Kuriose Fragen: Wo geht der Bus auf den Watzmann? pnp.de - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from pnp.de Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
There’s one sure-fire way to anger Albertans-promise us one thing and then renege on the promise. In the midst of the rage over an extremely ill-considered plan to throw open the Eastern Slopes for coal mining we were promised an independent process to provide advice to government on the future of coal. From the terms of reference we have learned it’s not about an open, unfettered opportunity to tell the UCP government of our concerns about water contamination, of diverting water to wash coal, the reality of recreation, fish and wildlife and sustainable business losses, a real concern over human health, the inability to reclaim or restore mined areas and the overarching issue of climate change. Rather than discussing whether or not coal mining is a good idea, it is about the “where, when and how” of development.
“They gave away the forest, they gave away the land.
They gave away the rivers, they gave away the sand.
They gave away the silver, they gave away the gold.
They would have given away the air, but the air they couldn’t hold.”
Substitute coal for gold and a burgeoning Alberta tragedy unfolds.
Behind the scenes, quietly, in the halls of power, with active lobbyists for Australian coal companies and compliant politicians in the UCP government there are moves afoot to change, irrevocably, the Eastern Slopes of Alberta. The first step was to rescind the Coal Policy, a forward-thinking governance to restrict coal development to a few places and protect the rest of the Eastern Slopes. Albertans strongly agreed with the policy then and still do, because of higher watershed, biodiversity, aesthetic and recreational values. Throwing the door open to coal exploration has created a coal-rush, with three large Australian-owned coal mining companies racing to submit applications and