The environment vs jobs? We have been in this fight before

An energy company seeks to develop an impoverished region.

The Franklin River in Tasmania was saved in the early 1980s
by widespread public protest and direct action. 

When ecologists raise concerns about the effects on a natural wonder, state politicians call them middle-class interlopers who care nothing for the rural economy. As environmentalists rally in the big cities, local workers march for their jobs. The conservatives insist the project must go ahead while deep divisions wrack the Labor party.

That might be a description of the politics of Adani’s Carmichael coalmine, but it’s not.

It’s a summary of the struggle over the Franklin Dam in the early 1980s – perhaps the most significant environmental protest in Australian history.

Read the story from The Guardian by Jeff Sparrow - “The environment vs jobs? We have been in this fight before.”