Quarterly Essay 33 Quarry Vision

Book excerpt: This is an essay about “quarry vision”, the mindset that sees Australia’s greatest asset as its mineral and energy resources – coal especially. How has this distorted our national politics and our response to climate change? What happens now that our coal-fired resources boom has gone bust? In this powerful essay about the national interest, Guy Pearse discusses the future of the coal industry and argues with the economic orthodoxy. He exposes the shadowy world of greenhouse lobbyists; how they think, operate and skin cats. Quarry vision, he argues, is a carbon-laced trap and a blind faith and a mentality we can no longer afford.