The monetary value of fossil reserves and the sunk investment bake in humanity's tragedy. Woe to all who support this monstrosity.
Woe to the investors who will write off this blunder by 2030 as regulation taxes coal. The inevitable global coal moratorium will sink this project. No real winner in this tragedy.
24
Businessmen like Adani and many others are not just plundering natural wealth, polluting environment almost everywhere outside those few isolated islands of prosperity of walled/gated communities where such elites in few metro cities live. They are also promoting social unrest and armed insurgency in many countries including India, where coal mining & people like Adani are fueling ransom based extremism-https://is.gd/JGl04W
Countries may develop- but for whom? Why general public would support it or sacrifice for it if families & people- as an individual and as a society- can not be much part of that development or that 'developed' country? It's also partly true for the privileged elites, irrespective of personal income. Quality of life is bound to deteriorate for all.
It's not any communism or socialism. It's the very core of any meaningful democracy. And failing to do so has its consequences, as most people in India and elsewhere hopefully started to understand.
22
Is there any relationship to this new coal plant and the plan to electrify Kashmir that was proposed last week after the absorption of that state directly into India? It seems to be related. The electricity has to go somewhere besides only Bangladesh.
7
Australia should impose a high export tariff on coal - call it the heatwave, drought & flaming nuisance tariff.
But no, the rich are entitled to reap "the social costs of air pollution" as profit for themselves. It's the selfish capitalistic needs of a few over the survival needs of the many for centuries to come. It's a conservative coal-ition and coal-lusion against humankind and planet, all for ungodly hording of capital they can't even take with them after death!
India's energy security only makes it insecure overall as it burns under extreme heatwaves and drought that Adani is worsening and profiting from. No doubt beautiful picturesque Kashmir will be the site of Adani's next coal-fired soot-generating life-killing industrial plant to decorate the snow capped peaks and valleys with clean-soot from Ozy clean-coal.
Radical conservative politicians are all alike - whether in America, Australia or Iran, Saudi and elsewhere. All anti-science, anti-reason, to enrich idle elites at the expense of everyone else. Costing jobs (i.e. their profits) overrides the cost for centuries "shaving years off people’s lives," causing COSTLY destructive fires, drought and un-breathable air. Way to go temporary-profits.
$1.4 Billion in loans to destroy Indian lands, evict Indian citizens, all to set up a huge industrial coal-fired soot belching plant to send power abroad and profits to Adani's tax free accounts. How trumpian!
Govt "special economic [ripoff] zone" to benefit capitalists.
25
The climate change effects are going to punish the very people this coal plant is trying to help. Bangladesh gets flooded out and Chennai has no water.
When the impacts from climate change get worse, a lot of these people will seek to migrate to places like Australia, US and EU. The cruelty will be when they are turned back.
Climate change will be paid for one way or another. That coal plant is just a $2bn blanket to hide under.
18
How is this different from what goes on in THIS country?
I read a lot of sanctimonious comments about the Indian "so-called democracy." The democracy we have in the U.S. is at best "so-called." In fact, a couple of years ago a report concluded that the United States has now officially become an oligarchy.
Instead of keeping your blinders on and feel superior to India in that regard you should take a hard look at the Koch brothers, at Mitch McConnell, at Trump, of course, and other such characters who are, because of weird election laws, voter suppression, and gerrymandering, holding the entire world hostage by polluting and destroying with impunity, because of their greed and because they can. Adani is no different.
If the Times wanted to take risks it could write an expose just as devastating on the power maneuvers of certain individuals right here at home that cause mass damage as a result of their implementation.
39
@Margaret,
The 2016 election will turn out to be the inflection point.
Almost half of Americans prefer a religiously driven ethno nationalist state. Another third are apathetic and so ignorant of the electoral system that they will never count. The rest will suffer in silence just like their counterparts around the world.
Climate change will punish the poor and middle class more, which will drove more tyranny.
The future is not bright.
7
The culprit here is Australia, which is a captive of the Australian Coal Association and arguably the worst and most cynical of climate change deniers.
No nation has spent more or worked harder to defeat every attempt to curb global carbon emissions than Australia has, including a $35 million scorched earth media campaign to sabotage the Paris Agreement to limit global emissions.
Despite a carefully cultivated image as a koala-cuddling, nature loving land of rugged individualists, Australia is a deeply racist state with a white man's burden mentality towards the rest of Asia. For decades Australia was represented by cheesy classified ads in American and English publications exhorting whites to emigrate to Australia while banning non-whites.
It's no accident that the leading media assassin of democracy -- in America as well as the UK and Australia -- is ex-Aussie Rupert Murdoch, who controls Fox News, Wall Street Journal, the NY Post, The Times of London, plus all the leading Aussie capitol newspapers, even all National Geographic cable properties.
Murdoch is the most powerful Australian in history having installed through his dominant media networks right wing governments in the US, UK and Australia.
The brand marketing of Australia is Crocodile Dundee tossing another shrimp on the barby but the ugly reality is the Australia Coal Association throwing the entire planet on the barby.
India may be a coal-addict but Australia is the pusher man.
60
Disappointing that article gives such scant mention to what it calls "the area's Indigenous people". These people are not invisible. They have a name. They are the Wangan and Jagalingou people. They are the traditional owners of the land and have had a continuous presence in Queensland's Galilee basin for what is estimated to be 65.000 years. As Australian Aboriginals their sacred duty, as instructed by Ancestors, is to be the Guardians of the Land. It is a faith that they have observed in extraordinary fashion through thousands of successive generations.
If you care to know more about them here a link to their website
https://wanganjagalingou.com.au/our-fight/
A tee shirt exists for sale that reads ADANI:NO MEANS NO. While effective sounding board has been given to the Metoomovement, the media silence and neglect over the fight of First Nations against the rape of their country and who they are as people, speaks volume.
18
Dirty Gujarati.Always using corruption to forward his agenda.
The protest against one such polluting industry in the Southern capital of Madras is just the beginning of the end of such a trend.
Either India will stop this harm to Mother Earth or India as we know it will no longer exist. It will go back to the ancient land of Aryan(Iranian) India of the North and the South of the Indus Valley Civilization. One wonders where the middle belt of tribal religions will join
2
Not a fan of Adani Group but this article is very unfair on the coverage.
1. Despite competitive prices of renewable energy it is not able to support Grids 24x7 therefore for now you will still need 24 hour assets such as (unfortunately) coal/gas power plants to fuel the growing power requirements on emerging economies like India and Bangladesh.
2. Nowhere does this article even come close to mentioning that Adani Group is also one of the largest developers of Renewable Energy in India having installed about 2 GW of Solar plants and have a pipeline of 2-3 GW of solar + wind energy in India under construction.
3. They are even about to set up large Solar Plants in the USA. How about that NYT ?!?!?
BIASED REPORTING
5
Pretty nasty. This is impacting places far and wide.
8
So many Indians do not have electricity much less the life style we enjoy. If India doesn't import coal from Australia it will import (generally dirtier) coal from elsewhere to provide electricity. The people in central Queensland did not need any Adani persuasion; it was about jobs.
6
The leaders of the Adani group should be forced to live in houses with foundations only 1 meter above the usual high water mark. They should also have to breathe air and consume water equal in quality to that forced on the poor inhabitants near the proposed coal fired power plant.
They absolutely shouldn’t be allowed to privatize the gains of their dirty project while socializing the losses on the backs of the worlds most vulnerable people.
11
I would put money on the bet that this mine will not be operating in 60 years. Before then, the young, climate aware generation will have won the battle against the coal psychopaths. It will be a very different and MUCH hotter world. What is certain about the planetary cooking science it is that the predictions get more dire by the year and the evidence more apparent. Hopefully the tipping point happens in human behaviour before the tipping point in planetary cooking. Please donate to Inslee's campaign to get him in the debate. Your children, nephews, nieces and those with children may thank you. We need to fight for our children NOW. "DO SOMETHING"
7
Such a shame. We should be decommissioning coal mines, not building them and governments should be subsiding renewables not fossil fuels!
3
I feel sorry for the Indian people - not the billionaires. Climate forecasts typically suggest that India will be one of the hardest-hit countries in a warming world due to its high humidity. It's going to be so bad that the human cooling mechanism, sweat, will be completely ineffective.
4
All this complaining and grumbling about money and rich people? The time honored way out of poverty is through EDUCATION. the People of India need to put all their money into education. The rest will take care of itself.
Hooked On Coal (senryu/haiku quintet) "Australia commits - climate change suicide with - Carmichael coal mine"; "a long sooty trail - of Indian-Australian - carbon collusion"; "enough government - subsidies can make any - project viable"; "people who live near - coal fired power plants breathe - and drink pollution"; "the world's oligarchs - make sure your grandchildren will - die prematurely"
6
The Adani project in the Galilee Basin is nothing, if anything it is nothing more than a Trojan horse into this region, what you need to do is look beyond this mine and look at who else has interests here. The big player in the basin is Gina Rhinehart, daughter Lang Hancock, a vehement racist who wanted to poison the aboriginal race with poison laced water, and also Australia's richest man at one point, his daughter shares his views. Gina inherited the family company, Hancock Mining, this company made its money ripping off the local aboriginal population through dodgy deals with the corrupt West Australian State government whereby it got exclusive rights to the vast iron ore deposits in the far north of the state. Gina, and Hancock Mining moved into mining coal and have vast stranded asset coal interests in the Galilee basin, and they needed Adani as trojan horse to open this area to mining. Gina is also 'good mates', and part time airline for with one Barnaby Joyce, former leader of the National Party who are in a long term coalition with the Liberal Party who are in Federal government at the moment. This coalition 'won' the miracle election just gone with the help of one Clive Palmer, former National Party leader who poured over $90 million into advertising for his own party who ran candidates in every seat but won nothing, but split the vote which cost labor the election, oh and did i mention he also owns vast mining rights in the Galilee basin to dig coal. Corrupt?
8
The Australian govt is one of the most corrupt governments on the planet, no surprise there. The actions of a few greedy old men should not be allowed to continue at the expense of the future survival of our descendants.
5
I wish the Times would become as concerned about oil and gas extraction as they are about coal. Obama didn't just preside over the largest expansion of oil and gas extraction in the nation's history - he also bragged about it.
“Over the last three years, I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth, and then some. . . . In fact, the problem . . . is that we’re actually producing so much oil and gas . . . that we don’t have enough pipeline capacity to transport all of it where it needs to go.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/obama-and-climate-change-the-real-story-104491/
Yet the Times continues to talk about Obama's "environmental legacy". This is an issue that must not be viewed through a partisan lens - both parties are clearly not addressing the issue with the requisite urgency.
4
They're addressing the one issue important to them – lining the pockets of those who actually pay them.
The actions of a few greedy old men should not be allowed to continue at the expense of the future survival of our descendants.
1
The Adjani Group “leveraged” politicians in the Australian Government. Was this done only through legitimate lobbying and advocacy? Or will we discover one day that “leveraging” to Adani means bribes and corruption?
3
How caucasian it is to try to blame coal dependence, even indirectly, on a third world country. Everyone knows that coal dependence and "nation building" are first world caucasian ideologies.
2
who cares about the future?? the more urgent matter is making billionaires rich!
Asking millions of Indian families to live without electricity is barbaric. Developing nations need cheap plentiful reliable electricity to lift their nations out of poverty and power their industry, schools, and hospitals. Asking a family that lives in a dung hut to put a solar panel on their roof is immoral.
5
Money talks; nobody walks.
Adani. A good name for a typhoon that will hit Bangladesh and India soon and due incalculable damage to people and property. Good marketing potential too. “This Typhoon bought to you by Adani coal. Thanks for your support.”
5
The world needs to be electric with electricity from nuclear, solar, and wind power. Yet Republicans deny global warming, and Democrats rule out nuclear power. So we are left with coal, gas, and renewable energy with gas backup at night and on windless days. Stupidity is the basic human problem.
6
We recently spent a month in the back-country at high elevation. When in the camp we could drive to (as opposed to back-packing and river kayaking) we set up solar system to re-charge computers, smart phones, run LED lights, and power 12-volt coolers. We cooked with propane. What is preventing entrepreneurs in the developing world and the developed world both from inventing technology, solar systems, smart homes, etc that simply require way less energy? I want the US to get out in front of green technology/renewable energy, but even lacking government will to lead movement forward on this, why isn't the marketplace more robustly creating cost effective and environmentally friendly alternatives?
5
Also, a tip of the hat to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which used its commending media influence to roll back the carbon tax in Australia.
News Corp's second largest share holder after Mr Murdoch, is or was, a Saudi "royal prince".
It will be interesting to see if News Corp can be contained, now that most of its assets have been bought by Disney.
Except of course, for the News units. Those were spun off separately.
So I guess Rupert wins again, the world loses, the modern birthplace of fake news triumphs, and Rupert can pass the legacy of planetary destruction onto his heir Lachlan, to boldly forge ahead.
Watch in 2020 elections; what country won't attack US elections with so much to gain from hacking the electorate?
22
Murdoch should be put up on charges for crimes against humanity.
5
Wait! Isn’t the US approving the Keystone XL pipeline?
And, won’t that project transport very dirty heavy crude from Canada to the US?
A project that will use a lot of power to extract very dirty heavy crude, from tar sands, in order to fill the pipeline. Then it will send that crude on down to the gulf states’ refineries. Refineries that will use a lot of power to produce petrochemical products and pollute. Then those products will be exported and shipped by sea, also using a lot of power. However, the pollution stays here in the US.
Carbon emissions skyrocket, and nothing is done. Right now the US is being so equivocal about climate change, it has incentivized other nations to push ahead with projects like Carmichael. We have no political capital left to criticize other countries.
31
Sadly I expect that we are already past the point where humanity will survive its missteps.
I doubt that any amount of money will allow survival in the world that is coming
11
Let’s save 2000 jobs and supply coal to a quarter of the worlds people. Sounds like a solid plan.
1
That billionaire must also be stalling solar projects all across America. As I travel California, Arizona, and Florida I see fewer alternative energy installations there than I do in Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois.
5
The carbon cycle for the last 2 million years was doing 180-280ppm atmospheric CO2 over 10,000 years and we’ve done more change than that in 100 years. The last time CO2 went from 180-280ppm global temperature increased by around 5 degrees C and sea level rose 130 meters. (graph of the last 400,000 years of global temperature, CO2 and sea level)
One amplifying feedback alone out of dozens, loss of albedo or heat reflectivity from Arctic summer sea ice melt, over the last several decades has been equivalent to 25 percent of the climate forcing of anthropogenic CO2. And that will continue to increase as that ice disappears by mid century.
The Titanic sank because by the time the lookout called the warning the ship had too much momentum to turn. The Earth has a lot more momentum, e.g. we've already likely locked in ~6 meters of sea level rise from the marine sectors of Greenland and West Antarctica, and decade to decade warming in the near term is also locked in.
That momentum is building and the higher we let global temperatures rise the greater the risk of them going really high as amplifying feedbacks strengthen.
12
@Erik Frederiksen
Here’s the graph
http://www.ces.fau.edu/nasa/images/impacts/slr-co2-temp-400000yrs.jpg
2
"The story of Adani and its Australian project illustrates why the world keeps burning coal despite its profound danger — and despite falling prices for options like natural gas, wind and solar."
And the word behind that story is - greed. The love of money is the root of all evil.
52
India is reportedly the world's largest democracy. But what evidence is there of democracy when one greedy man can bend the state to his will and inflict hardship and death on untold numbers of his countrymen, jeopardizing the entire globe in the process, all so that he can continue to profit from coal?
321
@Stephen N
" reportedly the world's largest democracy"
Reportedly is the key word.
24
Things happen and it may not have much to do with democracy. Think of the wars that some of the large democratic nations got themselves into. Ambitious billionaires work their way to whatever goals they have in every country and India is no exception.
25
Absolutely right. Wither Indian democracy?! (Pun intended).
8
When young and in school, we read about ancient civilizations that practiced human sacrifice, and some current groups of humans who practiced cannibalism. It was both horrifying and titillating, and was at the root of many 'deeply philosophical' conversations.
We debated into the wee hours of many mornings, the origins and meanings of these practices, what was gained or lost to the societies where those practices were accepted as necessary to some mysterious yet vital construct.
In this article, and many like it, future generations may well find fodder for just the sort of conversations we had during our youth. They may wonder why, since we should have known how their lives would likely be affected by such choices as these, why we did what we did.
211
@gary
Yea maybe next time you should also debate about how ethical it is for you to ask others to stop following the path through which you are standing at your current place in the world. All country's go through a stage when the demand-supply gap for electricity is high and excluding the environmental costs associated with coal it is one of the cheapest sources of energy hands down. Even today Net you guys have the highest per capita carbon signature in the world and also the second highest Co2 emissions. Maybe read some data before making a fool of your country.
11
@Kirti
Your point is well-expressed and well-taken, though it doesn't make Gary's valid historical perspective and philosophical point foolish in the least. Have you every considered what any of us average citizens in the US can actually do to significantly lower our carbon footprint? I had friends who left middle-class suburban affluence to go farm and grow everything they ate on 3 acres they bought for cash in a rural area of Hawaii. Problem was, all their family and friends kept flying over to see them, to enjoy the fresh fruits and vegetables, and the ocean....Those flights caused a heavy carbon signature. I bought a house near to my work so I could walk or ride my bike, put in a geopump to completely get away from natural gas, propane, coal or oil heat, but now my work causes me to have to drive 100's of miles per month. I wish you and your country well with development and understand your hard choices. At this point, though, we are all victims of the systems that are in place, the expanding so-called "need" for energy, and--undeniably--the greed of the oligarchs who not only benefit from environmental destruction, but have their subterranean bunkers and spaceships prepared to escape it.
22
The practices in past civilisations is not specific to one country. Google any religion or geography with words like “occult” or “esoteric” and see what content come up!
Let’s for a moment think about Gun violence in the present civilisations. It occurs in a large democratic, developed country with no clear prevention measures. Wonder why?
5
In twenty years India will be a serious basket case of failed monsoons, too many people and serious environmental degradation. Corruption and cheap profit trumps long term viability.
16
Yawn. I read another inaccurate report involving Australia in other US media just the other day.
The project has been approved WITH CONDITIONS. Conditions which haven't been met and may not be. The battle over Carmichael has been going on for a long time and it is not over yet. Read the FACTS for yourself.
https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/assessments-and-approvals/carmichael-coal-mine-and-rail-project.html
There is currently a climate summit going on between Pacific leaders and that may change the federal government's perspective on this. It is mainly the Queensland government that has been pushing for it (Carmichael is in Queensland and no idea why this article is date marked Sydney) and there is a LOT of public resistance to the mine Australia-wide.
This is not a done deal and this article is written as if it were. Terrible journalism.
12
@Da Bushroo
Good luck with the fight!
2
Or how to lose a billion.
He can't get the coal to the coast for the all in cost of Indian utility solar.
2
The oil and gas industry is the same. It’s like a religion for people.
Rich people have the most choices in how they shape their lives. So one more rich person choosing to make the earth a worse place. It’s a cliche.
6
What 3 countries are tied into this coal supply chain? Australia, India and Pakistan? That is not make very clear very quickly in the article.
1
@Elizabeth Ellis Hurwitt
Bangladesh. The other country mentioned many times in the article.
3
Bangladesh is the third. Not Pakistan.
3
Why don’t you call it want it is? They operate by means of corruption and bribery.
Unlimited subsidies. Rates go up when they need it. Loans on demand. Illegal land capture. Environmental crimes both in India and Australia (and god knows where else).
Hopefully there is reckoning and they all go to jail.
7
How do you stop powerful, greedy, unethical men (and it is almost always men, like Mr Adani) from continuing to make decisions that will, ultimately, destroy the very planet we all rely on for life itself?
11
$$$ over anything else!!!!
Has no one learned anything, or seen what is happening to the climate? Why doesn't this company invest in renewable energy...they have the money. The world needs to be weaned off coal not provided with more. People living in huts next door to a coal mining operation...that wouldn't happen in a wealthy area so it shouldn't happen there.
Climate change is not being taken seriously and we're all paying the price but shareholders are getting richer so there's that. The entire world needs to stringently participate in a plan...not just the US (and how good a job are we really doing...and the current administration is doing everything it can think of to deny it.)
3
It’s completely hilarious that people are still worried about the future
Get over it. there is no more future
2
@The HouseDog
"It is no for you to complete the task, but neither is it for you to desist from it."
We do these things as much to change the world as we do to make sure the world does not rob us of hope.
It must be a real bummer to live inside your cloak of cynicism. Why not shed it and do something positive?
Don't mourn--organize.
2
“The reality is that, if the coal doesn’t come from Australia or Queensland or the Galilee, it’s going to come from other jurisdictions.”
Age old justification. If I didn't shoot them, somebody else would have.
15
This is a crime against humanity.
6
another finger pointing opportunity
let's point fingers at all the sources of problems
how about every innocent (greedy by ignorance and laziness) citizen of the USA reduce their own carbon footprint?
every single one of us has wiggle room and can use less energy and be thoughtful and responsible about it.
the finger points both ways in this case.
3
Adani is deadly wrong. Global warming will wipe out any economic gains he thinks are coming to Asia and the rest of the world from continuing to burn. Here is just another short-sighted, self-serving baron of colossal greed who cares zilch for the future of the world's children. Shame on Australia. Shame on Adani. These policies amount to mass murder on a scale never before seen.
9
Some awful "traditions" in India are hard to break (though, more accurately, the application is to humanity rather than just India).
Pollute the world and your people, so a billionaire can make a bundle exporting power generated from imported coal at a plant built with government subsidies? (while your own country continues to have power shortages!)
Regardless of how sad the story is, ever so much better to read your journalists discussing its various aspects than the usual all sided but the right sided screed by Arundhati Roy, found yet again on your op-ed pages.
BTW, does the NYT use novelists to "explain" significant political developments in the US and Europe, or is that saved only for non-OECD countries?
2
If you're poor they call it welfare... if you're rich they call it subsidies.
14
Dark money. The role of it in Australian politics is similar to here in the US. Greater than in other economically advanced democracies. See https://darkmoney.getup.org.au/ Only 15% of campaign donations transparent.
3
This is the well worn, idiotic demand that "because the developed world,(read white European), got where it is by curning oil, coal and gas all insanely dangerous, toxic and ruinous to the planet, all of the so called "less developed countries", which must be allowed to "pollutep-up to the level of rich , white West, even if the world is destroyed in the process, That if anyone must make sacrifices-it must never be Indians, Pakistanis, Africans and Asians. Only the White American and Europeans should be forced to "suffer" for the environment.
This kind of dual road thinking is what has led men like Donald Trump , the Australians, Chinese, Russians and Indians to ignore and denigrate all laws or regulations that even attempt to moderate our despoilation of the planet.
Inevitably, the wealthiest 10th percent, will secret themselves in pollution free countries and assure they are able-for some time anyway-to pay to keep themselves and theirs free of responsibility. I suggest all of them remember the French Revolution of 1789, which went very quickly from the Oath of the Tennis COurt to the Tumbril, with any and all members of France's "Aristos" to die by decapitation.
1
He’s killing the people he claims to want to help. India is in for massive climate change related problems, probably as bad as anywhere on the planet, and he’s just putting another nail in his own people’s coffin.
4
Short sighted beyond belief! ...Profit now...Children suffer later.
It is hopeless..We are the worst designed animal in all creation.
Talk about intelligent design...We are the dumbest..
God should have taken off the whole weekend.
4
I am not a religious man, an atheist in fact, but I remember quotes from the bible now and then. The quote that comes to mind just now is “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Does it matter that coal is cheaper and abundant if using it damns us all to hell on earth?
I look at children today and all I can think of is that they remind me of weenies on a stick around a campfire. Wake up, people.
6
Does "Adani" translated from Hindi mean "Koch" in English?
6
The Koch's must be jealous.
4
You can't blame the majority of Indians and Bangladeshis, true, but you certainly can blame the billionaires and otherwise mega-rich people in those countries (among the richest on earth) who have the resources to do something about this but choose instead to stand by and idly profit.
A small handful of Indians control literally hundreds of billions of dollars of capital. Lump in the rest of the richest fossil-fuel-based billionaires around the world and you could fit the number of people it would take to solve this global existential crisis in a single room together. There are probably a couple hundred people who could come together and decide to fix this while still remaining preposterously, unbelievably wealthy, but they don't.
263
@Telecaster The large majority of wealthy people are apparently not very good people. Who would've guessed that those who hoard as much wealth as possible to outdo their peers, and for no other reason, wouldn't be decent good people.
51
@Telecaster
And these enormously wealthy predators will be just as dead, in time, as the poor they wreak misery upon.
8
@Telecaster, if they relented someone might become richer than them. Couldn’t have that, could they.
5
The Carmichael coal mine’s approval by the Australian government is a disaster, but only represents the opening step of an unfolding catastrophe. Further large coal mines in the coal-rich Galilee basin are planned and will be greatly facilitated by the infrastructure developed for the Carmichael mine.
As recently as the Federal Election this year, Australians were led by politicians and by Adani to believe that the electricity generated from the coal was going to help alleviate the relative energy poverty of Indians. It now turns out that it is simply a money-making operation for Adani to sell the most polluting form of power to Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries on earth. Gautam Adani is very close to the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, so it is hardly surprising that the Indian government is massively subsidising this project. What is less clear is why the Australian and Queensland governments are also heavily subsidising the mine when so few jobs will be created and so much carbon pollution will be generated (it is planned to mine 2.3 billion tons of coal from this one mine over 60 years). What we are seeing is crony capitalism at its most outrageous.
377
@Hugh D Campbell
This may all be true but how many Bangladeshis will have lighting, cooling (what we in the States call A/C), and refrigeration because of this new power plant? Millions?
5
@Tucson Geologist. You might better ask how much good it will do the Bangladeshis when their country gets washed away as the sea water rises and the typhoons increase in frequency and strength.
103
@D. Knight
I agree. But ask the Bangladeshis, not me.
7
Some day when we have reliable and not too expensive alternatives Coal will be of little use. Not there yet.
For comparison the United States (2nd worldwide) emits about 5000 million metric tons of CO2 and India (3rd) about 2000 million. On a per capita basis, an individual's share of emissions, the United States is about 16 metric tons and in India about 1.5 metric tons. As India's economy emerges if their goal is to provide a standard of living comparable to a United States citizen (using similar practices) each Indian would produce 11 times more CO2 in a country with 4 times the population. Total output for India would then be 2000 million x 11 x 4= 88,000 million metric tons annually, the equivalent of 18 United States.
Scenarios like that could play out across the developing world. The short term profits to be made that push these nations towards more dependence on fossil fuels exponentially increases worldwide CO2 emissions at a time when the facts dictate significant reductions are necessary.
Who are we to say to India, "No you can't have what we have and you can't do what we did." What we should be doing is saying, "Here let us help you build grids and power sources that have a low carbon footprint." The trouble is we can't even do that for ourselves. Meanwhile, ships leave our ports loaded with fossil fuels headed for the developing world.
35
@richard wiesner
This won’t end well.
2
Also in today's paper:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/us/wyoming-computer-science.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Education
How a State Plans to Turn Coal Country Into Coding Country
Driven by a tech-industry vision of rural economic revival, Wyoming is requiring all of its K-12 public schools to offer computer science.
6
This is everything that is wrong with this world. A few greedy people keeping the majority from doing what they truly want! This is why we need a maximum income. And government needs to quit subsidizing them why is it that they don't believe in the free market? Like it says in the article "Throw enough subsidies and anything can be viable"
In other words alternative energy can be helped also.
16
If you don't think that India has to start at the beginning of the electronics revolution, and first use Apple ][ computers and Atari video games, why would you think that they have to start off at the beginning of the clean energy revolution?
They can just leapfrog to using clean energy now. The quickest little google gets us the price of coal in India just now, about $46 a tonne, or about 4 cents per kilowatt-hour generated with it. Windfarms in Canada, with OUR labour prices, are already bidding 3 cents, so this isn't about "India is poor and must use older, cheaper energy sources".
This is all about lobbying in and corruption, not about rich vs poor countries.
79
Modi regarded as honest and dignified person but what he did in the past and going to do in the future is to award contracts to lobbyist. Adani power making money by building coal power plants with cost of people lives and converting agriculture lands to waste lands by its process of doing bossiness. It is catastrophe still people support this kind of bossiness. India need to start looking for alternative sources to generate power. Everything start to change with small effect. Awarding real estates contracts to Adan group by tech giants will have deleterious effects.
8
I’m sorry but this article shows the classic hypocrisy / ignorance of Urban Western elite who don't have to worry about acute and chronic poverty at a community level.
1. The West was perfectly happy to burn coal and other fossil fuels in its roads to development but is trying to kick the ladder away from developing countries / poor communities. Jobs from the mine in rural Queensland would have benefited the chronically unemployed aboriginal population in that area who can’t just be “trained to do green energy jobs” now that they are well into their adulthood. As Paul Krugman wrote here, creating sustained and sustainable employment in rural areas is next to impossible. So, could progressives stop impoverishing poor communities of colour by snatching away the few opportunities for temporary employment then rural poor have?
2. Bringing the GDP per capita of poor countries to ~USD 5000 will be far more effective in improving the environment than keeping them impoverished by denying them the opportunity to access energy and infrastructure cheaply. The data on this clear. Yet, so called “progressive” organisations, who claim to care about the global poor continue to spread damaging - nay, deadly - nonsense about the environment and economics development.
9
@Pacific Except that coal, even in India, is not less expensive then cleaner alternatives.
11
@Still Waiting...
That assumes that the average price of energy from different sources is the same everywhere and that every source can be turned into energy locally. There is no basis for that assumption. Saying that cleaner sources of energy are cheaper than coal in a country as big as India is like telling me that apartments are cheaper than single family homes in the US. An apartment in Manhattan is almost certainly more expensive than a house in rural Texas. There’s also the issue of building transmission infrastructure for power, which is closely tied to the source of energy. The infrastructure to transmit power from cleaner sources isn’t cheap to build in a place like India. Furthermore, India needs to think about using its limited resources to create maximum power for the greatest number of people. Many cleaner sources simply aren’t up to that task. Finally, an impoverished community can and should sell whatever assets it has and those who are already well off through pollution on an epic scale have little business telling others how to grow in an environmentally responsible manner.
1
One solution here: Send any billionaire or coal supporter to live with their families near those coal-fired power plants.
13
1. We have way too many people.
2. We have way too many engineers and entrepreneurs. We have way too few philosophers.
3. We should take from the world what we need, not what we can grab.
4. A short list of things we don't need:
(a) Rolls Royce car
(b) 100 foot yacht.
(c) 10,000 square foot house for a family of two.
(d) 15 square foot TV screen.
There are oodles more things we don't need.
56
@Pete Kantor
While your argument is on point, you may as well fly into 100,000 miles into space and scream your ideas into the void. It will have the same impact of commenting here.
2
@Pete Kantor.
Number 3 doesn't make sense.
To prevent this fiasco from spreading Europe could cover the Sahara with Solar panels, using half the power for itself and giving away the rest to Sub-Saharan Africa. Economies of scale created to support this project would further reduce the cost of Solar panels and ease their adoption in the rest of the world.
24
Ugly, beyond belief. And poisonous. And the whole World knows it. And yet, the greed continues and continues and ...
And why do Billionaires do this ?
Because they enjoy it, and because they can.
17
@W.Wolfe: Carmichael is not a done deal, despite the fact that this article reads like it is, and there is a lot of opposition to it Australia-wide. It has been approved WITH CONDITIONS, which this article makes no mention of. See for yourself. Not there yet.
https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/assessments-and-approvals/carmichael-coal-mine-and-rail-project.html
I'm Australian and this battle has been going on in earnest a long time.
1
The little baby greens here munching their little baby kale leaves do not understand .90% of the world is just getting started producing with coal ,they are where we were a hundred years ago .All of Asia ,Africa ,tens of billions and growing rapidly ,they're only just getting started. Look at the big picture,this is why the Sierra club wanted to close the US border against immigration back in the 1990's.This is why ,the amazon rain forest is gone excepting maybe 10% ,that doesn't have a chance on earth of surviving .This is why constantly blaming President Trump for everything is just not going to make it.
3
@Alan Einstoss. The US could have been a leader in alternative energy but still is addicted to coal here and abroad because the business interests will prosper while the health of people and the planet deteriorate. Profit over people is now a global philosophy that drives decisions to the detriment of life on the planet earth,
14
@JMC
Coal plants are closing in U.S. at a rapid rate.
They're simply to expensive to compete.
2
@Alan Einstoss. Any positive suggestions?
Weather extremes have affected both India and Australia. How these countries could ever approve this insane project leaves me utterly dismayed. I shall certainly find amusing any sanctimonious criticisms of the United States from either nation after they've allowed this monstrosity.
6
@T Norris: We haven't allowed it yet. It needs to meet conditions before the final approval and they may never be met.
https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/assessments-and-approvals/carmichael-coal-mine-and-rail-project.html
What this article fails to mention is that Australia is a leader in alternative energy and insurance companies won't insure coal any longer. There is and has been for a long time a lot of public opposition to this. The Queensland government is who's been pushing for it and the federal government has been holding off.
So I wouldn't get too sanctimonious. We are all over the US when it comes to alternative energy.
What makes it more appalling though is that coal use is dying in Australia, so this is all about the money. In Queensland, land of the red neck, many of them are interested in jobs, jobs, jobs and not worried about the consequences. A large majority of the Australian population thinks otherwise.
8
@T Norris: We haven't allowed it yet. It needs to meet conditions before the final approval and they may never be met.
https://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/assessments-and-approvals/carmichael-coal-mine-and-rail-project.html
What this article fails to mention is that Australia is a leader in alternative energy and insurance companies won't insure coal any longer. There is and has been for a long time a lot of public opposition to this. The Queensland government is who's been pushing for it and the federal government has been holding off.
So I wouldn't get too sanctimonious. We are all over the US when it comes to alternative energy.
What makes it more appalling though is that coal use is dying in Australia, so this is all about the money. In Queensland, land of the red neck, many of them are interested in jobs, jobs, jobs and not worried about the consequences. A large majority of the Australian population thinks otherwise.
1
@T Norris "I shall certainly find amusing any sanctimonious criticisms of the United States from either nation " and yet, here you are, freely offering sanctimonious criticism. GLOBAL warming doesn't respect national boundaries and we in the United States are the biggest contributors to it, per capita. So make that sanctimonious and hypocritical.
1
India has regions now hitting over 50 degrees Celsius (120 degrees F) thanks to climate change. Now they are doubling down on climate-warming, and just plain dirty, and outdated coal. Australia is more than happy to mine their toxic supply. A billionaire gets richer in the process. It’s a microcosm of the greed, shortsightedness, hubris, corruption, and arrogance of our species that will eventually turn the world into a Mad Max movie.
17
The rich guy has a/c and bottled water. He does not care.
2
One consequence is that the rest of Australia will dry up and burn. Another is that sea level rise will drive tens of millions of refugees out of Bangladesh into India. Of course Adani will be dead for most of that, so what does he care. Have fun, kids!
10
Australia is an active collaborator in this venture, not an unwitting victim and we, sitting in the US that consumes nearly a quarter of world's energy output, have no grounds from which to complain.
8
@Nagarajan: Thankyou. This article far from tells the full story.
India has 100s of millions of people in extreme poverty who want a better life and cannot afford anything but the absolute cheapest form of energy to get there. So until solar is cheaper than coal, it's going to be coal. And lots of it.
The US produces about 15% of global greenhouse gases. India less than half of that. But US consumers are not going to double their output; they are not going to drive twice as much or eat twice as much beef. Indian consumers, however, can easily double or triple or quadruple their output if the country follows the path of China from being dirt poor to being a middle-income country. So India's CO2 is likely to go up and up and up in the next few decades.
The point is that the weight of India's population is not really being felt in the global CO2 accounts. But it will be. The fact is that India has too many people. So does China - and the US - and the world. Except we are not allowed to say that. So let's pretend it is all the fault of one billionaire. And Donald Trump.
7
Commitment to solar and wind needs to be global and include the US and Europe. Don’t ask poor countries to do what we will not expect if ourselves. Leading does not mean “do as I say, not what I do”! It’s the greed that prevents meaningful change! But all the money in the world will not protect humanity from extinction in the not too distant future, with increasing pain and tragedy in the meantime.
3
@r a
New utility solar is already cheaper then existing coal plants in India.
It's hard to abandon what made you ungodly rich, even when you start losing money on it. You convince yourself the new conditions is a temporary anomaly, not a persistent state.
2
Aah, but the point of the article is that India gets NO power. It only gets the pollution.
1
First look at the data before getting on your high horses... India's total carbon emission is less than half that of the US and less than one quarter that of China. I'm not saying that this does not mean that India should not do more to reduce its footprint, but that more needs to be done in the US and China. Why does the US elect a President and Congress that are opening up national parks and reserves for exploitation? That are deregulating industries that are among the worst polluters on the planet? That pull out of international treaties deigned to clean the air and water and reduce carbon emissions? What moral ground does the US have anymore?
Let us think of collaborating on solving these problems, but as long as the US cannot even pretend to care about the real issues, stop preaching to other countries.
https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html
9
People in India and Bangladesh want electricity, with many basically spending all their time just working to exist. It is a lot easier to let a greedy guy do the work and get rich while supplying the electricity, than to do the political heavy lifting for any other alternative. Anyone not liking that reality ought to revisit the atrocity of Kyoto written by political hacks to gore "the opposition" and give Asia a free pass, various badly written "free trade" agreements enriching the wealthy and generally impoverishing everyone else, and the too little too late Paris run aground by popular backlash against lopsided wealth distribution (you have to have hope to be willing to give up something today for something tomorrow). Adani and his coal greed are just a symptom of the problem, a problem likely to get worse before letting them eat cake gets better.
2
At what point will there be bloody revolution?
A small amount of people are making the planet uninhabitable for the vast majority.
Do we just stand and watch and read about it? I don't have the answers. Our leaders are supposed to have the answers, or at least try to come up with answers. As we see, that is not happening, nor is it going to happen.
6
The Australians will reap what they have sown. Already their most world-famous natural site, the Great Barrier Reef, one of the seven wonders of the world, is a shadow of its former self. For the sake of a few thousand jobs, they will feel the heat, literally. But of course, being people, they will simply shrug and turn up the air-conditioning, even while condemning denizens of the natural world to an increasingly perilous and uncertain future. The selfishness of the human race never fails to sicken and astound me.
10
No offense, but India's overpopulation is a perfect example of why birth control and abortion is necessary in all societies. The negative impacts to the enviroment and wildlife our species continues to do daily will be the very things that bring about our extinction as well. What this world needs is LESS greedy, immoral billionaires on it...
14
There are already a few cities in India that are bordering on inhabitable. What will India do when a third of it’s population is constantly sick because of the air they breathe?
9
Among other measures, out of sheer self-interest we should be giving away nuclear power plants, fuel, and waste disposal services, for free, to every country that will have them, in exchange for each fossil fuel power plant closed or not built. But before we find the will to do what must be done we'll first have to go into the fire. A hundred thousand species will go extinct, a hundred million people will die, and billions more will be impoverished or inconvenienced, including us.
3
(Intended Audience: The wives and daughters of the carbon barons & the carbon-sponsored politicians)
I truly fear for the future safety of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the owners, board members and executives of the oil, natural gas, coal and pipeline companies and their sponsored political “leaders.”
As living conditions on our planet become unbearable due to the severe, relentless impacts of Climate Change, generations of devastated citizens around the world will ask: “Who is most directly responsible for this existential catastrophe?”
When these citizens look around, they will find many of the culpable carbon barons and carbon-sponsored politicians have already passed on to whatever afterlife awaits them. But the direct descendants of the carbon barons and the carbon-sponsored politicians will still be here. And there will be no escape – not even behind their gated communities – from the wrath of billions of incensed citizens on every continent.
For the carbon barons, it all comes down to one essential choice to be made RIGHT NOW: harvest their carbon assets and sacrifice their descendants – or – strand their carbon assets and save their descendants?
For the carbon-sponsored politicians, it also comes down to one essential choice to be made RIGHT NOW: continue to dither on Climate Change legislation and sacrifice their descendants – or – pass sweeping and meaningful Climate Change mitigation legislation and save their descendants?
12
China is investing tons of money in non-polluting energy sources because they're discovering that they can't meet all their energy needs from coal and still be able to breath. China is about the size of the US in land mass, but with four times the population. You can't make coal clean enough to burn that much and have breathable air. India will find they'll have the same problem, only much worse. India has a population almost as large as China, but in only 1/3 the space. I suspect they'll move toward nuclear and renewables once their huge population demands cleaner air.
14
@Jeff
Agree. But we all need to understand that the world is smaller than we think. What happens in China , India or Russia has a global impact. We all need to combat climate change and air pollution as a global community
7
The article neglects to mention the dubious job promises made to the people of North Queensland - who are generally economically and educationally poorer than their southern compatriots. Adani promised in their publicity that the mine would create 10000 jobs in Queensland - a figure continuously repeated by mine proponents in Australia. However, in a court action, that figure was reduced to just 1464. Subsequent promises to investors were that the operation would be fully automated and could require just 100 permanent jobs.
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@Melbourne Town
The people of Queensland should have demanded a performance bond for the 10,000 jobs. No bond, no permit.
Other than that its a typical Trump snow job.
Why is it that the last thing people want to listen to is science. But then Socrates had than problem 2,400 years a go, so have we really made any progress?
20
@Melbourne Town I'm only allowed to recommend your comment once. Unemployed Central Queenlander's fantasies about high-paying mining jobs cost Labor the election, despite the area being hit by freak floods just months before.
10
Capitalism has never properly valued "natural resources". Because they have always been seen as infinite, with no harmful side effects, humans have exploited natural resources, paying only for the extraction and processing costs, never the replacement cost. Further, capitalism will never place a value on keeping the atmospheric CO2 level below 350. These sort of things just don't fit easily into a supply and demand economic model. Until we demand government regulation we simply can't expect this to change. As long as capitalist own the politicians I fear we're screwed.
26
@mjc
You’re right. I agree 100%. But not to dispair. There are a handful of capitalists with a lot of money. But don’t forget there are millions of ordinary people. organize like a union and fight back!
3
The wealthy are killing our planet with their endless greed and overwhelming selfishness, even in the face of facts. Pure evil.
82
So blame it on Adani for being opportunistic and enterprising in learning how to work the very system that was engendered in the very annals of this paper's nativity.
It is one thing to criticize the downsides of coal. Which we all understand and agree. More needs to be done and rightfully so.
But it is entirely ludicrous to demonize Adani, Billionaires, Trump Etc. simply because the system that you built is not working for 'you' anymore.
To paint a sinister caricature that these people are out to rid the world of it's green creds is akin to the 'right' saying that the Times is out to rid the world of the right. It is just plain wrong.
Also, to not mention a single line about any real benefits that the local workforce, economy, etc., in any or all these three co-conspiring...right-leaning... countries as this paper sees it...only shows how left and out of touch this paper is with reality.
2
@Ram Raja could that be because Adani's own claims about the benefits to the local workforce have changed a number of times depending upon the audience? When forced to state in official environments the number of local jobs, the figure has been significantly lower than the company has claimed in unregulated environments.
7
@Ram Raja
A billionaire has many choices as to how he invests. To invest in coal is thumbing his nose at the world that is increasingly at risk. Ethics and moral are clearly not one of his strengths, but he will get richer.
11
@Ram Raja Just because a system "allows" something doesn't make it ethical. Adani obviously doesn't need the money so I imagine his main interest is power and control. He sounds like a sociopath. Similarly, just because Trump was able to legally avoid paying taxes doesn't mean that was the right thing to do. Many people who make millions do great things with their money - helping others and the planet. Shouldn't helping people be the main goal of governments as well? There are no benefits to coal at this point in the earth's history. None.
5
If environmentals really cared then they would encourage building nuclear power plants. We could have a limitless supply of clean energy.
4
@James Sun and wind are less expensive than nuclear power, which is enormously costly to build, run and dispose of spent fuel.
5
@James
\
There is little about nuclear that clean. Consider the CO2 generated making the large amounts of steel and concrete needed to build a nuclear plant. Consider the dirty operation of mining and refining uranium to make fuel rods. And then consider the problem of disposing of the used fuel rods and finally the cost of moth balling the old plant for generations to come as it cools off.
If it weren't for government insurance no nuclear plant would have ever been built. No private ins. co. wants anything to do with it.
2
@Winston Smith
In part they cost more bc of all the lawsuits against them by environmentalists.
Nobody wants to do away with the money system. We have all come to depend on it and now we all want great food, Cars, TVs, Roads, Shopping centres...and all the comforts that money brings. How can we blame the human race ? How can we blame the developing countries for wanting the very same things ? how can we put a stop to all this ? i don't want to be the one to say it ... but it's an impossible task. Nobody wants to do away with all comforts to save the planet. Even Greta is sailing on super-high technology. The World of consumers we have given birth to, in the 20th century cannot be unmade...not in a year. Not in a few decades. Maybe in a hundred year span. But given that climate change is here to stay, we'll probably be starving pretty soon. This is very much like a bad b movie. Nobody can pretend to be more kosher than his neighbour in this movie. We're like a virus. Today...after all is said and done...i'm feeling pretty helpless. Money use to make the World go 'round. Now...it's about to grind it to a stop. Money... natural to humans but still a strange thing
18
One question still in my mind was "what is the real and economic alternative" to feed the "power" requirement for the Indian subcontinent and pull these people from poverty still!
I do not seem to have any answer! Only countries with enormous conglomerates like "Duke" Energy can do some thing and has "not done" anything to help the world climate change anyways!
I do not see real tangible changes in China's power usage too..
Any other countries work incluidng Europe is a display" of awesome technology only.
We do not know why Sub saharan countries in Africa not using Solar Energy for their requirement to potential and these awesome European countries not helping them prosper too!
@weary traveller
Nuclear power would work just fine for India, just as it has for France.
3
@weary traveller: For starters. Do some research.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/01/22/solar-plant-size-3500-football-pitches-powers-moroccos-sunlit-ambitions/
@James
You have to shut down nuke plants during heatwaves. You just can't dump the heat fast enough. As France has proven.
But who will get more heatwaves?
France or India.
1
The hypocrisy of Mr. Adani's arguments isn't surprising, but it's still striking. India and other Asian countries have sun and wind. Their economies would benefit strongly from developing alternative energy industries. The expensive investments needed certainly would pay off. Mr. Adani just wants to make a lot of money in a status quo manner but he himself represents the status quo. He ignores the opportunities that he himself could take advantage of for investing in other forms of energy.
5
One quarter of the world's population tells me they need birth control more than coal and my sense is a majority of the women in that region of our world agree.
11
@Ian MacFarlane It's actually about 90%.
2
I never cease to be amazed at how the petro/chemical industry gets everything it wants despite the fact that the way they are going they will kill us all in a few decades at most. Its like the vase majority of us have no voice. Our needs and health are ignored so that a very few can get all the money in the world. I used to think that the rich would wake up and realize that they will also need air to breath, water to drink and dry ground to stand upon and to grow food. I guess the rich are craven and figure they will die before its intolerable. Our leaders have so much to answer for. Its a lie that we cant be renewable in few years, But since when did people ever listen to the truth? I admire the young in Hong King. We should do that here for the environment before its too late.
10
“The reality is that, if the coal doesn’t come from Australia or Queensland or the Galilee, it’s going to come from other jurisdictions.”...said Lucas Dow, chief executive of Adani’s Australia division.
Perhaps but not at the same cost...so a willfully disingenuous statement.
The world is getting smaller. At some point it will be necessary to create a global state to prevent one nation from doing something as egregious as building a new $2 billion coal-fired power plant in 2019. Glad I won't be around to live in that kind of world but sadly future generations will.
5
You can’t stop progress, even if it kills us all, eventually! 75 years ago there were less than 3 billion humans on Mother Earth, and now there are nearly 8 billion. What will it be in, say, 81 years from now? I hope I’m not reincarnated and find out it’s uninhabitable!
4
@Moe
An article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs makes a good case for a decreasing world population. With few national exceptions the world's birth rate is below 2.1 which is needed to maintain the world's population.
China, Japan, Europe and the U.S. are all below 2.1. The education of women together with a low infant death rate ( they don't need six to have two survive) is the answer.
So perhaps there is hope.
2
Perhaps Indian and Bangladeshi peasants should have electric light in their cottages? And other conveniences, that we think of as necessities, that use electricity?
Or, do the authors of this article and other enviro-activists think that poor peasants don't have the same needs and desires that they do? And the same moral right to them?
4
@Jonathan Katz
It would be much, much easier and less expensive to expand wind and solar creation to these rural areas. But India and Bangladesh have never been much for long-term thinking, particularly when there are billionaires ready to fill the coffers of politicians at every level of government there.
You might as well argue that they should all be drinking bottled water instead of building wells.
8
@Jonathan Katz
Renewable energy is the answer. Renewable costs are now in line with fossil fuel if not below fossil fuel. India has plenty of sun shine, coasts and wind.
It is time to get with the 21st Century.
1
@Jonathan Katz you know there's more than one way to generate electricity, right?
2
If environmentals really cared then they would encourage building nuclear plants. We could have a limitless supply of clean energy.
2
@James
I used to support the construction of new nuclear plants as a component of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power generation, but wherever new nuclear plants are being built in western countries (e.g. Sizewell C and Hinkley Point C in the UK) they are taking so long to build and coming out so expensive that I've come to the conclusion that it isn't worth bothering with them and we're better off pushing straight to renewables like solar and wind.
6
@Alan
Until large scale batteries are readily available to save the power wind and solar generate nuclear is a good interim solution.
2
@James
I agree that we need improvements in energy storage, but nuclear isn't well suited to providing the stop gap. For one, based on projects like Sizewell and Hinkley Point it takes 20 years for a new nuclear plant to go from planning to generation. Secondly, nuclear plants are very good at providing a consistent, stable power output, but very bad at reacting to fluctuations in demand. Energy storage doesn't need to be batteries though, pumped-storage hydro schemes (like Dinorwig in Wales) are a very good alternative.
2
If you want to punch a hole/in the atmosphere with coal/governments are happy to/subsidize your ballyhoo/Teeming millions still must choke/on bituminous black smoke/All so billionaires can grasp/profits until Earth's last gasp.
1
“If you just looked at the social costs of air pollution, coal is so bad that, if those are added in as a tax, no coal plant would make economic sense,” said Anant Sudarshan, an economist at the University of Chicago who studies energy policy.
Thanks for this; more proof of the lie that is American style Capitalism.
There ought to be no "should" or "tax" here. This vile company is using up and wrecking whole systems of resources. Those are costs incurred, those are thefts from the nation and the public, and they ought to be prosecuted as such.
"Oh my, but, but then poor Mr. Adani and his mighty corporation (an International one, by the way!) would lose a lot of money. They might even go out of business! We can't have that!"
So just as in America there is no free market, there is no real capitalism, there is no investor/manager class that takes all the risks and so gets all the rewards.
There is just this big lie, and outright theft from the workers who make these criminals wealthy, and the communities whose resources they steal.
Trump is a lie. Capitalism is a lie. The free market never existed, and government exists to steal from the hard working, keep them quiet and insecure (hence no welfare, healthcare, or education; soon no benefits at all) and deliver the loot to the rich and the legislative.
Adani is no different from Walmart sending its employees to government for care and food stamps and claiming to be a brilliant enterprise and complaining about taxes.
6
Shame shame on those people who accelerate pollution and climate change. They don’t care a bit about the well-being of the earth and what it will mean for future generations. I calculated, for example, that 600,000 wind turbines can supply the entire need of the United States for electric power. And it would cost less than one year’s military budget. Our government was happy to subsidize the oil industry for years and years but God forbid they should hurt the fossil fuel industry, replacing it with renewable energy. Shame shame.
1
Adani tries to keep his business going by falsely promising "energy security" for India by addicting them to something shipped overseas as China's navy grows?
The sun shines directly onto Indian soil. The wind blows across it and cannot be stopped if there's a dispute with other nations.
Adani is trying, for his own profit, to continue contributing heavily to one of India's major causes of death and illness.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/world/asia/indias-air-pollution-rivals-china-as-worlds-deadliest.html
Using coal that should stay in the ground, and selling power to Bangladesh, means he's also going to be paid by Bangladeshis to hasten the rise in sea levels - in a nation of 180 million, the size of Iowa, where more than half the population lives just a few meters above current sea level.
When Bangladeshis flee into higher ground in India in the future, will Adani's profits pay for their care and housing? Will his Hindu-nationalist buddy Modi be happy to see such an increase in Muslim population in India?
4
Do your homework on renewable energy expansion in India before commenting. India needs energy from all cheap sources. Why don’t you ask your country to transfer a few billions to construct wind and solar power plant. Unsolicited advice!
Here is the greenies transition plan.
1. Tax carbon (either directly or indirectly through "cap and trade" schemes) and use the money to expand welfare programs. (Not use ALL the money to fund a new "Manhattan Project" to find non-carbon forms of energy production and better forms of power distribution.)
2. Have government make the direct decision about who can and who can't own and use private transportation. (One of the basic tenets of Marxism that if government controls the ability of the populace to move around, then government can prevent revolutions.)
3. Force everyone (except the "poor") to pay for "smart" (remote controlled) utility meters so government can decide what their house temperature will be. (Lest we forget, in Stalinist Russia, a Marxism based regime, the local party boss controlled the valves and fuse boxes in the basements of the Government apartment blocks and anyone that complained about the government found themselves shivering in the dark sometimes without even cold running water.)
4. Ban or severely tax meat production, especially beef because livestock emit methane which is 20 times as bad a CO2. (Another page of Marxism is that if government can control what and how much food the people get, government can prevent insurrections. Look at North Korea today and Stalin's Russia in the 60”s.)
Mind you, none of them would stop global warming, but they would impose Marxism on the world and that is the real goal.
2
India is still a ravenous class society, where the elite rule and the poor live in unfathomable poverty. America’s Big Pharma, Coca Cola and fashion industries are three monumental polluters in India, drying up wells and ruining the land and water that remains.
It is raining plastic in Colorado for God’s sake people! Without massive mobility to stop even a fraction of major polluters, I see little hope for future generations. Perhaps people really do have more in common with the Lemming, suicidally dashing off of a cliff into the sea.
Even Bezos does not see philanthropy as a medium for positive change, but wants to go to Mars, just in case!
8
Adani has grown from being a nobody to a 14 billion USD (probably more) conglomerate in about 25 years. Official patronage has played a key part. The Chairman of Adani enterprises is a man regarded in India as having a negligible social conscience. It is precisely such businesses that we need less of, especially when they exacerbate climate change,
14
If the west was serious about combating climate change, we would subsidize cleaner energy generation in emerging economies. The atmosphere is filled, after all, with our CO2.
We've known about climate change for decades and done nothing to stop it. How can we now turn around and blame India and China, countries greatly injured by colonialism, to stop doing the very thing we did to build our economies?
6
Pennsylvania is just as bad. They are building tens of thousands of gas wells through fracking destroying property values, putting pipelines through people's backyards through eminent domain, giving the largest tax payer subsidy in state history to Shell to build an ethane cracker plant, all to create plastic precursors that end up as single use products in the ocean and landfills. The beneficiaries are private companies that plan to export these natural gas liquids to Scotland and other overseas markets. And Pennsylvanians will be left with the air, water and radioactive pollution while a handful of millionaires get richer.
12
India has at least one big problem -- it's hot there and getting hotter.
Another big problem is its huge population which is getting bigger.
In 2016 India bought about 5 million room air conditioners and that market is growing by leaps and bounds.
So India needs power plants to supply electricity to all those a/c units. Coal fired plants are its choice.
Furthermore, modern atmosphere refrigerants for all the a/c units is expensive and not quite as efficient as the old CFCs.
No surprise then that India is now the world's largest producer and smuggler of atmosphere-destroying CFCs.
So much for the Montreal Protocols.
16
@Fred
Apologies, that should read, "atmosphere-friendly refrigerants"
2
Adani's only concern is profit.
More money can be made using coal in the short-term despite the huge long-term health and environmental costs.
There are alternatives to coal.
3
theres evidence that the clouds produced by coal plants offset a lot of their waste, so maybe this isnt such a big deal.
@pols gerych
Sorry, it is a big deal.
Tops of clouds do reflect solar energy from reaching the Earth's surface so, in that respect, they contribute a tiny bit to cooling.
However, the bottoms of clouds trap heat radiated from the Earth's surface very efficiently and contribute to a lot of warming of the planet's surface.
It's called the greenhouse effect.
2
@pols gerych
Except, of course, the highly radioactive nature of coal ash, and the fact that there is really no reason to burn coal at all anymore but to produce easy profits and protect investments in outdated and unforgivably inefficient coal burning plants.
"But in Asia, demand for coal, the main source of energy, is growing. That’s because it is plentiful, the appetite is huge and the alternatives are fewer."
This is the key statement. It has nothing to do with subsidies (which are immaterial compared to subsidies and mandates for solar and wind) or alleged political influence.
It is my understanding that reforestation of rain forests around the world may offset increased carbon in the atmosphere. Perhaps industries and countries that increase carbon could be required to invest in planting whatever foliage needed to address the added pollution.
3
Offsets are simply not sufficient
1
@Bill Prange
You may also have heard that Brazil is chopping up forests at a record rate, all unregulated and totally "he with the biggest guns gets the land".
What you heard is a decades old fantasy of corporations refusing to take responsibility and pay the real costs of their operations.
1
When electricity generated by natural gas, wind, solar and other forms of energy become less expensive than coal fired electricity they will win in the marketplace. In the US, even though pollution control equipment adds much more cost to coal operations than to other forms, it is still less expensive than the other forms and receives far less in taxpayer subsidies than the other forms. It is even more cost efficient in third world nations. That is why China and India continue to build new coal fired plants and why China is also building coal fired plants in Vietnam, Kenya and the rest of the third world countries.
For third world countries, the alternative is to deny billions of people access to energy required to supply fresh drinking and irrigation water and sanitation in the form of sewage systems.
In the US cities like NYC, government resources are being squandered putting solar panels on the roofs of government buildings rather than being spent updating the nineteenth century water, sewage and garbage disposal systems. The population of NYC is growing, despite the known inadequacy of its infrastructure and despite the fact that the Democrats in control of the city believe the oceans are rising and know the land is sinking.
In primitive times, people moved away from areas that flood to higher ground. In NYC, residents pray to the gods of the federal government to defeat mother nature.
The third world will move to twentieth century infrastructure before NYC.
2
Solar vs updating water/sewage/garbage disposal — it must not be an either/or. All those efforts matter and collectively can make a difference.
5
@ebmem Fossil fuel is only less expensive when the economic externalities are removed from consideration. This is the only reason coal is being used for power.
Businesses of all stripes never want to talk about the economic externalities, only the immediate financial considerations.
10
@ebmem What are you talking about? These Indian coal subsidies are much higher than solar ones, and pure political pork, more similar to Houston's Federal pay off than NYC. Texans had a $5B ballot measure to build a water gate to protect Houston's harbor. They turned it down. Hurricane Harvey caused $125B in damage, and forced a debt ceiling vote for the nation to write a $15B check to help Houstonians. It won't be the last. Climatologists estimate that 40% more rainfall occurred in Houston during Harvey and New Orleans in because of Katrina, because of global warming. 46% of ALL carbon dioxide emissions are from burning coal. Mining coal also causes deforestation, particulate run-off in rivers, as well as air borne particulates which cause lung cancer. Coal consumption increased by 45% between 2000 and 2010, and has risen another 50% since then. 9 of the 10 hottest summers ever are since 2000. Now please tell me which form of energy is actually cheaper...
10
India has plenty of solar energy and nuclear weapons. How hard would it be for India to switch from coal to solar, wind, hydro and nuclear power?
10
@Betsy
Plenty hard, if their courts are even half as corrupt as ours, there politicians even half as deep in corporate pockets, their rich guys half as deluded and entitled as Mr. Adani.
Logistically? They could be almost fully converted in a year or two. Their cities cleaner, their power reliable, their population less impoverished. Assuming political will and public investment.
1
There is a risk that Adani's mines and subsidies will saddle India, Bangladesh and Australia with more pollution for decades, but there's a trend here in the United States to shut down coal plants even earlier than first planned. So stranded assets are another big possibility that shouldn't be ignored.
Australians will have a big hole and the pollution from mine waste. India will have expensive plants idled as renewables keep increasing. Bangladesh might come out best, because if they're already buying power from India, they can contract for more renewable sources as India's renewables continue their rapid growth - renewables being 35% of total already there.
But billionaires lean on their political buddies - even here we have the friends of fossil donors trying desperately to distract from the constant declines in cost of power from renewable sources.
For example, our President lies about wind power and cancer (something that can only be believed by carefully avoiding any critical thinking) to protect the fossil funders of his inaugural bash. Yet customers are signing 20-year contracts for wind power at two cents a kilowatt-hour.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/wind-blows-past-trumps-digs-as-average-ppa-prices-fall-below-002kwh/560914/
"Wind represented the third largest source of new generation in the U.S., behind solar and natural gas in 2018, according to the DOE."
3
The company’s founder, Gautam Adani, says .... “India doesn’t have a choice,” ... (coal is) indispensable to feeding the energy demands ....
On the contrary, all of us, including corporations, DO have a choice. Free will imbues us with the ability to decide differently. Firstly, we should stop using the term "demand" refering to energy consumption. "Request" would be more appropriate - and we, as thinking humans, should refuse those requests which further endanger our planet's climate. Our choices deserve more than simply input from a corporation's bottom line.
9
This is just another reason why climate change will not be reduced, but accelerated. Therefore, this country should focus on adapting to it.
5
Coal is probably our most abundant source of energy, it is a technology we understand well, it is an energy resource that poor countries can use without bankrupting themselves. As others here have noted it is not going away anytime soon. In the 70's there was a lot of research on how to use coal in a more environmentally friendly way. That research was abandoned when the energy market changed.
If we are going to move away from high carbon energy sources we need two things, a way to clean up our existing technology. And a technology that can be used in the developing world.
The solutions for moving away from coal are all first world solutions, they require massive investment and high technology. OK, that gets maybe a dozen countries off of high carbon coal, this BTW does NOT include China. What about the rest of the world? Moving the first world off of coal while it may make the tree huggers feel good is not enough to prevent climate change. We need a technology that can clean up coal, and be used in the developing world. THAT is where we should be putting our research dollars if we truly want to avoid catastrophe.
2
@Bruce1253
solar doesnt require massive investment, its pretty basic at this point.
this guys plant will cost two billion dollars, so youre just wrong.
elon musk would agree!
1
@Bruce1253
No. You're trying too hard.
Solar is cheap. Hydro is cheap. Wind is cheap. All are run of the mill technologies, economically and readily available. The massive investment would be your coal-powered Manhattan project, trying to remove the carbon from burning...carbon.
Coal is dangerous, super hyper-dirty, and over.
The only thing keeping it going is Trump's desperate hunger for friends and money; Koch's undying influence and endless lack of ethics; and billionaires like Mr. Adani ready to buy off the politicians of Queensland and plunge ahead, confident he will never, ever have to pay the true costs of production and will still get to run away with all the profits.
Coal is a scam and a Ponzi scheme, depending on crooked politicians who have not one care for the well-being of their people.
So it not surprising, I guess, you find it attractive.
@oogada
Solar and Wind are intermittent power sources, the huge investment is the storage technology that will allow them to move into the mainstream. An individual wind turbine may not be real expensive, same way with one group of solar panels. Managing multiple wind farms and solar plants, balancing loads, is definitely a first world event. As for hydro power, dams now are billion dollar investments. These are not small, mom & pop operations that you seem to think.
I agree that there are huge problems with coal, as I and others posted here have noted the third world and China are not going to be giving it up any time soon. If we really wish to save the planet we are going to have to find a way to deal with it.
1
How about if we replace the nuclear countdown clock (currently two minutes before midnight) with a new one? It can be called the carbon countdown clock. I suspect that our climatologists can give us a fairly accurate count on how much time we have left before the Earth becomes uninhabitable for humans. When the world's second largest populated country significantly increases coal-burning, the countdown will quickly accelerate.
I'm sure my daughters would like to plan accordingly.
21
@Tom Q
You should contact Al Gore.
1
Not all coal is equally terrible or polluting.
There is lignite, sub-bituminous, bituminous and anthracite coal.
Anthracite coal is the highest quality coal, found in Pennsylvania (where it has not been mined for decades), and in Australia. It has very low emission, and high heat content.
Lignite is the worst, and most common in India. By using high quality coal from australia, Adani is avoiding the use of the problematic coal.
Besides, Adani is correct that coal is lowest cost in energy production. Coal plants are relatively cheap and far less damaging than hydroelectric to the environment.
Rich countries ought to give up their coal plants and only then is a case made out for countries like india to follow.
So under the circumstances, high quality australian anthracite is the best choice and least harm to the environment. The article completely ignores the type of coal being imported from australia.
4
@vijay All coal is problematic. Your construction is like saying smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes is better than 2 packs a day. We must eliminate carbon fuels and we need to do it now, not in the lifetime of a newly built coal power plant. The best available science says we cannot build more fossil fuel infrastructure of any kind. It will become a stranded asset or substantial climate liability. We cannot even us the infrastructure to its full lifetime if we are to have any hope of meeting the Paris agreements. The human race is in grave danger and every pound of co2 we put in the air is another nail in the coffin.
13
@vijay India is a rich country. Adani is a rich company. The intended energy is for Bangladesh, not India. Ironically, Bangladesh will be one of the first countries to lose large areas of habitable land to rising sea levels from global warming, which coal is the number 1 accelerator thereof.
1
@Ask Better Questions Actually I think the demand for meat - especially grain-fed meat is the #1 accelerator in the human addition of carbon to the atmosphere - as populations get richer there is more demand for meat - and supply rises the demand. And that is not even counting the carbon rich gases created by the animals themselves.
1
Great reporting piece by the NYT and others. A worldwide climate agreement like what was proposed in Rio and adopted in Kyoto might have stopped projects like this through political action in the host country. However, our own US government never ratified these treaties, leaving open the floodgates for continued coal burning around the world and signaling to others that we won’t hold any other nation responsible for increasing CO2 emissions.
8
Bottom line. We & (the world) will continue to use fossil fuels for the foreseeable future no matter what happens. Maybe less but still in massive amounts. It's baked into our energy grid. It can't & won't be eliminated overnight. That will take decades at best. Even though our governments now subsidize clean-power sources, efficient cars, buildings, we continue to rip as much oil, coal & gas out of the ground as possible. And if our green policies mean there isn't a market for these fuels at home, then no matter: they will be exported instead. The US is extracting carbon & flowing it into the global energy system faster than ever before. For years we've tried to simultaneously reduce demand for fossil fuels while doing everything possible to increase the supply. More efficient engines enable more people to drive more cars over greater distances, triggering more road building, more trade & indeed more big suburban houses that take more energy to heat. Can we bring ourselves to prioritize renewables over cheap fuels, power, convenient goods & services? We all know the answer is no. The science on climate change is settled, but the politics isn't. The GOP is disingenuous when they deny the science, but let's be honest the Democrats are even more disingenuous when they deny the cost. Cap & Trade, carbon taxes, etc. are politically dead in the water. They're not happening. American voters (as well as people in other nations) simply don't want to pay more for energy. End of story.
8
@Ed Davis Ok, that is a great observation, and a factually correct one, if not an overly lengthy one. Now what? What is your point other than stating the obvious? The point of the article is to engender debate towards solutions, not to imply that an ongoing static condition is inescapable.
5
@Ed Davis NIMBY halts wind and solar power projects - many of the blockers are demanding renewables in general but declining it near them.
It takes a large land area to make solar or wind power plants to feed into the grid - which then wastes 10% or more of the power in the transmission. We'll make solar and wind more helpful when everyone generates some power at their location to supplement what comes from a grid. Profit drives the world - and so the world cannot fight the human addition to carbon gas volumes.
2
@Ed Davis
I agree that it is the end of story. The end of the story, not of humankind, but of modern civilization.
So by all means, let's just throw up our hands and accept our fate.
To conclude that because an investment is made it will continue to operate through its planned life is an assumption that isn't supported by recent experience.
Today the cost for electricity from operating a coal plant is about the same as the cost of installing new renewable plus storage capacity. The investments being made in coal today are destined to be economic losers. They will be replaced by solar and wind over the next 10 years. This will be driven by basic economics, not by political considerations. The political decision will be who ends up taking the loss.
7
@JMM
If you wanted to build a new electricity generator in the US, it would be foolish to build a nuclear plant or coal fired plant because of the uncertainty of government policy.
With respect to nuclear, anti-scientific forces means it takes decades to overcome anti-science forces that overcome even local communities that want nuclear power plants in their backyards, as was the case with the Shoreham, NY nuclear plant that was banned from operating after completion. As a consequence, there has been exactly one nuclear reactor started up during the 21st century. Of the two other plants under construction, one has been abandoned and the other continues but has cost at least double the initial estimate as a consequence of regulatory changes arbitrarily imposed that required rework and teardown of completed work.
With respect to coal, there is always the possibility that some future president will unilaterally demand that existing coal plants be shut down, as did Obama. So it would be risky to invest in new coal because there is no guarantee against future arbitrary government actions.
The reality is that electricity generated from coal fired plants costs $0.02 to $0.04 per kWh. New offshore wind costs $0.20 to $0.30 plus additional transmission costs. If you wanted to add storage costs to address its unreliability, it would add at least $0.10 under the most favorable assumptions about future improvements in efficiency and reduced costs. Surge ng costs $0.10.
1
@ebmem
I just did a cursory online search and can't figure out where your data come from. Several sources indicate that wind, solar, and natural gas are about as costly as coal, maybe cheaper in some cases. Do your figures for coal include the cost of environmental damage and shortened human lifespans? Also, offshore wind seems to be much more costly than onshore wind or solar - why did you chose just offshore for your comparison?
Just wondering...
3
@ebmem
I haven’t looked for a newer data set. This is from 2018. The trend is clear.
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-and-levelized-cost-of-storage-2018/
1
This fuels the argument of those who say there’s no point in combating climate change in one country if other countries don’t buy in to it. India has a huge population and will unfortunately contribute a large amount of carbon pollution in the next decades. They just don’t get the fact that there is no point to burning coal if there is no longer an inhabitable planet to live on. They keep arguing that their population is poor and can’t afford renewable energy. They say we have no right to dictate to them when we ourselves contributed greatly to carbon pollution. Which may be true but again, what’s the point if the planet is no longer habitable?
285
Unfortunately your vote will matter less. The ball is mostly in the courts of India and China. The fate of the climate and earth will rest on the interests and actions of their governments, corporations, citizens and voters. We need to influence them.
14
@Mike L
Again China accounts for 27.21% of the global Co2 emissions followed by USA at 14.58% and India at 6.82%. See we are not just talking of the past here but the present. Excluding the environmental costs that you guys have so easily picked out of thin air now that you guys depend more on shale than coal for a country like ours or any developing nation coal is the cheapest source of energy hands down. Even today the coal powered capacity in India is lower than the United States.
35
@Albanywala
Influence India and China to stop using coal? How do you propose to do that and why should they listen?
8
Under Trump, the U.S. has had many environmental setbacks, but that’s just the tip of the (rapidly-melting) iceberg. Regardless of where it is burned, coal, when used as an energy-source, negatively impacts the climate in all parts of the globe. I can vote in the U.S., but how do I stop unscrupulous companies such as Adani from destroying the climate I live in?
388
@Sammy - just wondering, Sammy, do you know what your Carbon Footprint is? I ask this question often and have yet to get an answer. Maybe you're on it and, if so, good for you.
However, we humans are the Fossil Fuel addicts who are burning - and wasting - the stuff that's "destroying the climate" in which we live. The coal, oil, gas companies are just the pimps who supply our endless demands. We stop usin'? They stop diggin'.
Sure, India's on the way to being a problem, however, they currently produce 1/3 as much GHG as the US and they have 4 times the population. Overall, 15% of the world's people consume 80% of global resources - and that includes almost all of us in the USA.
It's a lot easier to point blaming fingers at - (R)s, China, India, unscrupulous companies, yada, yada - than it is to clean up our own act.
92
@Sammy
In answer to your question: Via international climate change treaties that the Dotard and company have eschewed.
41
@Sammy I'm really tired of the new American attitude of, "If a solution isn't absolutely perfect, there is no point in even trying anything." I've been hitting this wall in my work and in politics. It's pathetic and nothing ever gets done.
83
These folks protesting don't own the land. And the protests happen for all big projects, whether for a coal plant, solar field, highway, bike factory... The article doesn't mention this. But they should receive some kind of social compensation. They are typically offered jobs (construction, operations) for the project.
1
@mainliner
As the article says, the Indian government took the land from the poor for the project.
@mainliner You are from pennsylvania, so perhaps you know - or don't know - that despite pennsylvania having the highest quality, most environmentally sensible and low emission coal - anthracite - it has not been mined for decades due to political reasons.
1
Recently from David Griggs, former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Science Working Group Secretariat, in a conversation with four Australian climate scientists frankly discussing what it is like to live with their knowledge and where they are relocating their families to to minimize coming impacts:
"I think Australia is the most vulnerable developed country in the world to climate change. . . . I think we are heading to a future with considerably greater warming than 2 degrees [centigrade].
What that means for Australians is that a lot of people will suffer, a lot of people will die . . . and when the world doesn’t do something about it it brings a whole range of emotions into play, depression is clearly something.
You get days you are down, because what you know, and what you can see coming, is not good."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIy0t5P0CUQ&feature=youtu.be&t=211
6
They have no choice? Really? We've already started to fall over the precipice, and the main issue is how corporations can continue to profit before we all collectively go "splat." Intervening and changing course does, of course, entail a radically different social order in which the first world countries need to help subsidize less developed countries effectively pole vault over such outmoded sources of energy and come up to speed with wind, solar and geothermal power. Expensive and difficult, but consider the options: we're only seeing the tip of the iceberg with climate change and it's consequences for everything from food production to social unrest and immigration. (Just wait until the water wars start.) To do nothing and continue on the path of making use of coal - and forget about the fiction of "clean coal" - portends a grim fate for humankind. Ultimately, the planet will survive us, but we can't survive without the planet.
9
@Larry
Australia imposed carbon taxes that moved its electricity generation from 100% coal to 80% coal/20% wind. Not only did that decision result in huge increases in electricity costs paid by consumers, but it resulted in summertime blackouts. The carbon tax was repealed and some of the idled coal plants were restarted.
Californians were willing to pay an extra $50 per month to cover renewable mandates but were unwilling [with the help of their public utility commissions] to pay the extra $25 per month to cover the costs for their utilities to upgrade the infrastructure and trim fire fuel. So now they're paying for the costs of the forest fires, the trimming, the mandates, the infrastructure upgrades. The backlogged fire prevention work is going to take a while, so blackouts are part of the solution when fire risk is high.
Californians are willing to tithe to the church of Algore. They are not going to tolerate frequent third world power outages for long.
NYC has experienced two blackouts during the last month. One was an infrastructure failure and the other an excess of demand over supply. The outages were of short duration. What's going to happen when Indian Point shuts down, a major supplier and wind/solar are intermittent and the absence of pipelines does not allow adequate natural gas supply.
Hmm, there are going to be a few long hot summers in NYC.
I thought Australian policymakers were smarter than their American counterparts. I was mistaken, apparently.
14
@WmCRead about the last election and see how smart they are. The government called the coalition of conservative right wing parties was expected to lose, but after its dirty tricks campaign just made it in. I loved it it has been in power for over six years and Australia is in a recession it promised the lower class the less educated it would create jobs so they voted for them. It was interesting since the people that voted to reelect them never seemed to ask the question you have been the government so whose fault is it I don't already have a job. Of course there was the big tax cut, but it is a layered plan a small cut for the lower and middle class and a giant one for the corporations and 1% let see how that works out. The dirty trick part they ran ads claiming that if Labor won as predicted they were going to bring in a death tax on not just humans, but on your pets. Yes, in Australia I think the heat and globe warming has already fried their brains. By the way it is very much like the US corrupt and a racist society. Jim Trautman
4
Curious who might have put that thought into your head, WmC? Australian politicians are as rotten and short-sighted as they come.
We can only cast an envious gaze across the Tasman Sea to our Kiwi neighbours and their extraordinary and compassionate Jacinda Ardern. Would that it be 'ordinary' on this planet to have politicians like her. But alas.....
Mr. Gautam Adani's story reminded me of our now Democratic Party Presidential candidate Tom Steyer. And how he made his billions investing in the cold industry in Indonesia and Australia. Mr. Steye is now an environmentalist and anti-Trump politician. Some day I hope Mr. Adani too will have his sudden epiphany and become a politician like Mr. Steyer and try to save the world...
3
This is just so depressing. If only those perpetrators hastening our climate catastrophe faced its consequences proportionally. It is a complete failure of our civilization that such destructive activities are lawfully allowed to happen.
12
Unfortunately for India, its cities will be among the hardest hit by climate change, including Mumbai, which will be the largest city in the world in 50 years. It's too bad billionaires have the foresight of goldfish.
39
@Daniel
Think their vision is that acute?
1
@DanielYou miss the point they don't care it is about greed and when water and air become scarce who do you think will be alright and still living the good life - think us the 99% or the 1%. Jim Trautman
2
It's hard to convince people that are living in poverty that they should give up development when rich countries used coal to get rich in the first place. Especially in a Democracy like India.
5
@Ken - the poor in India are dying from the air pollution caused by burning coal. Then they pay a bonus to Adani on top of the contracted price to guarantee he profits.
Give up development? Why do you want them to use poisons to develop their economy when they're making so much progress with renewables?
India gets almost 35% of their power from renewables, and over 20% of their power from wind and solar. These are growing rapidly and affordably. India's the fourth-largest wind power nation and is well ahead of schedule in their rapid solar deployment plans.
Note from this Times article that Adani's profits are subsidized. Read this from the link I'll provide:
"Wind or Solar PV paired with four-hour battery storage systems is already cost competitive, without subsidy, as a source of dispatchable generation compared with new coal and new gas plants in India."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_India
Did you know that many villages in India, where many of the country's poorest people live, get their electricity from solar microgrids, and can afford that to power lights, phones, refrigerators - all which help them prosper? There's even a growing industry making extremely efficient appliances that can be powered directly on the DC provided by solar-battery setups. This is smart.
https://www.indiaspend.com/indias-decentralised-renewables-workforce-to-double-by-2022-23/
15
To answer this question just ask Democratic Presidential candidate Tom Steyer. He made a fortune on coal.
2
Sounds like he is another evil man like Trump . When all there coral reefs are destroyed and their homes lost in forest fires. You may want to jail this climate change denier before he flees your country.
4
Crony capitalism at its worst.
8
Cheap? Coal is not cheap. The costs are actually quite high, but they are hidden costs. These hidden costs signal a market failure. The free market is not able to set prices fairly because government subsidizes coal. Furthermore, government failed to regulate the coal extracted for its significant hidden costs to the consumer. After they pay for the coal energy sold to them, Consumers continue to pay for that coal energy with their health and the health of their progeny.
The correction needed to address this market failure is a gradually increasing carbon tax or fee. When you think about it, it’s really the only way to start to save our planet. Other strategies will be needed also, but the USA can pass HR763, and the Border Adjustment Tax will cause almost all other countries to join us with similar policies. They already agreed in Paris.
The only things standing in the way of this policy (the lowest cost solution to reducing emissions) is the Senate and the Executive.
Vote for elected officials who understand how important a carbon tax will be to our future. Join with 59 Congress Members who have endorsed the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act HR763. Call. Email. Vote.
You can make a difference.
14
I have become very skeptical that humans will have the will power and resolve to manage our behavior and reduce the climate change risk. At the end of the day, we are a species that seems to run on short term gratification and needs. The good news is that we are adaptable and persistent in survival. Perhaps that is the best to expect in the current chaotic and greedy world.
9
@JRS - yet planners and thinkers still get things done. Many European nations are now emitting less CO2 than in the mid-1960s. This includes Germany which is still the third largest manufacturing nation in the world.
The United States has had a growing economy and population while electricity demand has been essentially flat, and our CO2 emissions seem to have peaked a decade ago. As electric cars start taking over in the coming decade, electricity demand will increase, but the cars batteries will also be able to store and manage ever-larger amounts of power from wind and solar.
The smart grids are also letting utilities reduce peak demand by having customers shift load, and also by taking power from batteries instead of the very expensive gas peaker plants.
So progress is being made, despite the worst efforts by billionaires interested only in preserving their fossil-fueled income. Adani's one, our Koch boys fight against mass transit, try to force us to help them sell the low-grade tar sand gunk they've invested in, and then the big corporations try to keep their subsidies and preferential tax treatments for fossil, too.
Yet even there there's hope. Norway's sovereign fund, stuffed with oil money, no longer invests in fossil exploration or production - too risky in their view.
1
Many such corrupt business houses from countries like India already entered countries like USA, UK, Australia, Germany etc. They got help from equally corrupt local businessmen & other corporations with global operation. These people are a good source of easy investment for local companies.
Such category of corrupt people in countries like India are not just limited to businessmen but equally present in each and every professional field as well and they are a great source of cheaper manpower, who would be more than happy to oblige any professional request/job from the employer which might be very illegal for most local people to carry out.
If USA, UK, Germany, Australia, Canada & such (still) civilized and prosperous countries want to save themselves from going into India's way, then they must promote decent and reasonably honest businessmen and other professionals from countries with high corruption and/or feudal society- e.g. India, Pakistan, Middle East, etc. I know there are plenty of such "good" people in these countries. But those folks would not be very visible or successful, and one need to search carefully, if they actually want real talents and honest people, and not just cheaper & easily exploitable employee to do (mostly) mundane/routine jobs (job designation does not matter- it can be researcher, management, top executive, doctor, engineer etc.).
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@bonku
This is interesting, and it suggests that limiting immigration only to "successful" people might be far worse than only accepting poor people or flipping a coin.
Many countries are not anything close to meritocracies, and pretending they are will lead to ghastly policy errors.
1
@Alan, There are many practical ways to verify if a candidate for a job in USA with H1B/L1/J1 type work visa or EB5 investment visa (introduced by Bill Clinton) is actually qualified enough & /or have the required merit. But for various reasons, mostly political, such immigration reform was never undertaken. Few piecemeal efforts were taken from time to time, mainly for public consumption.
Big companies trying to boost its profit by importing cheaper manpower invest heavily in lobbying to maintain such loopholes. They manufactured that myth on talent shortage in the US to make that job easier. Western companies do not want to pay market value for required manpower as they have much cheaper options now.
Indian IT sector is just a labor supplier and has absolutely no ability to innovate or generate wealth without being a labor contractor/supplier.
On the other hand, that investment based "Golden" or EB5 visa is becoming more popular among Indian businessmen desperate to leave the country they are part of for its destruction.
The Golden Visa: Rich Indians Are Going For A $500,000 US Visa- https://www.ndtv.com/business/the-golden-visa-rich-indians-are-going-for-a-500-000-us-visa-1691014
Millionaires fleeing India in larger numbers:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/millionaires-fleeing-india-in-larger-numbers-report/articleshow/69292477.cms
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Republican Party politicians long range planning never goes beyond how to game the law, the truth, science and hate to win their next election. It may be that enough very influential people who have the power to save or doom our civilization, and who should know better, have a similar short range outlook.
As stated in the book 'Light of the Stars, by Adam Frank, on the Fermi Paradox, and the "great silence" of radio/electromagnetic transmissions in our 15 billion year old universe:
"Maybe the universe doesn't do long-term sustainable version of civilizations like ours. Maybe it's not something that ever worked out, even across all the planets orbiting all the stars throughout all of space and time."
Let's hope that is not true.
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Why do billionaires need to go to Mars when billionaires are making bringing Mars home to earth?
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@vole
Mars has no atmosphere, the future of Earth,as a result of global heating, will be closer to Venus.
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China is the problem. All the talk in the US is just that - political grandstanding.
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Success in any field in a very corrupt country like India actually means one's ability to use prevailing sociopolitical culture of corruption and crime than talent or anything else. Vast majority of Indian businessmen, mainly the Lala clan (from states like Indian PM Modi's Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab etc.) thrive on corruption, promote a very feudal society. That's why rich Gujarat with among the highest GDP & per capita income, also having among the worst poverty, hunger, slavery, racial & gender segregation.
These people basically destroyed India & corrupted Indian politics even before India got its freedom, prevent decent business entrepreneurs & other reasonably honest professionals to flourish. Indian IT sector evaded such traditional business clans, as they had/have almost no scientific understanding & could not perceive the potential of the newly emerging Tech sector in 1980s.
More unfortunately, these most of such "successful" people from such developing countries are then exported to various developed countries. Those people never change irrespective of where they live or do business in. The consequences is not very hard to perceive. Vast majority of "successful" Indian businessmen are now desperate to migrate themselves & send their kids to settle abroad as they understood their monetary ambition & desire to enjoy western luxury but then bring Indian feudal society with "Indian" corruption and racial segregation in the host country.
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So does the whole world just sit back and watch as one man and his (apparently) very smooth operation stifles all of our efforts to combat climate change, while he just gets richer? It seems insane that he is getting away with this.
121
I agree I can think of 4 ways right now the world could come together and make a difference. But they just don’t and I don’t know why. Don’t they realize if we don’t exist their profits don’t either.
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Look up Duke Power coal ash problems and ground water contamination in the US. Fossil fuels contaminate fossil ground water.
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This is a perfect example that billionaires and their respective companies are only driven by shareholder value (i.e. more money in their bank accounts) with a total disregard to climate change and fellow human beings.
This is also a perfect example of how governments just don't care about implementing existing environmental legislation and looking after their population.
Greta Thunberg could use it during her speech at the UN climate change meeting to those governments: This is how you ruin the planet. If you implement existing environmental legislation you can go a long way towards saving it!
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@Lizzy It's a matter of egotism and what I call "egoism" - not respecting their own and other's humanity for worse and better.
Incredible how billionaire greed contributes to destroying the planet.
Has anyone challenged these scavengers on the price of environmental cleanup after natural disasters?
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Maybe we can file a class action suite to stop them. I just think we need to do bigger things gs than our small ones.
1
The 'future' is already upon us.
The damage is being done, and the repercussions have already started. Why do writers, such as this keep acting like is going to happen somewhere down the road?
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Where are the multibillionaires who could fund solar, wind, geothermal and battery storage to wean us off coal, oil and gas?
They know science has proved fossil fuel burning is killing us; yet they persist in placing profits above their grandchildren's health and the future of life on earth.
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@betty durso
There should be no billionaires for this very reason. Way too much responsibility for one person.
Hey Jeff, you could singlehandedly rebuild the nations infrastructure and still have a great life!
What are you doing?
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This goes back to yesterday’s columns about the waning power, influence of the U.S. This article highlights a basic pre-condition to power, influence; what does a country stand for- ideals, or money/trade.
Evidently we are not alone in allowing multinational corporations to decide that question- India, Australia, Bangladesh- et all/every? We created these artificial constructs called corporations. Unlike the sci-fi vision of AI taking over, these ...,,,money chomping robots already have,
As with so many other issues, it’s the money in our political systems. Redefining a corporation- building a better, robot. Can we do it? Don’t know.
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What's missing here is why Bangladesh is buying coal when its future is heavily threatened by climate change? The country has a massive energy deficit due to underinvestment in the past, rural populations getting connected to the grid and increasing per capita usage due to a growing middle class. There is very little free land available for developing solar farms. Gas reserves have run out so coal has to be part of the solution until other alternatives are available.
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If they can figure out how to burn coal cleanly, why not? We cleaned up diesel, why not coal?
And don't tell me it can't be done. Once we put people on the moon you can't tell me something can't be done.
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@MIKEinNYC There is no cleaning up. Diesel is inherently cleaner than petrol in some aspects, though petrol with a catalyst makes this less so. Diesels do produce very high numbers of particulates and NOx. If you need to see exactly why this matters, I suggest you visit a coal-dependent place, which should be easy enough since 9 of the world's worst 10 are in India.
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@MIKEinNYC
You are conflating two separate problems. The emissions from burning coal (such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which comes out of smokestacks in the Midwest and lead to acid rain in the Northeast) can be cleaned up, but the fact remains that burning coal emits a lot more CO2 than, say, natural gas. This is basic chemistry.
Putting people on the moon is really not at all relevant.
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Clean up the coal burning process, safely dispose of highly polluted ash and sequester the carbon dioxide, then see how economically competitive coal is. When its environmental externalities are addressed, coal is a losing proposition, both economically and environmentally. Coal use survives because its true costs are dumped on the environment.
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Should the international community not interfere in such cases. This is not just about India, but the world we live in and humanity. We have alternatives and countries can intervene to help and instead innovating we are going the easy lazy way. Trump is least bothered, but others like Germany, UK or the Scandinavian countries should negotiate with Australia.
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This is why humanity is going to lose the fight against global warming. There are a billion Indians who care more about cheap energy than climate change. Given their low standard of living, you can't really blame them. Even if the U.S. disrupted our entire economy via a Green New Deal, it wouldn't matter, because most global warming is now coming from third world countries like India and rural China.
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@joe
International cooperation on policy and consumer choices such as diet and transportation are the only way to make meaningful progress.
Fighting corruption is one of a few critical first steps, simce the temptation to cheat on environmental regulations (who can track, for example, natural gas leaks?) is and probably always will be enormous.
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@joe disrupting our economy by the Green New Deal?
Fighting for a new economy of sustainability will create millions of jobs while giving all of us Americans clean air, water, food that isn't drowned in chemicals. Streams that are not polluted and travel downstream and people are dying of cancer, children sooner than later.
Read an article in Truth Dig that were now giving Lockheed 50.6 billion a year in contracts while they reduced the workforce 15%.
We are lied to all the times about the economy and jobs, guns, feeding the world, wars, et al.
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@joe Of course it sounds like a losing proposition when you blame "1 billion Indians." The population of India, like the rest of the population of the world, is looking for a better life. The people to blame are much easier to pinpoint; the leaders who lack imagination and morals, and businessmen who prioritize capital over all else.
These leaders and capitalists want nothing more than for the rest of the world to point fingers at each other and throw their hands up at the intractability on the problem while they rake in the profits, when really its just a few dozen companies and a few dozen political leaders who are driving us into disaster, but by blaming "the third world" we are doing exactly what they want us to.
Trump's insistence that the United States is incapable of leading the world and that our future is determined by a few businessmen in Asia is cowardice at its finest. If anyone still believes in American leadership in the world, now is the time for this country to step up, pass a Green New Deal, and reshape the global economy like we've done before.
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