There’s nothing quite as sexy as fossil fuels

Slightly off topic, but who can resist two of NZ’s sexiest women having a bit of fun with energy minister Gerry Brownlee, and his plans to mine national parks for more coal? Not me.

10 thoughts on “There’s nothing quite as sexy as fossil fuels”

  2. Ah, so you have (or may be about the have?) mining in National Parks, too? I fight the mining industry in South Australian National Parks – they have access to more than 70% of our reserves by area. (But we’ve managed to secure more than 700 000 Ha in the last decade – perhaps a background in these hard-fought debates is why I am sometimes, well, Not Nice from some people’s perspectives?!)

    We’re also currently in the process of trying top remove a major uranium operation – we’re the ‘Saudi Arabia of Uranium’, to quote our state Premier (and he’s right!) – from a privately-run Wilderness Sanctuary.

    (You’ll possibly be amused to know that one of our allies in this process is… Lord Monckton’s mate Ian Plimer! Seriously… Politics / Strange Bedfellows etc.)

    Fight the Power! Go get ’em Greenpeace…

    1. Bill I find it interesting that your'e working with Plimer on this. Perhaps he's trying to save the face of the uranium industry? He's a director at Ivanhoe – is it in this capacity?

      1. Cindy – Plimer’s an ally on this because he’s an old friend of the family that manage the Sanctuary and he regularly holidays there.

        Arkaroola was set up by Reg Sprigg – geologist, and founder of Beach Petroleum – partly at the instigation of Sir Douglas Mawson and Sir Mark Oliphant (Antarctic exploration and the Manhattan Project, respectively). They all wanted to preserve this unique area for its geological as well as its biological values – this now includes a reef containing the oldest living organisms found anywhere to date that was discovered there in 2008. National Parks claimed they didn’t have the money to buy the old pastoral lease at the time, so Reg did it privately.

        (Interestingly for NZers, perhaps, this area contains the remains of a very ancient thermal spring complex surrounding a mud volcano.)

        Plimer is on ‘our’ side, but I work on the issue with The Wilderness Society and the Greens, and we all figured it was handy to be able to say ‘look, even someone as pro-Uranium and vehemently anti-green as Plimer thinks this is a bad idea!’. Rather than working together directly.

        We have worked directly with Senator Nick Minchin, though, who also won’t have a bar of AGW and who believes all the Comrades poured over the Berlin wall as it fell and fanned out into the green groups! He’s an amiable enough bloke to chat to.

        Funny old world…

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