Environment Minister #Tanya_Plibersek and the #ALP government approve four more #CoalMine expansions in these lands now called Australia.

They claim that as these four coal mines are (mainly) extracting #MetallurgicalCoal, that they are unavoidable and necessary, as there is not a currently viable alternative to metallurgical coal in steel-making.

But there are alternatives. They are only considered 'non-viable' because under current economic practices they are not yet as cheap as metallurgical coal. And they only seem to be more expensive than coal due to coal not having to pay its true costs. And coal doesn't have a price anywhere near reflective of its myriad actual harms (immediate and long-term, local and planetary) since the Australian government joins a globally dominant delusion that #externalities don't need to be considered when there's masses of short-term profit to be had by burning our collective future.

If the #CoalIndustry were held responsible for the toxic and climate-disrupting rubbish it dumps (for free!) into the global atmosphere, then it would rapidly become apparent that burning more coal, whether in thermal energy production or in making steel, is utterly unaffordable.

https://web.archive.org/web/20241219112033/https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/19/albanese-government-coalmine-expansions-approved-boggabri-caval-ridge-horse-pit-lake-vermont-meadowbrook-vulcan-south

#ClimateCrisis #CoalChokesOurFuture #DirtyEnergyDirtyPolitics #Auspol