Australia’s ‘Climate Change and Energy Minister’, Chris Bowen, has such a well-founded reputation for spinning whoppers about ‘renewables’ that it’s been dubbed ‘Chrisinformation’. But while Bowen might be as thick as the concrete pad of a wind turbine, he’s a rat-cunning politician. As such, he knows perfectly well that it’s one thing to lie to the public’s face, quite another to tell obvious porkies in parliament.
Misleading parliament is a career-ending offence. So, when subjected to pointed questions in parliament, Bowen is notably dialling back his ‘renewables’ spruiking.
Chris Bowen appears to have finally conceded making false statements about the scale of Australia’s renewables rollout, as Biodiversity Council co-chief Hugh Possingham called for a moratorium on projects pending planning reforms.
The Climate Change and Energy Minister on Thursday faced questions in parliament, after refusing to justify claims the area needed for the renewables rollout was just 12 per cent of figures featured in the Australian.
He appeared to confirm he had confused figures relating solely to NSW with the Australian’s national figures, based on landmark research by conservationist Steven Nowakowski and Rainforest Reserves Australia.
Don’t rely on Boofhead to start lying straight in bed just yet, though. Not when he can get away with spinning evasive bullshit.
Mr Bowen was also on Thursday challenged on his claim that renewables projects in the “wrong places” would be blocked under assessments underpinned by the federal Environment and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
“We have a very strict environmental approval regime in place,” Mr Bowen said. “If an application is in the wrong place, it wouldn’t be approved, whether it’s renewable energy or anything else,” he said. “That’s how it should be.”
Is that true, though? Or just more Chrisinformation?
However, Professor Possingham backed claims by conservationists that destructively located projects damaging to biodiversity were being approved, saying the EBPC Act was not working as intended or needed.
Well, it’s certainly not doing much to save the environment from rapacious ‘renewables’ cowboys bulldozing vast swatches of bushland.
In particular, it was insufficiently protecting species from the cumulative impact of multiple projects, and failing to protect remnant vegetation needed as refuges for species from rising temperatures.
“There is no reason anywhere in Australia to put wind or solar on native vegetation – it makes no sense,” Professor Possingham said. “You can site all these renewable energy facilities by not destroying forest.”
Approving native vegetation clearance for renewables was undermining carbon emissions reductions from the projects.
“As soon as you destroy forest you release carbon dioxide,” he said. “So people who worry about climate change should very worried about the siting (of renewables) because one of the biggest contributions to climate change in Australia is habitat destruction.”
But they have to destroy the environment in order to save it!
The Upper Burdekin/Gawara Baya Wind Farm, southwest of Ingham in Queensland, secured EPBC approval in June 2024, despite the government acknowledging “significant” impacts on threatened species.
These related to clearing 605ha of Sharman’s rock wallaby dispersal habitat, 581ha of greater glider habitat, 614ha of koala habitat and 616ha of red goshawk habitat.
The government approved the 69-turbine plant, concluding these impacts were not “unacceptable” on the species as a whole and could be offset and mitigated.
This is the same government, remember, that killed a billion-dollar goldmine because of some made-up oogabooga nonsense about ‘blue bee dreaming’.
Professor Possingham, a former Queensland chief scientist and globally lauded ecologist, called for a freeze on renewables projects until biodiversity mapping could guide a less damaging rollout.
The Biodiversity Council – Australia’s peak ecologist and conservation scientists – had been urging such an approach for years, but had been ignored by government. “We warned the government this was going to happen,” he said.
Yeah, but there’s big money (mostly from the taxpayer) in them thar windmills and panels. These creeps make the greediest miner look like a saint.
