Legislation from 1979 was the basis for the latest major Hunter Valley coalmine approval.
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It beggars belief.
Forty-three years ago the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act was set up.
The NSW government used it last month (September 2022) to quietly rubber stamp a Goliath expansion of the Mount Pleasant open-cut coal pit, near Muswellbrook.
Dave Layzell reckons that's fine and dandy.
As the NSW government member for Upper Hunter, Mr Layzell told me there are "strict conditions" and the coalmine's Indonesian owner must use "all reasonable and feasible measures to prevent" or "minimise any material harm to the environment" from construction and operating.
Dave, I think, you're in fairyland.
If this archaic legislation worked, why are we in such a mess?
Why does the Hunter Valley have some of the worst air pollution in the world?
Why are the Hunter Valley's open-cut coalmines among the most degraded land sites on the planet?
Is approval linked to the compromise between government and the coal industry, which is a powerful lobby that donates to political organisations?
Approval allows Mount Pleasant to double production to 21 million tonnes of coal a year, keep digging up fossil fuels until the end of 2048 and create an extra 880 million tonnes of deadly greenhouse gases.
Ten trains every day (from this mine alone) will rumble 115 kilometres to the Port of Newcastle where coal is shipped, mainly to Asian countries, to be burned for electricity generation.
And this can go on until about 12 months short of an internationally accepted net zero carbon emissions deadline.
It's not a truthful transition to renewable energy.
In the past I've said it's insane repeating business-as-usual coal expansion while pretending we're headed for a cleaner, safer ecological outcome.
After more scrutiny, I now consider it also tantamount to criminal.
The NSW government has approved this gigantic expansion knowing its pollution will worsen our chaotic climate emergency and contribute to killing people, other animals and eco-systems.
It's unconscionable.
Money and jobs have taken precedence, while costs such as social impacts, human health, clean air, water, soil and a stable climate are not properly accounted.
And, the travesty need never occur.
Practical transition measures could be implemented in the four years the coalmine still has under an existing approval.
Rather than simply whinge, here are six positive things we can do about this arrogant exploitation in the face of our climate chaos.
- Call on federal government environment minister Tanya Plibersek to use her power to block Mount Pleasant's approval. Have the $2billion "development subsidy" handouts promised to fossil fuel industries diverted to transition action.
- Tell Dave Layzell, and his NSW government colleagues, what you think. Then vote them out at the next state election, in five months (March 2023).
- Demand a just transition to a cleaner, safer future with alternative power including thermal solar, photovoltaics, wind power, battery storage, worker re-employment and retraining and national pollution and waste reduction measures.
- Push for the establishment of transition authorities to coordinate realistic, planned and united action to address our climate emergency. They could be at federal, state and local political levels.
- Call for the establishment of citizens assemblies to have a meaningful say in the decision-making process. Assemblies should include ordinary people, workers, the disadvantaged and marginalised, aged, people in wheelchairs, renters, people of colour and Indigenous. They also could be at federal, state and local levels.
- Support the push for legal rights for nature. This means establishing rights for the living, non-human world, similar to those that exist for the non-human world of economic entities and corporations. These rights would recognise that humanity is just one member of the wider earth community, which is an interconnected, harmonious web of healthy life. Rights for nature are different from current environment laws, which basically treat nature as financially profitable human property. Rights for nature would confer an inherent worth to plants, animals and eco-systems, beyond human destruction, that allowed them to exist, thrive, evolve and be legally defended.
Paul Maguire is a former journalist and author of two "ecosophical" vegan books. He was born in, and has lived more than 60 years, in the Hunter Valley.
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