Not everyone in Australia has their head in the sand
As you know, one of my pet peeves is the Australian government green-lighting a new coal mine.
And not just any coal mine, the biggest in Australia.
Meanwhile, Australia looks like a coal furnace with the windows shut:
AP Photo/Rick Rycroft
And let’s not forget that Australia currently exports one billion kg of coal per day. That corresponds to 2.6 billion kg of CO2 straight into the atmosphere when burned.
Per day.
To stay consistent with their “thoughts and prayers” BS, the Australian government is currently trying to “change the narrative” by pushing through a religious discrimination bill, which—unlike what you may think—lets religious people discriminate against whoever the hell they want, without consequences.
As long as they do it “nicely”.
Meanwhile, not everyone in Australia has their head in the sand.
There is an extremely well-organized campaign to stop Adani’s abominable Carmichael coal mine:
“The list of companies walking away from Adani’s toxic brand and climate-wrecking mega mine keeps growing. 59 companies, including 16 major insurers, have now ruled out working with Adani. But Lloyd’s of London is still working with Adani to help the mining giant find insurance for its disastrous project. Let’s flood the Lloyd’s office with calls now and let them know that allowing insurers to underwrite Adani’s coal mine is a risk we cannot afford!”
Another current target is Siemens, the industrial mega-company with $90 billion USD annual revenue (random fact: Siemens is also the company building the epic new Austrian night trains) that is slated to build rail infrastructure for the mine project.
Due to activist pressure, Siemens’ boss has just come out and said that he didn’t know about the contract with Adani.
Be that as it may or may not, what he does next is the important bit. He’s currently “thinking about it”.
If you would like to hassle Siemens on this, just put your name and email address here, and then click send!
The Stop Adani campaign is being backed up by the Australian Conservation Foundation, Friends of the Earth, and Market Forces—a group that targets businesses funding fossil fuels.
I’d bet on fossil fuel-related board meetings getting increasingly fun over the next couple of years as pure morality-free Capitalism, entrenched interests, and industry ambivalence to planetary destruction fight for their sad little lives.