Eco Friendly Homes in Toxic Environment?

How can we design eco friendly homes if they are powered by dirty energy, and are potentially undermined or overcome by toxic emissions? We can design the home, it can be eco friendly, but what about what’s happening underneath its foundations? And the air that surrounds and infiltrates it? And the water that comes to the surface or flows past it? The current screening of Frackman – the Movie around the country – a powerful documentary about one man’s journey to high level activism caused by the heavy handed tactics of the CSG industry – has brought this issue into sharp focus (pardon the pun).

There is a fundamental problem with current laws controlling ‘resource extraction’ in Australia, and NSW in particular: they are based on the 19th century premise that we have both a divine duty and right to extract the minerals (whether solid or gaseous), with no regard for any present or future consequences. This 150 year old thinking is so absurdly out of date as to be beyond laughable – it is now bordering on the criminally insane.

FLYER FOR FRACKMAN – THE MOVIE

In another fifty years these substances will be not be considered resources, but toxins – they will be the asbestos of that generation. Eco friendly homes cannot be laden with asbestos, and an eco friendly society will not be laden with toxins from coal and CSG. In NSW, ownership of the toxic resources was legislatively transferred to the state in 1981, supposedly to guarantee the best financial return to the state, and to ensure they were extracted without impediment or delay. The first reason has proven to be a standing joke thanks to NSW Labor and the corruption surrounding exploration licenses; and in spite of Mike Baird’s ‘cancellation’ of several large but entirely useless petroleum exploration licenses, the latter reason rolls on with only minor hiccups. The old legislative paradigm has given rise to an extremely unhealthy relationship between government (as steward of the country and the future) and the raging bulls of the minerals and energy industry. Eco friendly homes are more difficult without some semblance of an eco friendly government!

WARKWORTH MINE IN THE NSW HUNTER VALLEY, WHICH THREATENS TO DESTROY OR MOVE THE VILLAGE OF BULGA

But because we the people own the toxins through our democratically elected government/s, we can instruct our Parliament/s to legislate to leave them undisturbed, and to move on from the coal-fired and gas-lit 1850s to an already-achievable renewable energy future. In NSW on March 28 ‘we the people’ have a chance to begin the reform an essentially corrupted system. I wonder will we take it, or will we continue to accept bovine digestive products from politicians and the bulls alike?

[Written by Dick Clarke, Elanora Heights NSW, who has no political party affiliations or membership]