Linc Energy trial continues over alleged contamination on Queensland's Western Downs

A landmark case described by a District Court judge as "unusual" will hear how gas company Linc Energy allegedly contaminated strategic cropping land causing serious environmental damage to parts of Queensland's Western Downs.

Linc Energy is charged with five counts of wilfully and
unlawfully causing environmental harm at Chinchilla.

Linc Energy is charged with five counts of wilfully and unlawfully causing environmental harm between 2007 and 2013 at Chinchilla.

The charges relate to alleged contamination at Linc Energy's Hopeland underground coal gasification (UCG) plant.

The trial will enter its second day today in the District Court in Brisbane, with crown prosecutor Ralph Devlin QC expected to begin his opening address to the empanelled jury later this morning.

Read the ABC News story - “Linc Energy trial continues over alleged contamination on Queensland's Western Downs.”

Explosion of stories, implosion of tourists at reef: overseas surveys

An explosion of international stories reporting on the parlous state of the is likely to see fewer people visit Australia, according to the first-ever overseas survey of tourist attitudes.

And this will have implications for jobs and the economy.

The outcome will increase the pressure within Australia to place a moratorium on all new coal mines, based on the direct environmental damage caused by the mines through run-off into coastal waters, and on the fact that the coal itself adds significantly to carbon dioxide emissions.

Three surveys conducted in Britain, China, and the United States, have shown citizens in those countries - when the situation is raised with them - say that are concerned that the world-renowned reef is under severe threat. And many would reconsider visiting as a result.

Read Mark Kenny’s story in today’s Melbourne Age -“Federal election 2016: Reef bleaching serious threat to tourism, jobs: OS poll.”

Considerations are not solutions, but they do create an awareness

Many of the topics already considered by those who gather Beneath the Wisteria are pushing the world today and irreversible tipping point.

Reporting in a story headed: “Earth may be near tipping point, scientists warn”, the Los Angeles times said: A group of scientists warns that population growth, climate change and environmental damage are pushing Earth toward calamitous and irreversible changes.

However, considering something does not resolve it, something Beneath the Wisteria supporters are acutely aware of, but it does create a sense of awareness; an awareness that may infiltrate society.

The reality of socializing the costs and privatizing the profits

The unaccounted cost of environmental damage wrought by businesses in 11 major industries probably equals 41 per cent of their profits.

Read the full story - Appetite for destruction supports corporate profits  - on ABC’s “The Drum” published today (March 8).