Time And Energy: It's more than ticking the boxes

Braidwood Times
Wednesday 4/7/2007 Page: 7

Energy use in the global sense, the cause of our atmospheric woes, is the number one priority for remedial action by all developed and developing countries. The time we have available to find solutions is the subject of a debate which, like the planet, is also getting warmer. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the solutions on offer have been drawn up by the current suppliers of energy - the coal and oil industries.

We have, as a nation, been lulled into comfortably dozy state with a high standard of living and proud of, our freedom and democracy. The danger is that our democracy has become just an exercise in ticking the boxes when the options are presented.

But who is selecting the options from which we choose? What possibilities don't ever make on to the questionnaire? The energy options for Australia, as provided by the government go something like this:

• Do you enjoy having access to abundant cheap. electricity?
• Are you happy to use `filthy coal' until we figure out if 'clean coal' is just a figment of someone's imagination?
• Could we build a nuclear power station somewhere, not near you of course, and then can we carry on as usual?
• Do you agree that making any changes to our staggering energy consumption would be futile because those greedy bastards overseas will jump in and do our polluting for us?

And that's about it. Wind farms, geo-thermal, solar arrays and other `alternative' energy sources are rarely mentioned at all, unless it's a small grant somewhere for more research.

The decision by the State Government to approve the Anvil Hill coalmine was a decision, in the words of the Planning Minister, Frank Sartor,"not taken lightly''. Well he's got that right. It's a very heavy decision for the water supply in the Hunter Valley, local wine growers, everyone who lives there, the environment at large and the ever-warming planet.

If you look at Minister Sartor's rationale for giving the mine its green light, you will see that he's cut and pasted the whole lot from Federal Minister, Malcolm Turnbull's website. We're at risk of being caught between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

There are windfarms working in Australia. There are hundreds of thousands of people who use solar hot water, many people who use only electricity made from the sun's energy, and many, many more who would do so if the governments would get off their backsides, get out from under the fossil lobby's thumb and get on with promoting a sustainable energy future.

All it takes is time and energy.