Since leftists have long been known for “situational values,” it’s not surprising that they now exhibit situational environmentalism. It works like this: Something is deemed an “irreplaceable natural resource” that must be preserved at all costs.
Thirty years later, it can be destroyed because, well, if you want to make a green omelet, you’ve got to break a few green eggs (and ham?).
And now, 30 years later is today, and on the chopping block are forests — and the animals living within. Yes, trees, once considered sacred and a reason to transition away from paper supermarket bags (in the ’70s), are currently being cleared in deference to the greentopian climate agenda. The latest example is that this movement, which has targeted forests from the North Maine Woods to the Scottish Highlands to Germany, wants to transform Australia’s koala habitat into a windmill wasteland.
Reporting on the story, American Thinker (AT) opens with some perspective:
Remember the endless images of the charred little koalas that circled in the media a few years back as fires ripped through the Australian bush? Remember the leftist politicians and their mockingbird operatives wagging their fingers at the primitive and unsophisticated conservatives (like me) who refused to acknowledge the “science” of man being an existential threat to the environment, lamenting the plight of all the innocent little creatures who had to suffer because of human greed, and scolding us as they sarcastically asked if we were proud of ourselves?
Yeah, well now all those resilient little cherubs with the burn scars are set to perish by bulldozer or starvation, thanks to the environmental vandals in government….
AT then quotes the Australia-based Courier-Mail’s Des Houghton. “Koala habitats will be ripped apart to build wind farms in central Queensland so state and federal Labor governments can chase their fantasy of meeting useless, costly and unobtainable renewable energy targets,” he writes.
“If you need any more evidence that green zealotry has entered the delusional phase, this is it in my opinion,” Houghton continues.
The koala-killing scheme is known as the Lotus Creek wind farm and is the handiwork of Ark Energy, a subsidiary of South Korean conglomerate Korea Zinc Co. Ltd. And who’s responsible for letting foreign big business get rich(er) destroying Australian wilderness? Houghton identifies federal and state environment ministers Tanya Plibersek and Leanne Linard and ex-state environment minister Meaghan Scanlon as the culprits.
“In approving the project, Plibersek overturned a decision by her Coalition predecessor Sussan Ley, who in 2020 said the wind farm was as ‘clearly unacceptable’ and in breach of federal environment laws, partly because the site was home to koalas and other species afflicted by the previous summer’s catastrophic bushfires,” Houghton explains.
Of course, we always heard it was conservatives who wanted to “poison the air and water” and pave over the world. That’s why the following, related by AT, is so interesting.
“Plibersek belongs to the Labor Party, the country’s socialist faction, and an equivalent to America’s Democrat party — as a friend in Australia relayed to me, Plibersek is ‘on record for her ardent advocacy for the protection of koalas’ but like the good leftist she is, ideology comes first, even if that means a little slaughter here and there on the way to a more just and equitable utopia,” the site writes.
What’s more, the wind farm endeavor will destroy “old growth” forest, all to make room for 55 windmills that will surely be junk even before reaching their 20-year lifespan (given “green” energy’s infeasibility). This is typical, however. The greentopian agenda is already responsible for wiping out vast tracts of virgin jungle and for targeting a 1,000-year-old “fairy tale” forest in Germany, a densely populated country where a pre-Columbian forest is the rarest of resources.
Yet there’s still more on this front from the Land Down Under (tyrannical irrationality). As Houghton also informs:
More pain may be coming for the endangered koala. Plibersek has now been asked to approve 88 giant turbines in the middle of an upland tropical forest at Chalumbin on the Atherton Tableland….
The developer is the same corporation backing Lotus Creek.
The ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] reported the controversial $1 billion wind farm was adjacent to World Heritage-protected rainforests. And that the project was scaled back from the original 200 turbines in an effort to appease conservationists and some traditional owners.
Speaking of “traditional owners,” one could wonder what Australia’s “indigenous” people have to say about this. The country just yesterday rejected a referendum called the “Voice” which, if passed, would have given the nation’s aborigines special (i.e., extra) recognition in the Australian constitution and their own advisory body to Parliament. So the question arises: Would these woke, greentopian politicians listen to the indigenous “voice” on land-raping windmill schemes?
The kicker is that there’s no real upside here. First, how green is “green energy” when you must destroy green areas to facilitate it? Second, wind power is so strikingly inefficient that it’s doomed to failure. Example: It’s estimated that providing the U.S.’s energy needs via wind sources would require an area three times California’s size.
There may be an upside for the pseudo-elites, though. AT wonders: Are Australian politicians getting kickbacks from Ark Energy? This would explain their willingness to enable “over-the-top destruction.”
What’s for sure is that a few are getting rich while the Australian people get something else: irreplaceable, old-growth forest traded for a future garbage-dump memorial to greentopian delusions.
