The coal industry in Australia uses many excuses to justify the extraction of coal.  One of them is that the developing world needs our coal.  Apparently, coal powered energy is essential to bringing millions of people out of poverty and into the modern world.  But in their great benevolence to bestow coal (and the ensuing pollution and damage to our planet) onto developing nations, the coal industry has overlooked an important point.  Just maybe, those people in the world don’t want their dirty coal.  Maybe they would prefer clean, renewable energy solutions that would set them up for a brighter, more secure future.  Sadly I don’t think anyone even asked them.

But people in developing nations are starting to speak out against coal.  And one such voice is that of 350 India’s Chaitanya Kumar who was published this week in the Huffington Post, speaking out against Australian coal export to India.  Here in Australia we need to hear more stories like these.   We need to hear about the effects that our coal is having in other parts of the world.  We need to smash these myths that the coal industry are spinning in their dying gasps to hold on to a dinosaur industry.  Coal is not the future for anyone, anywhere.
Read Chaitanya’s op-ed here.