Pass this on please!

Some important marine areas flagged for possible protection near Margaret

River and Kangaroo Island are in trouble and I thought you could help.

The Resources Minister is about to announce new oil leases right on top of

areas that may become marine sanctuaries, but we have a chance to stop it.

Save Our Marine Life have set up an online petition at

http://saveourmarinelife.org.au/email_minister

And it would be great if you could sign onto it.

These places are home to whales, dolphins, turtles and amazing fish.

They're pretty special, so thanks for helping.

Dont be such hypocrites. Its entirely reasonable to expand oil production within Australia.

Australians use huge amounts of Oil. They drive cars everywhere and fly all over the place. You want less of this then push for better public trasnport, high speed rail, bike friendly citys and higher milage cars with lower highway speed limits. Then you wont need to drill your oil rigs.

Or is it only ok to pollute and destroy pristine marine environments in other countries where the people have brown skin, weak government and less stringent environmental laws?

Whining about oil drilling while refusing to demand less oil usage is just outsourcing the problem. Suck it up and solve the problem not the symptom. Until then I fully support more oil drilling in Australia. You deserve to live in a polluted environment if you wont change your habits.

Believe me I fly a lot less than I used to, or arguably, need to.

Yes I could consume less. We all could. But PNG is a petroleum exporting country. Australia is an importing one.

From a petroleum perspective PNG lives within its means. Australia is living off other peoples means. There is no hypocrisy in pointing this out. We use our oil. You should use yours.

Lobes and friends,
You make you own minds up but you should not be critical of what other people believe in...

Has anyone actually go to the website to have a look what its about?

No one is questioning the use of oil, its about what areas should and should not be marine santuraries.

So before you give me the "it will all be ok" speech. Spare me.

Agree to disagree. Cos you work in the oil industry I should care?

Cos what happens in PNG is directly related?

Its simple, don't fill it in if you dont believe in it.

I already filled the petition in by pretty much paraphrasing my first comment in this thread. I've probably said enough on this topic too many beers at lunch leads to keyboard thumping in the afternoon LoL. Get me in the morning next time I'll be more sympathetic

Yes, I agree with Zimbo.... pressure needs to applied on both ends, producer and consumer....

Do not under estimate how good engineers and modern technology is either. Minimum impact at drill sites, etc.... but yes, things have gone wrong in the past !!

Also, do not underestimate the collateral spending (wealth) from Oli & Gas, and Mining. If Australia didn't have the resources, we would be a Banana Republic lead by Queensland Bananas

Even most of your green technologies, require mining.... ;
Solar Panels - full of mining products
Wind Mill Energy Generators - concrete, cement, bluestone, steel, and copper in the electrical systems
Even small windmills probably have lightweight resins in the propellor blades (oil industry), plus copper in the electrics
Solar Heating Tubes for pools - oil spin off
Solar Hot Water Heaters - full of metals and glass, all products of mining

Surfboards (SUPS) - full of resins, petro-chem spin off.... it all starts at the oil rig !!

Billy Hamilton in Kauai is growing Balsa Trees, and I recall he's found an environmentally green organic based resin for sealing the balsa....

PS - but yeah, we should sign it !!

russh said...



Don't go the third world argument cause it just doesn't stick

What is the "third world argument"?

Well in that case I think its a reasonable argument and it does stick.

The risks should be assumed by the consumers of the oil and not outsourced to Nigeria or Angola or PNG or wherever.

If theres a big spill at MR its fairly likely it will attract big efforts to clean it up and there will be some repercussions for industry and for government. That is less likely in the third world.

You talk about 3rd worlders accepting "the dollar" in front of their best interests. That is "your" dollar and I'm saying keep it and spend it on developing your own oil.

I realise neither of us have much say in these decisions but at the very least we should try and keep the right attitude. And I think paying someone else to get polluted so your Seal Bay or Cape De Coudic doesnt is the wrong attitude.

The underlying message of this petition is a bunch of wealthy 1st worlders who want all the benefit of oil but would like to (under)pay someone else to assume the risks. Its as if somehow their marine environment is more important than anywhere else. In my opinion it is not more important.

I broadly agree with you but we are going to need to develop alternatives long before we "run out".

Even if we only lost a quarter or a third of oil production that would be more than enough to trigger global chaos.

In fact one of the main reasons for the Global Finacial Crisis was an undersupply of oil. With prices at $147 barrel people were spending so much on energy that they couldnt afford to repay their (sub-prime) bank loans and that triggered all the banks like Lehman brothers to come crashing down.

Prices quickly dropped to under $40 and we have now seen the beginnings of a recovery but the reality is the same thing will happen all over again. Oil is now at about $80 bbl and if it gets much higher we will see another round of credit defaults and financial collapses.

There are not just environmental reasons for reducing oil dependence but compelling economic reasons as well.