All that gas.

There is some rather lazy thinking going on in both state and federal parliaments when it comes to our energy future ( not that there isn't in other areas as well ).

We are being led to believe that we have no option but to explore and drill for oil and gas in the most pristine and fragile areas off our coastline.


Our energy security is paramount and is threatened by depletion. Consequently, securing new hydrocarbon reserves is deemed to be more than worth the very real risk of large scale damage to our environment as dramatically highlighted in the Mexican gulf.

If we accept that this is really the case, then why would we want to export as much of our fossil fuel reserves, in the form of gas and coal, as fast and as cheaply, as we possibly can.

But this is exactly what our state and federal Governments are falling over themselves to achieve. Unapologetically.

These two directives or policies are clearly contradictory.

Australia has passed peak oil and we are on the downslope. New discoveries may change the rate of decline temporarily at best. It will not change the outcome. The age of easy oil is over. We face a future of increasingly scarce and therefore expensive energy as a result.

The lasting biological and economic legacy of oil spills however, is very evident in places that have experienced this misfortune. The damage from the Exxon Valdez spill 21 years ago is still very evident today. That was 250,000 barrels, the same amount released from the Horizon well each week.

So why would we risk longterm compromise and degradation of ecosystems, like Margaret River and the Kimberley coast, and the livelihoods of those in tourism and fisheries, for what amounts to a relatively short term economic benefit?

We have some of the best politicians that money can buy, perhaps they know the answer to this conundrum.

It is quite clear that we will have to make a transition to a renewable energy powered future at some point. The longer we have to make that transition and the more gradual and planned it can be, the less socially and economically disruptive it will be.

The rapid exploitation and exportation of our remaining reserves would therefore seem to be a short sighted and wholly avoidable folly. A folly that is only magnified by gambling our environmental heritage as well.