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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/09/anti-renewable-energy-campaigns-liberal-coalition-labor-ntwnfb>
"The entrance is marked by an AI-generated image of a dead whale, floating
among wind turbines. On the first floor of the East Maitland bowling club, dire
warnings are being shared about how offshore wind may impact the Hunter region
– alongside a feeling of not being consulted, of being steamrolled.
“Environment and energy forums” like this one in late November have been held
up and down the east of Australia, aiming to build a resistance to the
country’s renewable energy transition.
Today’s event is being cohosted by No Offshore Turbines Port Stephens (NOTPS)
and the National Rational Energy Network (NREN), a group with informal National
party links that was behind February’s Reckless Renewables rally in Canberra.
Adi Paterson, chair of the advocacy group Nuclear for Australia, is also here.
“We’re not a political group,” the NOTPS secretary and a Port Stephens
resident, Leonie Hamilton, tells
Guardian Australia.
“We’re not there to push [politicians] into parliament, but we are going to
listen to what they have to say.”
Hamilton says she’s undecided on the issue of nuclear power.
The coastline of the Hunter was declared a potential area for offshore wind in
mid-2023 after “extensive community consultation”, according to the federal
government. But some, such as NOTPS’ Ben Abbott, are still angry about a
perceived lack of detail about the project.
Today’s forum is about raising awareness across the Hunter, Hamilton says. “We
think it’s important it happens before the election, so that people understand
what the costs are.
“[The coast] belongs to everyone and they should have the opportunity to
understand what’s going on.”
There are local groups like NOTPS around Australia that want their broad
concerns about the rollout of renewable energy to be heard but say they do not
want to be used for a political agenda and do not advocate for particular
energy sources.
But working alongside those groups is an increasingly coordinated alliance of
conservative thinktanks, political lobby groups and politicians who are flatly
opposed to the clean energy transition.
Fears about the environmental and social impact of renewables projects are
finding purchase in an information gap critics say has been ceded by the
government, the industry and environmental groups – and there are plenty of
interested parties willing to step in.
An earlier NREN event in Sydney was sponsored by the Institute of Public
Affairs.
Sandra Bourke, a cohost of the Maitland event, is an NREN member but also a
spokesperson for the conservative lobby group Advance – which was a key player
in the defeat of the Indigenous voice to parliament and is now fundraising on a
“lies of renewables” campaign."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
