Eternally Doomed

For as long as I have been alive (or at least as long as I have been paying attention) there have been two indisputable truths in Australia.  The first is that the oil and gas fields in the Bass Strait were just about to run out of oil and gas and the second is that the Great Barrier Reef is completely doomed because of (insert environmental catastrophe here).  The Great Barrier Reef has completely died so many times that they must have a full scale underwater zombie apocalypse happening up there.

I heard a couple of months ago that the Great Barrier Reef was now inevitably doomed (again) because of climate change.  My original thought was the, no doubt unworthy, one that with the reef out of the way there really wasn't anything to stop us cranking up the coal exports.  This was after I got over my surprise at the fact that the reef was still there at all.  One of my earliest recollections is hearing about the inevitable doom of the reef on the news as a young child and it seems to have died at one or two yearly intervals ever since.

Meanwhile down at the chillier end of our continent great oil rigs dot the Bass Strait sucking up, apparently diminishing, amounts of oil and gas thus allowing the wheels of industry to keep on turning (the fact the wheels of industry have been continually turning may explain why so much of it has rolled away from Australia).  And all the while geologists, company representatives, and various people who have been (perhaps generously) described as experts claim that the time is coming when its all going to run out bringing economic devastation to all the people living in Bass Strait.

Of course there is a certain amount of truth to both positions.  Drilling for oil and gas is essentially sticking a straw into the planet and sucking.  You may get a decent drink but eventually you're going to hear that disappointing gurgling noise that tells you you need to stick your straw somewhere else.  Likewise with the reef.  The reef is a living organism (or a whole bunch of living organisms) and sooner or later circumstances will change sufficiently so that the whole reef will die although possibly not quite soon enough to satisfy environmentalists.

In the meantime the whole affair has been a godsend for the Environment and Business sections of our local media outlets who haven't really needed a new headline for the last thirty years.  It's a lot better than the rural news which has to go to the effort of having three separate headlines on standby.  I suggest they simply make one; "Fire/Drought/Flooding Dooms Farmers!" and then simply circle the word that's appropriate this time.

Wouldn't it be elegant if we ran out of Bass Strait oil and gas at exactly the same time as the reef finally turned up it's corally toes?  Environmentally speaking the two things should cancel each other out.