Antinuclear

Greg Hunt Australia’s Anti Environment Minister is blind to the looming catastrophe

Coal: Stop burning it, this is the next asbestos Canberra Times, April 19, 2014 Crispin Hul In the 1960s asbestos mining was a very profitable business. And it created a lot of jobs. Asbestos was very useful – indeed, one of the best insulating materials known to humankind.

The link between asbestos and cancer was known as early as the 1930s. But mining continued. ………

But asbestos was toxic. Ultimately it was more economically beneficial to leave it in the ground than use it, aside from the human cost…….

in the long term the continued use of coal will be profoundly more damaging than the continued use of asbestos. If the world continues to burn fossil fuels the way we do, the result will not be a few mesothelioma deaths (awful as they are) and some economic loss weeding asbestos out of buildings.

Rather, the result will be massive indirect economic costs because we did not have the sense to develop a gradual transition to leave the carbon-emitting toxic fuels in the ground and develop alternatives……..

Environment Minister Greg Hunt, for example, said this week in response to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “Coal will be used for decades and decades more.”

His bedrock position is that coal continues irrespective, and he presumes someone (like the CSIRO, whose funds his government is slashing) will come up with a workable scheme to capture and bury the emissions. Idiocy when proven substitutes are available.

Hunt should not work from the base, being utterly beholden to the coal industry and that coal will continue no matter what. Rather, he should work from a base of what do we need to do to prevent global warming. How can Australia lead in a global movement?

In 30 years Hunt will look like an asbestos miner so concerned about profits and economic benefits that he is blind to the looming catastrophe.

Sensible economists tell us it will be less costly in the long run to do something than not. And it will not cost hugely to move more quickly to wind and solar generating………

 solar panels are about the best investment going. And their price is falling all the time while electricity prices continue to go up, presuming you are not renting, intend to stay put for several years and do not have shade trees all over your house.

The government should have built on this rather than continue homage to indefinite use of coal. Greg Hunt’s response to the IPPC report this week was woeful.

The federal government should do something to force electricity generators – nearly all state-government owned – to stop abusing their monopoly power by paying so little for electricity generated by residents. They should also remove their limits (usually to 5kw inverters) on the amount that can be generated from the home to the grid. That would encourage even greater investment in solar.

If they were private companies, competition law would not allow them to get away with their low feed-in prices.

A quick thought on NSW: For decades NSW politicians have pursued policies that benefit individual and sectional interests and in return have received very large donations from those interests. Those donations then go into campaigns for politicians to persuade voters that, despite the pandering to sectional interests, they are governing in the best interests of everyone in the state. Wouldn’t it be easier just to govern in the best interests of all in the first place and tell all the rich and powerful sectional interests to go jump? http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/coal-stop-burning-it-this-is-the-next-asbestos-20140418-36wlk.html

April 19, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News