Australia’s Great Barrier Reef could be lost for uranium’s petty financial gain
The price tag of the uranium deposits in Queensland, if all extracted and sold is about $10 billion. A pretty big chunk of cash, but worth only a paltry two years of tourism dollars that the Great Barrier Reef brings in.
To anyone who has looked in wonderment at the fish on a reef, this is not an “Australian issue”, this is an issue that speaks to how we want to leave the world to future generations. Our kids will remember visiting a reef teeming with tropical fish, turtles and fluorescent coral, but what will they remember if it isn’t there to be seen? They sure as heck won’t remember the quick buck made by uranium mining companies a few decades previous
Radioactive scuba diving a potential new Aussie destination sport http://www.vancouverobserver.com/city/outdoors/radioactive-scuba-diving-potential-new-aussie-destination-sport Kevin Grandia Mar 19th, 2013 Okay, I am exaggerating, but only slightly, but new anti-regulation laws have recently been passed in Australia that could mean uranium will be shipped out directly over this oceanic masterpiece of nature.
Ever scuba dived? Or even just put a mask to your face in knee-deep water and looked under the surface at all the brilliant fish and creatures that make a tropical reef their home?
It is brilliant, and one of those moments you never forget.
Queensland is a a place of seemingly competing economic interests.
On one hand, you have the Barrier Reef that contributes more than $5 billion a year in tourism and employs 54,000 people. On the other hand, you have a series of industrial ports that line the coast of Queensland that are keen to expand and export uranium to overseas markets. For 28 years there has been a ban on uranium mining in Queensland, but that was lifted late last year by Queenland’s Premier Campbell Newman. Now that the ban has been lifted, two mining companies are pushing to ship mined uranium from the coast of Queensland, over the Great Barrier Reef.
“The State Government is not opposed in principle to uranium being shipped from a Queensland port through the Great Barrier Reef,” Natural Resources and Mines Minister Andrew Cripps says.
The price tag of the uranium deposits in Queensland, if all extracted and sold is about $10 billion. A pretty big chunk of cash, but worth only a paltry two years of tourism dollars that the Great Barrier Reef brings in. Professor Callum Roberts, a marine expert, told the Australian International Business Times:
“With something as sensitive as the Great Barrier Reef, you have to ask yourself what is it you want in the long term? Do you want those ports or do you want the Great Barrier Reef to continue being great, because you can’t have both.”
I am not economist, but shipping tons of radioactive material over the Great Barrier Reef seems like a really financially risky idea. As a person concerned about all the degradation we are seeing to natural wonders of the world like the Great Barrier Reef, it is borderline criminal.
To anyone who has looked in wonderment at the fish on a reef, this is not an “Australian issue”, this is an issue that speaks to how we want to leave the world to future generations. Our kids will remember visiting a reef teeming with tropical fish, turtles and fluorescent coral, but what will they remember if it isn’t there to be seen? They sure as heck won’t remember the quick buck made by uranium mining companies a few decades previous
No comments yet.
-
Archives
- May 2024 (181)
- April 2024 (366)
- March 2024 (335)
- February 2024 (345)
- January 2024 (375)
- December 2023 (333)
- November 2023 (342)
- October 2023 (366)
- September 2023 (353)
- August 2023 (356)
- July 2023 (362)
- June 2023 (324)
-
Categories
- 1
- 1 NUCLEAR ISSUES
- business and costs
- climate change
- culture and arts
- ENERGY
- environment
- health
- history
- indigenous issues
- Legal
- marketing of nuclear
- media
- opposition to nuclear
- PERSONAL STORIES
- politics
- politics international
- Religion and ethics
- safety
- secrets,lies and civil liberties
- spinbuster
- technology
- Uranium
- wastes
- weapons and war
- Women
- 2 WORLD
- ACTION
- AFRICA
- Atrocities
- AUSTRALIA
- Christina's notes
- Christina's themes
- culture and arts
- Fuk 2022
- Fuk 2023
- Fukushima 2017
- Fukushima 2018
- fukushima 2019
- Fukushima 2020
- Fukushima 2021
- general
- global warming
- Humour (God we need it)
- Nuclear
- RARE EARTHS
- Reference
- resources – print
- Resources -audiovicual
- World
- World Nuclear
- YouTube
-
RSS
Entries RSS
Comments RSS
Leave a comment