|
A black future
The powerful regressive right wing of the Australian Liberal/National coalition, exemplified if not led by a group of politicians calling themselves the Monash Forum, are trying to keep the dying coal industry alive as long as possible.The burning of fossil fuels is widely recognised as the main cause of climate change, ocean acidification, sea level rise and ocean warming. The air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels kills millions of people world wide each year.
In Australia we are losing one of the natural wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef, largely due to the coal industry.
Australia has among the highest emissions intensity of all the world's nations, we therefor have a great moral responsibility to take effective action to reduce our emissions.
Any sane and well informed person holding even a very basic level of ethical standards can see that coal and fossil fuels is not a future that we should be wanting to see.
A black future, that includes coal and other fossil fuels, will be a future in which our children and grandchildren and the whole world's biosphere will suffer greatly due to our failure to take the responsible actions that are obviously needed.
A green future
South Australia had negligible renewable energy in early 2003, by the time of writing this page (June 2018) more than half of its electricity was being generated by wind and solar PV. In this period the state's last coal fired power station was shut down. This has been a great success story that could have been achieved even more quickly, it could and should go much further and could and should be emulated and improved upon by the other Australian states.By far the majority of the Australian people are supportive of renewable energy; it seems very unlikely that any more coal-fired power stations will be built. Renewable energy, at least in the form of wind and solar PV, is now cheaper to build than coal-fired power stations.
The great question is, will we adopt renewable energy in Australia and elsewhere, quickly enough to avoid climate change disaster? Will our future be green, with a healthy environment, or black, with a terribly damaged environment?
My own view is that Australia's energy future can and must be green.