We push fossil fuels with the zeal of a drug lord – we do not care about the misery we are creating

The Coalition is too closely linked to the fossil fuel industry to be able to contemplate a future without coal, oil or gas. As climate change-induced crises continue through Australia, they must distance themselves from the industry associations and their lobbyists, and face up to a future which is different from the past, one that can be both exciting and beneficial to all Australians.

‘The problem, as we are now seeing, is that
 the industry associations are also heavily
invested in our political processes,
to the detriment of us all.’

While unprecedented bushfires burn across the country – first in New South Wales and Queensland, then in Western Australia and now in South Australia and Victoria – it is worth pausing for a moment on the word “unprecedented” to let it sink in. Unprecedented does not mean unexpected. At BP, over 20 years ago, we acknowledged climate change and what it would bring and that we needed to reduce emissions. Our acknowledgment brought cries of foul from industry associations and many peer companies.

Read the story from The Guardian by Greg Bourne - “We push fossil fuels with the zeal of a drug lord – we do not care about the misery we are creating.”

We all smell the smoke, we all feel the heat. This environmental catastrophe is global

A dense haze of smoke crawled over Melbourne and embraced us for a day in its lonely pilgrimage, inviting us to contemplate its mourning rite, its long prayer.

The writer Alexis Wright in Australia. 

This smoke came from a cremation of the natural world - the bushfires from the Bunyip state forest that had begun during days of a major heatwave running across the country. The forest lies 65km east of Melbourne where mountain ash grow, prickly tea-trees, stringy barks and heathland swamps. In the Woiworung mythology of the Kulin nation, the Bunyip is a spirit that punishes bad people who disturb its home in the swamps of the Bunyip River, and according to the Parks Victoria information sheet on the park, local Aboriginal people avoided the area.

Read the story from The Guardian by Alexis Wright - “We all smell the smoke, we all feel the heat. This environmental catastrophe is global.”