The neocon Australian government, led by climate science-denying Prime Minister Scott Morrison, has bet the nation’s future on combusting coal, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and wood pellets. To hell with 17 Aussie ecosystems collapsing.
Credit: Conversation
Has every member of Morrison’s caucus reserved a one-way seat on Space X? Do they have shares in terraforming the moon, Venus and Mars?
This much we do know: The Great Barrier Reef, one of the natural world’s Seven Wonders, is about the size of Italy. Half of it has been parboiled to disintegration. Incessant propeller noise from thousands of humongous coal tankers crisscrossing the reef annually could be the coup de grâce for the other half, if another marine heatwave doesn’t simmer it first.
This week, Morrison’s mob disregarded the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation’s (Unesco) assessment of the Reef ‘in danger’. Morrison plans to increase, not decrease, the coal miners’ highway along the Coral Sea.
Planet-polluting Morrison is hell for leather to surpass Indonesia as the world’s greatest coal extractor. India, as Morrison’s story goes, is desperate for MORE planetary-roasting filthy coal. Morrison’s mission: enable Indian billionaire coal baron, Gautam Adani, to dig up Queensland’s coal, subsidise it, drag it across the Great Barrier Reef and suffocate India. Damn the fricasseeing world consequence.
Credit: AP
In addition to promoting more coal mining, Morrison’s henchmen have a deep-seated fear of old-growth native rainforests. Morrison’s people, funded by the forest industry and cardboard box billionaire, Anthony Pratt, couldn’t care less about rare native animals, cathedrals of splendour, freshwater, the climate crisis or the accelerating man-driven Age of Extinction.
Instead, they want those hallowed supreme climate-stabilisers minced into mountains of pellets, a few for making paper and many for hulking General Electric furnaces to torrefy whatever remains of Mother Earth. Critically endangered animals and priceless ancient rainforests are merely collateral to these one-eyed planet-killers. Ecocide.
For the record, Australia’s wood farms grow enough timber to supply domestic and international marketplaces. In 2017/18, Australia produced 50 percent more wood than it consumed.
Also this week, the High Court dismissed the Bob Brown Foundation’s appeal for the Tasmanian government to protect its old-growth, indispensable habitat for endangered animals, e.g., Tasmanian masked owls, wedge-tailed eagles, giants freshwater crayfish, Tasmanian devils, swift and orange-bellied parrots, eastern quolls and on and on . . .
The Aussie old boys have injudiciously underestimated the court of public opinion. They are without doubt on the wrong side of history.
The fact is, none of us – nature lovers, Gen Z activists and forest/ocean defenders will ever yield! No matter how skewed the odds, how deep the corporate coffers, or how unjust the government anti-protesting laws, we will win the day because of our fierce determination, our love for all planetary life and our willingness to ceaselessly fight for its survival!
Credit: AP
Elsewhere around the planet as summer commences in the northern hemisphere, brutal climate heatwaves and climate droughts are mercilessly flexing. Death Valley registered 130F (54C) and Lake Mead, which sustains 25 million people, fell to an all-time low level. Unprecedented scorching heat within the Arctic Circle along the thawing soil in Verkhoyansk, Sakha, Eastern Siberia, clocked in at 118F (48C). Those Arctic soils are now bleeding vast amounts of nitrous oxide, 265-298 times stronger at trapping heat than CO2.
Credit: Copernicus
Consumerism is quickly killing Mother Earth. In 2020, there were 10 new millionaires every minute and one new billionaire every 17 hours. Heaven help us all and the 2.1 million other forms of life that we absolutely depend upon for our existence. Incidentally, those other 2.1 million don’t need us, ever.
Credit: Bob Brown Foundation
The time for logging Tasmania’s wildlife-filled and carbon-rich old-growth is up.
Support BobBrown.org.au and their tremendous effort to defend the southern hemisphere’s largest temperate old-growth rainforest, the takayna/Tarkine.
A disobedient nonviolent uprising, that’s what WE, the defenders of Mother Earth, need. It’s coming whether the old boys like it or not. Back to the forest!
Agitate, Disrupt. Defend.
#GoVegan
#FridaysForFuture
#SchoolStrike4Climate
#ExtinctionRebellion
#AgeOfExtinction
#ZeroCombustionEconomy2030
#BeeKind
#GenZEmergency
Reese Halter is a forest/ocean defender.
His latest book is GenZ Emergency.
Email: HalterBooks@gmail.com for your autographed copy.
In Australia, order from the Bob Brown Foundation by emailing: Contact@BobBrown.org.au
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