Forum Post: Fracking Oz: The Fight Begins
Posted 11 years ago on Aug. 2, 2013, 6:06 p.m. EST by shoozTroll
(17632)
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"BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA — One year ago, I flew over West Texas in a small prop plane observing a landscape pockmarked with caliche drill pads and freshly plodded access roads. This July, I did the same thing halfway around the world and the view was remarkably similar. From the window of a chartered flight from Brisbane, Queensland, midway up Australia’s east coast, to a small town 160 miles inland, I saw large exposed pools of water used for extracting gas, sprawling industrial sites, a coal mine, and other signs of the rapid onset of fossil fuel development in a region known for its remoteness, pristine agricultural land, and natural beauty. "
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/02/2298691/gaslands-1/
Let no natural beauty, remain untouched.
----the fracking industry---
“The size of the community revolt against the coal-seam gas industry has caught the industry and government flat-footed. It has sparked serious debate about the need for companies to have a ‘social license’ to operate. It is legitimate to ask whether the state government was railroaded to embrace an infant industry with too much haste, and too little regard for the community and environmental impacts it would bring.”
I'd say so.
They are attempting the same PR campaign there, almost verbatim.
http://ccwa.org.au/blogs/five-myths-about-shale-gas-fracking-western-australia#.Uf0QiT_hdvA
Sounds to me like they are beyond attempting and in full swing.
Have they applied the first rule yet?
http://occupywallst.org/forum/the-first-rule-of-fracking-dont-talk-about-frackin/
The saga continues.
"QUEENSLAND, Australia — Queensland’s Parliament is the only state parliament in Australia without an Upper House, meaning there’s just one house to keep things in order. This can be a very good thing if you’re the party in power, and a very bad thing if you’re not. Out of the 89 seats in the house, right now the Liberal National Party (similar to our Republicans) hold 74 seats, the Labor Party (like our Democrats) hold seven seats, and three other parties split the remaining seats. The latest way the ruling party is taking advantage of this power is by pushing through seemingly minor processing changes that could actually significantly boost the fossil fuel industry’s growing presence in the region.
The Liberal National Party recently moved to substantially reduce Queensland’s Environmental Impact Statement process. Just like in the U.S., before any proposed mining, oil and gas projects are allowed to move forward, their potential impact on the environment must be assessed. While navigating government bureaucracy can be a mind-numbing experience, the environmental review process is an important tool for measuring, and avoiding, the adverse effects of proposed projects.
The change to the Environmental Impact Statement process was, according to the Liberal National Party, intended to “cut resources red tape.” The move was hailed by the Queensland Resources Council, a non-profit industry association representing the commercial developers of Queensland’s minerals and energy resources. "
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/13/2378281/queensland-oversight-natural-resources/
Firstly, the "Liberal National Party" is actually a coalition, meaning there is a Liberal Party, and a National Party. Two separate, and often disparate, groups, who formed a coalition to enable them to have a chance of winning an election against the Labor party.
Secondly, while there's clearly a lot of money changing hands in political circles, job creation seems to be behind the rationale to allow fracking companies access to our grazing lands, and even national parks. It's hard to convince people that are earning literally thousands of dollars a week, that what they are doing is possibly ruining the future for their children.
It's a societal illness, for sure, based on greed, and short-sightedness.
Our children, while embracing rampant consumerism, and classism, are the ones who will have to, one day, pay the price for this short-sightedness.
The question we should be asking is, are these the same corporations at work in these Nations?
Fracking is going WorldWide.
Is there a way to coordinate efforts to make them stop?
Where does the bulk of this gas end up? Do consumers have any choice?
Australia has vast fields of natural gas in several areas. No need to frack it. It's not deep, either. The Northern territory's power supply is from this gas.
And despite all this activity, the price for domestic supply of gas is set to triple over the next decade, in Australia.
Ever rising profit margins feed stock markets WorldWide.
It's the libe(R)tarian way.