Coal OR Crops? NO. Coal AND Crops.

Cartoon: Kudelka.

By Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition.

The Queensland Government has announced plans to create a new category of restricted land called “Strategic Cropping Land” which bans all mining or development.

The Carbon Sense Coalition has lodged a submission opposing the proposal. See:

If Queensland’s politicians were really concerned about food security they would not have sterilised millions of acres of grazing land under scrub clearing bans, conservation zones, heritage areas, wild rivers, national parks and other anti-farming bans.

Nor would they have encouraged the diversion of cropping land from producing food for humans to producing ethanol for cars; or used false global warming dogma to justify covering food producing land with feral forests of carbon credit trees.

It seems that the Queensland government has a secret plan to destroy Queensland’s primary industries, all motivated by suicidal Green hostility to the production of carbon fuels and foods, mainly coal, cattle and sheep.

Queensland has always relied on both mining and farming. To undermine mining on the pretence of helping food production is false and destructive.

This is not about crops or food – it is just another chapter in the Green war on carbon fuels whose goal is to prevent development of new coal mines and power stations.

The hidden tragedy of this silly policy is that we will never know which protected paddock is underlain by a treasure house of coal or minerals.

With modern machinery and knowledge of soils and plants it would be very easy to replace the food lost in the tiny area of crop land likely to be disturbed by coal mining.

The choice is not “Coal or Crops”.
A sensible policy is “Coal AND Crops”.

This proposal is quietly slipping beneath the radar. Have a look at the enormous area covered. When this blanket or bans is added to the Wild Rivers sterilisation, development and industry will be excluded from a huge area of Queensland. Future generations will be far poorer if this proposal succeeds, but few people will understand why.

The Rise of the Greenshirts

Green extremists have for years been scaring our kids with stories of doom and despair. Now they are threatening any kids who do not swallow their stories. Have a look at the intolerant and threatening stuff they are spreading. Those of us who remember Mao’s Red Guards imagine where this sort of propaganda leads.

More Green Aggression

A hard working law abiding young family in WA has fallen foul of Green Aggression.
These people did all the right things, obeyed the law, worked hard and invested their savings. Now last week it was all taken from them. Read their story here, here, and here, and help if you can.

Don’t get Kloppered by the Carbon Tax.

Over a year ago, Carbon Sense had a headline “Wong horse knackered, but “Carbon Tax” is saddled and ready”. Our forecast was that the Ration-N-Tax Scheme was dead in the water, but big business would suddenly discover the advantages of a carbon tax. See here.

Marius Kloppers of BHP suddenly announced recently that it would improve business certainty if the rest of us all paid a carbon tax.

Let’s have a carbon tax of ZERO. Very certain, easy to calculate, no administration costs, no compliance costs.

While parliament is sitting there can be no certainty. If this tax becomes a reality, those who vote for it will become marked men and women. The TEA Party movement in USA (Taxed Enough Already) shows that if pushed enough, the worm turns. Watch the congressional elections. Anyone who supported carbon Ration-N-Tax Schemes from either party will find they are in a battle for political survival. Many have already lost pre-selections.

It is a mirage to believe that introduction of a carbon tax will bring certainty. It will provoke hostility and such political opposition as has never been seen before. What can be introduced by one Parliament can be repealed by the next. Directors who commit shareholders funds on the assumption of a permanent carbon tax need to be warned – shareholders also will not forget.

The Last Word from our ABC.

It's just before 8.00PM Saturday night 2/10/10. (AFL 2nd Grand Final night). ABC24 are showing a news ticker of:

“BIN LADEN CALLS FOR ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE.”

See also how the ABC has slandered Professor Bob Carter on the “Science” show.

“Carbon Sense” is a newsletter produced by the Carbon Sense Coalition, an Australian based organisation which opposes waste of resources, opposes pollution, and promotes the rational and sustainable use of carbon energy and carbon food. Please spread “Carbon Sense” around.

For more information visit our web site.