Russell Broadbent here, your member for Monash.
You read a lot in the papers these days about our quest to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
Every day, there is yet another puff piece about how clean, economically viable and ‘ready to go’ renewable energy is – and with the newly funded Future Made in Australia Fund, this rhetoric is only going to continue.
But there is a fatal flaw in this narrative.
Many of these articles fail to talk about the FULL extent of the environmental impacts of renewable energy projects.
In fact, the Environment Department itself are only required to consider the environmental impacts of renewable energy projects on a case-by-case basis – not overall.
But they are more than happy to draw attention to the so-called ‘big picture’ impact of rising carbon dioxide levels in our environment.
Seems like a double standard to me.
It has become clear that our city dwellers haven’t stepped outside of their apartments to consider just how much of our flora and fauna will be gutted to make room for the renewable energy infrastructure they support.
Judith Sloan put it perfectly in a comment for the Australian last year, saying that: ‘It is slowly dawning on more people that destroying the environment to save the environment doesn’t really make any sense.’
She also says that: ‘for every megawatt hour produced, wind needs seven times more land than coal-fired power plants, and ten times more land than gas power plants.’
What does that mean for our farmers and country dwellers? Who will be forced to give up their land for the government’s net-zero agenda?
A double standard indeed.
That’s justice as I see it.
