Dave Foster's article in favour of the Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) mine extension merits a response ('HVO proposal sets out supportive path through transition', NH 2/7). A fourth-generation resident, I grew up on the family farm west of Muswellbrook. In my early 30s I came home, worked with my father and raised my own family here. I taught science at local high schools for 20 years and currently live on the section of the property I inherited from my parents.
I have witnessed a complete transformation of the Upper Hunter. In my youth we had a mixed rural economy and a small but important coal mining sector.
Liddell and Bayswater were built, along with the mines to supply the coal, horse studs grew into major economic players, and in the 1980s the export coal industry took off. Mining expanded and expanded again, transforming the landscape into mountains of overburden blocking views of a once familiar horizon. Small rural communities such as Hebden, Ravensworth, Warkworth, Camberwell, Ulan, Wollar, Wybong, Bulga and Kayuga were bought out and overrun.
The towns of Singleton and Muswellbrook doubled in size, and today thousands of mine workers drive up the Hunter Expressway to work. The future of my town is uncertain, but coal will certainly end. This proposal to extend HVO kicks that can down the road.
The elephant in the room that David Foster didn't mention is global warming, and the urgency of de-carbonising our economy.
The media seems to have lost interest in climate change. But greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, and the laws of physics continue to apply. The IPCC estimates that business as usual will likely result in global average temperature rising by over 3 degrees by 2100. That's in the lifetimes of my six young grandchildren.
We are well aware of the impacts of our current 1.3 degrees. Think the Lismore floods, and similar floods that are now regularly occurring across the globe, wreaking havoc on millions of people. Think the 2019-20 bushfires, and the horrific fires that have devastated the northern hemisphere, all carrying the undeniable signature of a warming planet. If we continue with business as usual, the conditions driving these extreme events will become average, and then frighteningly normal. Last summer saw loss of sea ice around Antarctica that left climate scientists "gobsmacked". Densely populated river deltas in our region will be slowly and irreversibly inundated. Climate tipping points are being crossed.
This HVO proposal to produce up to 40 mt/y thermal coal to mid-century is business as usual. Yes, workers may continue to have good paying jobs in mines and support industries, Glencore and Yancoal will continue to take their substantial profits offshore, and the prospects of future generations will deteriorate to the point of being intolerable.
Our carbon budget for a 1.5 degrees limit will soon be exhausted. Two degrees will likely be passed by 2050. It is completely relevant to Australia that Japan, Korea and other countries we sell coal to meet their (inadequate) emissions reductions targets. Coal to 2050 is not good news for anyone. We share the same atmosphere. Australia is not without diplomatic leverage, and phasing out thermal coal exports will send a powerful message that will put pressure on others to make hard but desperately needed decisions. That Australia is only a small producer is also irrelevant. We can control our own actions, and thereby hope to influence others.
The Minerals Council and Dave Foster in his article refer to "anti-mining activists from outside the region" making no effort to understand the community.
There are plenty of us who are long-standing members of this community who are seriously concerned about the future of the Upper Hunter, and are well aware of the complexity of the issue. Doubling a population on the back of a transitory industry was always going to be problematic.
It's up to those who care about the future, and their children's future, beyond short-termism, to pressure politicians to make the wise decisions that will lead us towards a truly sustainable future, for those who come after us, and for nature herself, on which we all depend.
