[koolraap]

Our politicians support coal because political "donations" are legal. Fully fund political parties out of general revenue and fully fund ICAC and we'll be in a better position.

Coal is dying faster than the Great Barrier Reef. The fat bastards in charge of coal have more money to fight it.

[fruityrudy]

What good would Australia moving away from coal do anyone? If Aus stopped all coal activities, absolutely nothing changes about climate change.

[koolraap]

Economics 101 is killing coal, nothing else.

Digging rock out of the ground, lugging it across the world in massive quantities and then burning it is an expensive activity. There are cheaper alternatives, the most obvious one is natural gas, and that's similar to comparing terminal lung cancer to terminal stomach cancer. Terminal being the key word.

Forget about climate change, health issues (have you been to a country where your eyes hurt?), pro-unionism/anti-unionism and whatever else you like or dislike, coal is not economically viable. Just ask British coal miners. Oh wait, you can't thanks to Margret Thatcher (love her or hate her, she did invent soft-serve ice cream. Seriously). She saw it coming 40 years ago.

Coal is an energy source, absolutely. It works. It's just economically stupid compared to cheaper alternatives.

Just like farriers, blacksmiths, priests and who-knows-what professions are useless, coal miners are too.

Economics 101. And you don't even need to mention climate change. Coal is dead dead dead. Get used to it.

[wongarsu]

How does burning less coal do "absolutely nothing about climate change"? If you state something like that you have to at least give a convincing argument.

[bellyfullofbac]

fruityrudy is arguing in other comment replies that the Australian coal is "only 3%" of CO2 emissions so he probably thinks that's so close to zero it's basically zero and negligible..

I wonder how he'd feel about a 3% pay cut.

[fruityrudy]

Climate change is not directly proportional to co2 in the atmosphere. To reverse it requires large reductions. China, India, US. Australia’s production and usage is a rounding error at the moment.

[Zagitta]

Lower supply means higher prices which increases the attractiveness of renewable energy?

[matthewdgreen]

It would mean fewer stories like this one, for one thing.