Broome community is gathering its strength and building up capacity, experience, skills,
resources, knowledge, resilience and will continue to persist, with all efforts to ensure that the world's largest gas
refineries are not built at James Price Point (Walmadan). EVER!
Woodside you are now being put on notice. All the blood, sweat and tears you have caused
in our community, in our families, in our social fabric since your arrival in
Broome has only build up our resilience and resolve.
It does'nt matter how
much money you throw around town, we will invest this into your own demise, and
remove your corporation from our
communities. Even the people who may of thought that being gassed would be good
for them, have tuned against you because they have witnessed :
- outrageous dis empowerment of our local Council;
- blatant Infringements of social justice, human rights, our privacy and our feeling of well being
- disdain of the Aboriginal Heritage Act and our Cultural Heritage
- drilling in Heritage listed dinosaur track sites, whilst denying it
- contempt of our sense of place, multcultural community and lifestyled
- dismissal and repudiation of major social impacts and concerns
- avoidance of responsibilities and evading consequences for undertaking unlawfully works
- the misuse and abuse of the police service for the protection of machines to undertake unlawful activities
- private security force whose role is to intimidate and aggravate local Broome people
- flawed science
- the changing of community developed planning scheme and land use plans
- altering planning laws and legislation to fit your agenda
- injustice, the corruption and the manipulation antics across many government departments
- gifts to senior gov civil servants, football tickets and secret meeting over football matches
- establishment of a committee of one
- criminalisation of senior respected community leaders and strong community members,
- the use of old women to push your propaganda about economic gains for indigenous people
- the manipulation of the training institutions and schools
- your lies, your spin, and your daily convoys .
The Broome community is a lot wiser to your antics and those of your government lackeys
and media mates.
The Broome community clearly understands that you are not a
good corporate citizen; we do not have to dig to deep or travel far to
understand the total social, economic, environment and heritage carnage you
created in the Burrup to really appreciate your true destructive greed driven tendencies.
Woodside, you will
never get the social license to operate in our community. If you go into the
dunes at Walmadan, touch the precious water sources, or continue on your proposed
destructive path of our heartland and communities, your corporation and your
brand will suffer untold economic, social and political consequences.
You have faced delaying tactics and bad publicity, even
before your project has been given any approvals. If you get those approvals
and you and your join venture partners make the stupid mistake of approving the
project in your final investment decision, that's when you will face the
biggest community driven environment and social campaign this nation has ever
seen.
Just like you (Woodside, laying down your foundations) our
campaign has also been laying down the solid foundations for a national social
and environment movement, with an ever growing international profile and we
will eventually succeed in seeing the
back of you, as you are escorted out of Country, even if it takes a little
longer than we would all like.
The Broome community isn't going anywhere, but Woodside is,
the hell away from here.
Commentary - Aidan Ricketts:
Aidan, speaks not only for his region and community, but for many communities in Australia, like Broome who are already suffering under corporation invasion.
Clearly there is something very wrong with democracy in Australia when it comes to communities challenging the dominance of the fossil fuel lobby. This lobby has spent decades sewing up its links with politicians of all major political parties in Australia and now occupies a privileged position that threatens the integrity our governance system. The industry is over subsidised, under regulated and in the case of the new unconventional gas industry under-researched.
What else could explain a government granting a production license to a mining company barely three days after an overwhelming official public vote recorded 87% opposition?
When governments and corporations combine to steamroll communities in the face of such overwhelming opposition it is inevitable that serious conflict will result. Fortunately the social movements opposed to unconventional gas are committed to peaceful protest and non-violent direct action as the only remaining democratic avenue left to these embattled communities to protect themselves, their water and their environment.
Photo Damian Kelly
Posts
Ferguson gave a speech the other day and started going on about how important the "social license" was for companies to operate.
ReplyDeleteHad to throw up all over my shoes.
Can't help but refer to the elected government of Western Australia as 'The Woodside Government of WA' this is the reality, afterall, Campbell Newman in QLD, referred to that government as being 'in the business of coal'. F..g wake up Australia, it's just rape-and-pillage, they are pissing on our land and then they'll run
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/31/battle-big-oil-rush-ruin-darylhannah
ReplyDeleteThe battle against Big Energy's rush to ruin our planet
The energy industry tries to sell us 'ethical oil', 'clean coal' and 'natural gas', but this extreme weather is mobilising people to act.
Daryl Hannah
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 31 October 2012 18.31 GMT
Extreme killer superstorms, historic drought, vanishing sea ice, an increase in ocean acidity by 30%, the hottest decade on record and mega forest fires have increasingly become our new reality.
"That's all happened when you raise the temperature of the earth one degree," says author Bill McKibben, "[t]he temperature will go up four degrees, maybe five, unless we get off coal and gas and oil very quickly." Additional temperature rises could compromise our safety and cause incalculable damage from a large number of billion-dollar disasters in coming years – if we don't address our emissions, insist upon an appropriate climate policy and curtail the rogue fossil fuel industry.
How are we in the US and Canada addressing these crises?
Not through the co-opted political system, but with heroic acts by the ordinary citizens of North America. People have been putting their bodies on the line and risking arrest in order to protect our future, to acknowledge climate change disasters and to protect access to basic necessities such as uncontaminated water, soil and food. We are seeing an exponentially growing number of nationwide rallies, protests and acts of civil disobedience just to protect these fundamental life support systems.
The threats are exacerbated by the looming death throes of an outdated and finite fossil fuel industry struggling to stay relevant in the 21st century, despite its current economic might. It's hard to reconcile the fact that the fossil fuel industry is struggling when their unprecedented profits make them the wealthiest of corporations in the history of mankind, even in this devastated global economy – but the times, they are-a-changing.
...
These extreme forms of extraction come with a dangerous cost, and often a high economic cost as well. In a New York Times article on the grim economics of the natural gas boom, even the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, Rex Tillerson, stated, "We're making no money. It's all in the red." Texas billionaire oilman T Boone Pickens said, "shut her down", "quit drilling" and "we are stupid to drill these wells."
But they won't because the leases the companies have bought came, in most cases, with "use it or lose it" clauses that required them to start drilling, pay royalties or lose the leases.
...
To access oil beyond the shallow wells of the last century – which are now mostly exhausted – one process the industry has turned to is deep-water drilling, including opening up the extremely sensitive areas in the Arctic region.
..
Threatened by the planned massive expansion of Canada's tar sands operation, which would be aided by the approval of either the Keystone XL or the Enbridge Energy pipelines, is the awe-inspiring magnificence of the Canadian boreal forest, which serves as our first defense against global warming as it sequesters more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem; and the Athabasca delta, the world's largest freshwater delta. In the United States
..
To mine coal more inexpensively, the industry has taken to simply blowing up entire mountains in a mind-boggling practice called mountain top removal.
cont...
ReplyDeleteOver 500 mountains of the United States' oldest mountain range, the Appalachians, have been unceremoniously eviscerated by the practice...
This shocking extraction method bankrupts entire communities, puts miners out of work, leaves the residents with poisoned or buried water sources, homes of no value and hosts of illnesses.
Then, there is the breakneck boom mentality of the natural gas industry, which has moved to hydraulic fracturing.....
In Colorado alone, where I attended an anti-fracking/pro-clean energy rally on 23 October, there are already 49,000 active natural gas wells, with thousands of new ones being permitted every year. (In 2011 alone, another 4,659 permits were approved in Colorado.) According to the Denver Post, oil and gas development reports say spills in Colorado reach surface or groundwater every five days.
...
So how do we encourage the transition to an aggressive, decentralized clean regenerative energy policy? Tim Flannery, paleontologist and chief commissioner of the Australian Climate Commission, says that incentivizing this transformation is simple:
"What we're dealing with is essentially a pollution problem, and we've known how to fix pollution problems for the last 1,000 years, since King Edward the First: you tax the polluters, get the polluter to pay."
Then why are we not doing it?
....an undue amount of influence to corporate polluters and, in particular, the fossil fuel industry, which is the wealthiest industry on the planet. In this year's election cycle alone, $6bn will have been given to campaigns, politicians and political action committees. So, the chances of a strong clean energy policy coming from Washington are extremely slim.
Then, there's the fact that we the people are all too trusting, simply buying what we are being sold. We've been inundated with incessant, well-funded advertising campaigns of misinformation and rebranding exercises. They are currently selling the public on the idea of tar sands with the more sanitized-sounding "oil sands", because they think it sounds less dirty (they've also taken to calling it "ethical oil"). Mountain top removal is sold as "clean coal", and natural gas is packaged as clean, natural and renewable. And we bought it.
But now, there are floods and drought. People are being hit by the impacts and their kids are getting sick. Now, our water is threatened, running short – or poisoned. Our survival is on the line. So we are getting informed. The sleeping giant is waking, still a bit groggy, but moving.
The Exxon-Mobils, Chevrons and Royal Dutch Shells of the world might have the big bucks, but when we get together, we the people have the big numbers! We will hold our politicians accountable. If necessary, as a last resort, more and more people will put their bodies on the line:
"While opposition from environmentalists and some native groups was always expected, the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project has unexpectedly united British Columbians who normally are on opposite sides."
This is what I've experienced in Texas while resisting the Keystone pipeline, in West Virginia fighting mountain top removal and now, in Colorado, standing up against fracking. It's time to take on the fossil fuel industry directly, and people of all ethnicities, political ideologies and economic strata have realized: it's up to us to take a stand. Young and old are coming together and taking action in ways that have pushed them beyond their normal comfort zones to stand up for each other and for common sense. They are seeing the connection between these precarious environmental risks and the humanitarian dangers they bring.
Those who want to be safe from the tyranny of poison will always possess the moral authority and will stand on the right side of history. I am proud to be among them.
The EPA in the US......
ReplyDeleteEPA official hopeful on gas drilling study
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A top official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is optimistic that a nationwide project examining natural gas hydraulic fracturing and potential drinking water impacts will provide comprehensive guidelines to help scientists and the public identify the key issues to focus on. But the industry said past studies have already shown the process is safe.
......
"It will really be a lot for experts to chew on in their particular fields," Paulson said, noting that EPA is reaching out to geologists, academic experts, the industry, environmental groups, and even Indian tribes.
"I think the drinking water study is going to be useful to local governments, and state governments, too," Paulson said. He added that "a lot of people have their minds made up" about fracking, even though many aspects of research are still in the early stages.
....
....Contaminated wastewater from the process can leak from faulty well casings into aquifers, but it's often difficult to trace underground sources of pollution. Some studies also have shown air quality problems around gas wells, while others have indicated no problems.
Dan Alfaro, a spokesman for Energy in Depth, an industry group, said it believes the EPA study will show that gas drilling and fracking are safe.
"There have been numerous studies and a multitude of research on oil and natural gas extraction methods," Alfaro said. The EPA study "will confirm once again previous findings that current industry practices used in development are safe, responsible and effective means of extracting and producing our natural energy resources."
...........................
Just like JPP they know the outcome before they start and will fake everything to get there.
....above article by Darryl Hannah...there are 49,000 active gas wells in COLORADO ... with thousands more approved each year...
That is a sh*t load of well casings ready to fail,average life 10 - 20 years,just in Colorado!
We will suffer the same fate here in Australia.
The Kimberley cattle people were up in arms over the National Heritage listing...the greatest threat to them was protection of country.
But not a peep out of them over this menace coming at them...right here right now...
Hear the screams when their polluted and deformed cattle are banned from the world market....too late then!
What a mob of wan*ers.
Awesome work and every word is true. Just save yourself and your shareholders a whole lot of cash by telling barnett to stick his jpp gas hub NOW! dont wait till mid next. Proceeding further with this project will lead your company into financial ruin. Cmon coleman, show some balls and make the decision we all know you will make NOW
ReplyDeleteSpot on.Woodside will be a company with hobbled ambitions if it is stupid enough to proceed.(God knows with the Pluto and Sunrise fiascos they are hobbled enough already)
DeleteAs Cousins said... they get into that bunker mentality...can't see the bigger picture...get hung up on hubris...and next thing there are new boards being sworn in.
The use it or loose it conditions,the ego clashes between Voelte/Chaney and Cousins/Brown,the madness of Barnett...all have added up to a board and company that can no longer function as it should.
Otherwise the bloody minded pig headed scheme to go into the dunes would have been put on hold by now.
As Louise wrote,all the blood,sweat and tears,rips and breaks in the community have bonded us and made us stronger.
Woodside get out now...or else!