{"id":1952,"date":"2020-05-23T04:45:33","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T18:45:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/?p=1952"},"modified":"2020-05-23T04:45:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T18:45:33","slug":"there-was-a-time-when-leftists-actually-opposed-coal-mine-closures-tim-blair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/?p=1952","title":{"rendered":"There was a time when leftists actually opposed coal mine closures. Tim Blair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailytelegraph.com.au\/blogs\/tim-blair\/lifeline-for-lithgow\/news-story\/c15bca5ea2dfe877d46f57d4d1b86a53\">https:\/\/www.dailytelegraph.com.au\/blogs\/tim-blair\/lifeline-for-lithgow\/news-story\/c15bca5ea2dfe877d46f57d4d1b86a53<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"tg-tlc-storymeta_author\"><b>Tim Blair<\/b>, The Daily Telegraph<\/div>\n<p><time class=\"tg-tlc-storymeta_timestamp\" datetime=\"2020-05-19T05:52:32.000Z\">May 19, 2020 3:52pm<\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"tg-tlc-storymeta_premium\"><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"tge-imagecaption_img\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.newsapi.com.au\/image\/v1\/470f4b31a43f2a9c4d710febbfc6149c?width=650\" alt=\".\" width=\"650\" height=\"366\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"tg-tlc-storybody cf\">\n<blockquote><p><em>An existing coal mine near Lithgow has plans to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailytelegraph.com.au\/newslocal\/thebluemountainsnews\/lithgow-angus-place-colliery-plans-to-recommence-mining\/news-story\/97bbdc01c5331756476572dca4845f56\" data-tgev=\"event119\" data-tgev-metric=\"ev\" data-tgev-order=\"97bbdc01c5331756476572dca4845f56\" data-tgev-label=\"newslocal\" data-tgev-container=\"bodylink\">restart operations after five years<\/a> \u2013 including increasing its extraction rate by half a million tonnes a year \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Angus Place Colliery, in Lidsdale, near Lithgow, has been in \u2018care and maintenance\u2019 mode since 2015, but operators Centennial Coal want to get the plant back up and running.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The company also wishes to extend its mining area by almost 100 hectares, and add 150 full-time workers to the operation.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The reopened mine would join others helping restore Lithgow\u2019s economy, which is largely dependent on mining:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThese mines have terrific economic benefits to the local area and also to the region,\u201d former mayor Maree Statham said.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe 2011 Census revealed that 11.6 per cent of total employment within the Lithgow LGA was provided through the mining industry compared to just 0.6 per cent across NSW.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But who cares about something so inconsequential as mere regional employment? Not any of these Gaia botherers:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>The <strong>Nature Conservation Council of NSW<\/strong> said they weren\u2019t satisfied that the \u201cimpacts of mining activities could be managed and mitigated to an acceptable degree\u201d \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The <strong>Blue Mountains Conservation Society<\/strong> raised issues of waterway pollution, streambed cracking, and shrub swamp desiccation as some of the reasons they were opposed to the proposal.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The<strong> Lithgow Environment Group<\/strong> is also opposed to the proposal.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The <strong>Australia Institute<\/strong>, a Canberra-based think tank, said \u201cthe economic assessment of the Angus Place coal project heavily overstates the benefits of the project and at the same time understates the costs\u201d.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There was a time when leftists actually opposed coal mine closures.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"tge-imagecaption\"><figcaption class=\"tge-imagecaption_caption\"><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>https:\/\/www.dailytelegraph.com.au\/blogs\/tim-blair\/lifeline-for-lithgow\/news-story\/c15bca5ea2dfe877d46f57d4d1b86a53 Tim Blair, The Daily Telegraph May 19, 2020 3:52pm &nbsp; An existing coal mine near Lithgow has plans to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[284,1374,1372,1373,1375],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1953,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions\/1953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realclimaterecords.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}