During an attack on musician and activist John Butler, Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), the peak body of the oil and gas industry, says he should thank them for the earth’s plastics.
Now that Big Oil & Gas have claimed responsibility for the earth’s plastics, perhaps it’s time they pay for cleaning up the mess that plastics leave behind, instead of leaving it to volunteers and the government purse.
The world owes the gas industry …
October 9, 2016 – Stedman Ellis is Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration (APPEA) Chief Operating Officer Western Region wrote this:
“John Butler owes a big debt to oil and gas“, says APPEA.
“He rails against Kimberley gas hubs and oil exploration in the Great Australian Bight, but the truth is Butler owes part of his success to the petroleum industry.”
I don’t expect him to acknowledge his debt to oil and gas when he fronts his anti-gas concerts, so I’ll do it for him.”
“The CDs and vinyl records that have taken Butler to the top of the charts are made from plastics that are derived from crude oil.”
“Without oil and gas, John Butler could not play his instruments; his CDs could not be produced; and he could not tour.”
“Without petroleum, John Butler would most likely still be busking on a street corner in Fremantle.”
“Many people in the Kimberley believe that would be no bad thing. To this day there remains a deep well of resentment in the region over the role that fly-in-fly-out protesters like Butler played in killing off the James Price Point gas project and the $1 billion indigenous benefits package negotiated with the State Government and Woodside Energy.”
(Ironically, the oil & gas industry are fly-in fly-out workers, and APPEA members are some of the biggest multi-national corporations with headquarters overseas)
Butler may not be a “big city” dweller, but he’s still got gas in his sights and he’s still telling Kimberley communities what’s good for them.
(Stedman Ellis, who wrote this APPEA piece is based in West Leederville, Western Australia, 3kms from Perth’s CBD and he’s still telling Kimberley communities what’s good for them).
Butler is performing at Margaret River in support of a local protest group that opposes hydraulic fracturing, the process known as ‘fracking’ that has been used for decades to safely extract oil and gas here in Australia and elsewhere. Tickets are selling despite assurances from the gas industry and the state’s independent regulator that there are no plans to frack anywhere in the South West.
(“fracking has been used for decades” is a favourite lie told by the gas industry. The truth is the modern version of ‘fracking’ was invented in 1998-1999 by George Mitchell which made previously uneconomic gas fields viable and started the boom. In 2016, the process of fracking was a new technology.)
“Butler is entitled to his own opinion. He is not, however, entitled to his own facts”, says APPEA
John Butler’s reply to APPEA:
Why would you let an unregulated fracking industry gamble with your water supply?
“Stedman Ellis, congratulations on a truly vilifying and misleading opinion piece (“Chord in a trap”, TST, October 9). What else would one expect from the chief operating officer of Australian Petroleum and Gas Exploration for WA?
“Firstly I’m not anti-gas, oil or any other resource. The matter always comes down to how, why, where and when. In response to some of your accusations Mr Ellis, regarding James Price Point in the Kimberley, despite all of the community division Woodside and Premier Colin Barnett were creating, my decision to become involved was very clear.”
“I was personally asked to get involved by the Chief Indigenous Law Man and Custodian for the actual land in question, working directly in partnership and consultation with him throughout the campaign.”
“The threat of desecrated ancestral grave sites and cultural song lines and a 50 sq.km marine dead zone in an area that hosts the world’s largest humpback whale calving nursery, and (according to government reports) has more fish species than the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, was enough inspiration for me.”
“You quoted Dr Alan Finkel saying fracking can be safe, but Dr Finkel also stated on ABC’s Lateline program that fracking has caused environmental damage and contamination due to lax practices.”
“What could be more lax than the State Government allowing this industry exemptions from obtaining Environment Protection Authority and Department of Environment Regulation pollution control licences to explore and frack?”
“Other industries have to get approvals, but somehow this highly volatile industry that drills through our aquifers and pumps chemical solutions at extremely high pressure to fracture coal seams, shale and tight reserves, is exempt. That’s not robust regulations. That’s pure recklessness. This is our water, not the gas industry’s or any other industry’s.”
“Water is a human right. Search “Condamine River on fire” on YouTube to see what this “highly regulated” industry can do to our waterways. It’s truly terrifying, and sadly the damage is already done in South West Queensland.”
“According to the most recent reports by Oil Change International and the Overseas Development Institute, your industry receives $7 billion in subsidies via direct spending and tax breaks every year in Australia.”
“Meanwhile, documents just recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the WA Treasury suggest new gas projects on the North West Shelf may pay no petroleum resource rent tax for the next 20-30 years.”
“Twenty years ago we needed to start building the bridge between fossil fuels and renewables.”
“Even without government initiative, leadership and major corporate finance, the technology exists now. Portugal, with a third of Australia’s GDP, recently provided all of its energy for four days from renewables alone.”
“Stedman, your industry has had a fair run and the world could do with your help. You guys have the finances, infrastructure and technological might to actually become leaders in a whole new era of energy production.”
“Highlighting what my career would be without the fossil fuel industry is an easy option and you’re not the first to take a shot, but what would your life look like without clean air and water?”
“Would you accept any risk on the water supply that feeds into your home, grows your food, the same water that your family bathes in?”
“Would you stand by and let an unregulated industry gamble with that precious resource?”
“I believe that if anything affected the water which you depend on, you would also put up a fight.”
“I would stand with you to protect your water Stedman Ellis.”
— John Butler is an award-winning WA songwriter, musician and campaigner against fracking in Western Australia.
… gas industry admits responsibility for plastic
Now the oil and gas industry reckons the world owes them a debt, they should acknowledge the facts concerning their plastics:
Humans have produced more than 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic since the 1950s and only around 9 per cent has been recycled, according to the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP’s Clean Seas initiative.
Every year, at least 11 million tonnes of plastic are discarded into our seas, equivalent of one garbage truck being dumped every minute!
Millions of tons of plastic enter the oceans every year, primarily from rivers. And the plastic that’s afloat within the oceans isn’t going away by itself.
John Butler Tour Dates & Tickets here
What is the problem with plastic?
While plastic is a versatile and useful material, it is increasingly threatening our natural environment. Single-use plastic items, designed to be used once and then thrown away, are cheap and convenient, but they pose an enormous threat to our environment.
To reduce pollution of single-use plastics, the Western Australian Government implemented a state-wide ban on the supply of certain problematic plastic items, enforceable from 1 July 2022.
When littered, plastic items, including most compostable plastics, are not naturally biodegradable in the environment, and they may persist for hundreds of years or break into fragments and beads which can cause harm to the environment.
Single-use plastics also often end up in landfill as we fail to place them in appropriate recycling bins or they cannot be economically sorted and recycled in current facilities.
Plastic packaging and single-use plastic items make up 60% of all litter in NSW.
A number of the most littered single-use plastic items are now banned under the Plastic Reduction and Circular Economy Act 2021 in NSW. These bans prevent nearly 2.7 billion plastic items from entering the coastal, marine and bushland environments of NSW over the next 20 years.
July 2022 – The United States of America and the European Commission have officially joined the Clean Seas Campaign, demonstrating their commitment to ending plastic pollution. In doing so, they acknowledge the need to curb the flow of marine litter and plastic pollution entering lakes, rivers, and the ocean and, in effect, are providing greater engagement to the biggest campaign devoted to ‘turning the tide’ against plastic in the world.
The Clean Seas Campaign, launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2017, has been a catalyst for change, transforming habits, practices, standards and policies around the globe.
The ocean makes life on earth possible, helping to regulate our climate, providing the main source of protein for more than a billion people and generating much of the oxygen we breathe.
Marine litter and plastic pollution pose an existential threat to ocean health. There is a need to rebuild humanity’s relationship with the ocean and place it firmly at the center of future sustainable development solutions.
Big Oil & Gas – It’s time to turn the tide on plastics and #FacethePlasticTruth
2016 John Butler ‘Frack Off’ Concert Poster
John Butler Tour Dates & Tickets here
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