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The Forum > Article Comments > Don’t sacrifice workers on altar of climate change > Comments

Don’t sacrifice workers on altar of climate change : Comments

By Jeremy Gilling, John Muscat and Rolly Smallacombe, published 6/12/2006

In Australia’s case, Kyotoesque measures are tantamount to using a jackhammer to crack a walnut.

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This article fails to mention that, while coal production has tripled in the past 20 years, the coal mining industry has shed 18,000 jobs. This sounds like workers have already been sacrificed on the altar of the coal industry.

The closure of the Vestas blade plant in Wynyard Tasmania has led to a loss of 200 jobs in that community. There are plenty of jobs in renewable technologies, particularly in regional areas. We just need an increase in the MRET to drive investment in the industry.

Yes, we are a small country but we are still in the top 10 of nations producing large amounts of CO2 (and there are 50 nations with populations greater than ours).

Regarding our advantage - Australia used to lead the world in the research and development of renewable technologies. We could again.

So - enough of the right-wing hype, mostly funded by the big mining companies and their donations to political parties. Think of a sustainable future and work towards it - and the economy will follow.
Posted by Mrs CJW, Saturday, 9 December 2006 1:50:28 PM
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The authors are quite right: Australia's direct contributions to global GHG levls are unimportant. But where we can make a difference, a huge difference, is by providing our clean (or at least cleaner) technologies and fossil fuels to developing countries. Remember: India and China have about 2.4 billion people between them, all of whom want a standard of living similar to ours. We won't be able to blackmail them into accepting a lower living standard or point a gun at their heads in an attempt to achive the same thing, so the only course of action open to us is to assist them and work with them to achieve their goals using the lowest GHG emitting technologies and fossil fuels that the developed world has to offer.

People may well be skeptical of 'new coal' but we have to find a way to make coal and all other fossil fuels cleaner in terms of GHG emissions than at present (assuming we don't go down the nuclear path). So let's stop pretending that Kyoto will make a difference - it won't - and let's start living in the real world which contains 6 billion people, most of whom want to increase their standard of living whether we like it or not.
Posted by Bernie Masters, Monday, 11 December 2006 11:05:31 AM
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Excuses abound these days, with "too small to make a difference" high on the best seller list.

I look forward to smokers, thieves and litterers applying this amorality to their offences - why should i quit when theres all those other smokers around forcing me to be a passive smoker? Why should i quit crime when there are so many other criminals out there? Why put my rubbish in the bin when so many don't? This from the Party that pretends to a high moral ground? The hypocrisy gets more sickening each day.
Posted by Liam, Tuesday, 12 December 2006 5:35:26 PM
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Perseus says: "That Australia has a small population and a vast area of territorial waters to absorb our emissions. Our emissions are well within our ecosystems capacity to deal with".

Does this gentleman understand carbon based chemicals at all? Is he aware that as a result of burning fossil fuels, our oceans and rivers are force-fed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, arsenic, benzene, hexavalent chromium, cyanide, formaldehyde, mercury, VOCs,PMs, NOxs, dioxins and furans, CO, toluene, fluoride and dozens more?

Is he aware that the transboundary persistent organic pollutants that we emit from poorly combusted industrial stacks can end up in Timbuktu, India, UK, China or Bullamakanka for that matter?

Does he know that our marine life is mutating, struggling to survive or dying as a result of Australia's pollution of its oceans and rivers? Is he courageously dining on the fish from the Sydney Harbour, Botany Bay or perhaps the Parramatta River? Is he aware of the toxic plume in Botany Bay caused by past industries and the current 10,000 tonnes of leaky drums of hexachlorobenzene? "No worries" Perseus, no doubt is saying, "developing countries are probably dumping dioxins in their waterways,why shouldn't we?!"

If Perseus is reluctant to reduce atmospheric CO2 because of his dislike of the Europeans, then perhaps he should become more acquainted with the documented evidence on how the burning of fossil fuels impacts on the health of humans, agriculture, fauna and marine life. He, like our greedy governments and colluding, pollutant industries are living in La La land and refuse to acknowledge that per capita, we are the second largest polluter on the planet!
Posted by dickie, Wednesday, 13 December 2006 8:44:12 PM
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Good points Perseus. And how very predictable, Dickie. An obvious resident of Sydney, in response to a discussion about our territorial oceans, dishes up a diatribe about the Parramatta River, Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay.

"We" have not polluted "our" oceans, Sydney people have fouled their own nest, big time. My creek is much cleaner and healthier than it was 50 years ago. And the simple facts of the matter are that most of Australia's emissions occur within 100km of five GPOs. My forest absorbs a lot more CO2 than my 28 tonne share of the national quota.

Our continental ecosystem processes the emissions of 25 million people (including Kiwis) while the European continental ecosystem is burdened by the emissions of 750 million people.

The international courts of justice have recognised national jurisdiction over up to 200 mile (333km) Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ's) of ocean. And this ocean is fully capable of absorbing CO2.

And clearly, if the absorption capacity of our ocean is ever compromised by excess CO2 emissions it will be because someone else's have been in excess of their continental ecosystem's capacity to deal with.

I cannot sell my products, or even my labour, in Europe so why should I be expected to carry the burden of the emissions from their closed market place? Surely, they are, in effect, expecting us to subsidise their emission problem. So where does that end? Subsidising a junkies smack so he won't steal my TV?
Posted by Seditious, Friday, 15 December 2006 11:14:59 AM
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Seditious asserts that I am no doubt, a Sydney resident. He couldn't be more inaccurate and I, as an Aussie, could not live further from Sydney unless I jumped into the Indian ocean.

The increase in ocean CO2 has already revealed that the PH of oceans has drastically changed where corals have now been chemically and ecologically altered with CO2 responsible for dissolving calcium carbonate, the building blocks of reefs and shells.

Seditious fails to appreciate that our oceans are sopping up our CO2 emissions, thereby slowing down the accumulation of atmospheric gases.

In addition, he is seemingly unconcerned about our oceans' capability limits to also absorb millions of tonnes of sewage and other industrial wastes.

Is he aware also that ANSTO tips the Lucas Heights radioactive waste waters into the Potter Point on the Kurnell peninsula. They assure us that the radioactive compound of the waste is only 20 - 50% of the prescribed limits. Heh hum! The La Hague reactor in Normandy France dumps an estimated 230 million litres of radioactive waste into the Atlantic each year.

Contamination has shown up in seafood and seaweed near the plant, but strong currents also disperse the contamination northward through the English Channel and the North Sea with traces found as far north as Norway and the Arctic.

The authors here recommend "tax breaks, concessions and subsidies to reduce CO2." Tell that to Mr Howard, gentlemen where the federal government actually grants concessions to anyone with a stack who is willing to burn waste oil.

This heinous waste fuel has more unknown, untested substances than a hazardous waste compound and industry is permitted to enthusiastically burn this muck without restriction.

I remind Seditious, the oceans no longer belong to us exclusively. He needs to acquaint himself better with the sciences of pollution and perhaps population control.

He along with our governments, appear totally unaware that they, like all other humans on this planet are now citizens of "Ecumenopolis". Resignations or cancelled subscriptions are not an option!
Posted by dickie, Friday, 15 December 2006 7:33:24 PM
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