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Quarterly Essay 78: The Coal Curse
- Resources, Climate and Australia’s Future
- Narrated by: Judith Brett
- Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins
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Quarterly Essay 78: The Coal Curse
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Publisher's Summary
Australia is a wealthy nation with the economic profile of a developing country - heavy on raw materials and low on innovation and skilled manufacturing. Once we rode on the sheep’s back for our overseas trade; today we rely on cartloads of coal and tankers of LNG. So must we double down on fossil fuels, now that COVID-19 has halted the flow of international students and tourists? Or is there a better way forward, which supports renewable energy and local manufacturing?
Judith Brett traces the unusual history of Australia’s economy and the 'resource curse' that has shaped our politics. She shows how the mining industry learned to run fear campaigns and how the Coalition became dominated by fossil-fuel interests to the exclusion of other voices. In this insightful essay about leadership, vision and history, she looks at the costs of Australia’s coal addiction and asks, where will we be if the world stops buying it?
"Faced with the crisis of a global pandemic, for the first time in more than a decade Australia has had evidence-based, bipartisan policy-making. Politicians have listened to the scientists and...put ideology and the protection of vested interests aside and behaved like adults. Can they do the same to commit to fast and effective action to try to save our children’s and grandchildren’s future, to prevent the catastrophic fires and heatwaves the scientists predict, the species extinction and the famines?” (Judith Brett, The Coal Curse)
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What listeners say about Quarterly Essay 78: The Coal Curse
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- Jeremy Sadler
- 04-07-2020
Excellent.
Fascinating (and a little scary sometimes) breakdown of Australian political ineptitude, incompetence and possibly even corruption.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-10-2020
Excellent! Important. Interesting & relevant.
A very well-told account with so much interesting content! It heightened my understanding and led to some great conversations.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Sebastian Randerson
- 07-10-2020
Highly recommend!
A clear and factual view into Australia, resources and climate change. Paints a clear picture of how we got to where we are. Lucid and informative. In a twist at the end, connects to a possible and hopeful future.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 15-01-2021
Cursed coal
An insightful observation of how conservative Australian politics diminishes our capacity to move beyond a limited 'digging up' agenda.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Ian
- 10-12-2022
Fantast investigative journalism
Very valuable background, impartial and evidence based. Well structured and easy to follow. Eye opening.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 05-10-2021
fantastic
In the future, should there be any people left to hear it, this may help explain what went wrong...In a twist at the end, connects to a possible and hopeful future.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 14-11-2021
Excellent economic analysis
Judith writes intelligently and gives a well researched view of the economic life of Australia. Narration could be better.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 28-05-2021
interesting, style is negative, anti government
The history elements were very interesting. It could have been made a whole lot better if more ballsnced, including pragmatic recommendations.
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- fridja
- 23-09-2020
Better understanding of the Aus Economic structure
Interesting read to get a better understanding of why the Australian economy is structured the way it is. Restructuring it to include manufactoring again seems like the challenging path forward for Australia.
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- Mundayk
- 16-09-2020
A fascinating but frightening view
while arguably one-sided, Judith details the history of Australia's economic destructive path taken to appease our coal and gas industries. While I understand how in the past many believed the implications of job losses and economic downfall should climate change policies be implemented, hearing this essay detail the acts of some anti-climate change politicians really shows just how easily a country can fall to greed. These days however, the mining industries can no longer claim significant job losses as most of their industry is automatic so the majority of us have already lost our employment in mining so there's no reason for governments not to commit to saving what's left of Australia's environment... until they interfer with the logging industry to save wildlife. Either way, a must-listen essay to hear the politics behind the governments way of thinking
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