JAMIE Miller says he can't be typecast as a leftie, Greenie, inner city-dwelling, latte-sipping hippie, given that he has worked for a coal industry company until very recently.
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For that reason his views on Australia's response to climate change warnings over the past three decades can't be dismissed by the shrill who make personal attacks when climate change is raised, rather than addressing issues.
Those shrill voices include politicians from both major parties who have rejected climate science for years, and ridiculed those sounding the alarm on the need for action, particularly in the Hunter region.
Mr Miller is prepared for the critics after speaking with the Newcastle Herald this week about why he feels he "morally failed" by focusing on Australian environmental issues through his work as an environmental scientist, and losing sight of the global warming threat. He worked for a company in the coal industry.
But he's speaking now, and backing Hunter students striking for climate change action, who want Australians to support them in opposing any more coal mine expansions in the Hunter region.
Mr Miller says he is not anti coal. He knows the Hunter relies on the coal industry. He also knows how quickly things can change for workers when a mining company decides it's time to pack up and leave.
Which is why he believes federal and state governments, that are just now grappling with the profound impacts of a warming world in the wake of this season's bushfire tragedies, have a particular responsibility to the Hunter to plan for the future and a changing world.
Mr Miller had forgotten about the poem he wrote for a Warners Bay High School newsletter in 1989, as a year 12 student in the final months of his schooling, and the idealism and passion he felt on global warming and the need for action.
He hadn't forgotten how clear some of the climate science was even then. It was certainly enough to convince UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher - a scientist - of the need to sound a warning to the world.
Mr Miller readily admits he thought Swedish student Greta Thunberg was a "nutcase" - until he read her actual words and realised her warnings were the same as those he raised as a student in 1989.
Issue: 39,502.
