental standards that were world leading and fully protected the Tasmanian environment.

The project assessment started in December 2004 is documented at http://www.tasmaniapulpmill.info/approval_process . Anyone would think that 24 months would be more than a normal time frame for a decision.

Whilst the longest delay was the RPDC finalizing the guidelines for the IIS (12 months) at a preliminary hearing in February 2007, over 2 years later, the commission advised that the completion date of 28 May 2007 can no longer apply. The RPDC blamed Gunns for the delay!

The Chairman then stated “An approximate and I think very optimistic, completion date has now been forecast for late November of this year.” Yet it was more than likely to be sometime in 2008. No wonder the developer pulled out stating there was a lack of certainty to the process.

The alternative assessment by State Parliament and by the Commonwealth EPBC Act had fixed time lines that both the developer and the assessors had to meet. The alternative assessment also provided the opportunity for lobby groups to make a full range of submissions that were tested in the process.

The assessments showed that the mill can be "green" providing jobs and a renewable and needed product for society whilst having no significant adverse impact to the environment.
Posted by cinders, Sunday, 7 December 2008 6:25:25 PM
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