ADANI PROTESTS

THE protestors of the Adani mine in Brisbane last weekend were labelled by the media as “climate anarchists”, “student radicals” and “militant vegans” preparing for “rebellion day”. Ian Macfarlane (the former Liberal politician who scrapped the mining tax and now the chief executive of the Qld Resources Council), said, “these anarchists are endangering the lives of other people”.

This is ironic when it is the coalloving politicians “governing” Australia continue to approve coal mines and endorse coal-fired power stations despite the overwhelming scientific empirical evidence that human activities are rapidly changing earth’s climate in ways that will endanger the lives of millions of people.

I have attended Adani-mine protests and I am proud of that. Make no mistake, Adani will proceed, and so will a conga line of other coal mines proposed for the Galilee Basin. How do I know this? It’s simple, the fossil fuel companies control our politicians and our politicians often move from politics to positions in mining companies and industry associations.

The CSIRO came to the conclusion that Adani’s groundwater management plan was unequivocally flawed and likely to result in negative outcomes. Scientists were scathing of the model used by Adani to underpin their water management and argued that bore water would be drained faster than projected and that this would be devastating for the farmers in the region. Ecologically sensitive wetlands, especially the natural springs complexes were also forecast to dry up.

So did the government listen? No, it was approved by the Liberal Minister for the Environment on April 8 this year.

The true anarchists are the politicians controlled by the fossil fuel companies. I don’t know how they sleep at night. The next generation will judge us harshly because we knew what we did was wrong but did it anyway to perpetuate greed. Be scared… be very scared.

GEOFF CASTLE, Toowoomba (USQ research scientist)