GH: Yeah my name's Grant Howard. I currently live in Mackay which is part of central Queensland, and I work in the coal industry in the Bowen Basin. I’ve been living here for the last 22 years, I’ve moved up from Sydney where I was employed in the coal industry. The tropical areas do indeed make quite a contrast, moving away from Sydney, but yeah, these 20 years have been one great big adventure.

This region’s got a focus on two main industries, and that is sugar production and coal. Coal features significantly in the local community and employs a lot of people. In the Bowen Basin area, which takes in Mackay, Rockhampton and those towns associated with Moranbarah I’m pretty well sure, it's between fifty or sixty thousand people who are employed directly in the area by mines so it's quite a significant number of people who are affected by this whole idea of a changing industry.

CR: You mention you’ve worked in the coal mining industry for quite some time, but you’ve also been involved as a climate activist. Do you find it difficult to reconcile those two identities?

I’ve been part of the industry for 40 years and at some point, I learnt, or realised, that we have had a severe impact on our climate and on our atmosphere. It’s been difficult at times, being called a hypocrite and having to basically try and reconcile my circumstances. I did some research, and the company I worked for actually had an anthropogenic climate change policy and so that was in some way a crystallizing moment. I was an employee who was working for a company that recognised that we have to do something, and that was a global resource company mining coal. And all these global resource companies like BHP, Anglo American, Rio Tinto, GlenCore understand that we have to stop burning fossil fuel. And so as a coal miner I wasn't out of step with any of that.

But the guys at work are also concerned, or outwardly at times frustrated with my opinions, and it's been a bit of a difficult bridge to cross. But I decided to stick with it because I felt I could serve some purpose in terms of being a coal miner. Because when I saw coal miners, or people in the community, just generally being sceptical or ridiculing the idea of climate change and the impacts it might have on future generations, I felt, that we needed to do more in terms of communicating these issues to people who will be affected by a changing industry down the track.

CR: Do you think there was a particular moment when you realised how serious the threats of climate change would be?

You know about three years ago I learnt or understood the impacts of climate change were upon us. I learnt that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 420 ppm. I found that quite concerning you know, I was distressed about that. I knew what the carbon dioxide level was when I started work, and that was 300 ppm.

On the other front, you know I absolutely love natural heritage. It's a part of me. It's a part of what my identity stands on. You know when I saw the fires of 2019-2020, incinerate fifty-million acres of places where I’d grown up surfing and bushwalking and took my kids to, that was just a really difficult moment. Seeing a fire so energetic, that burnt so hot and moved so fast that people had to be evacuated by sea, was heartbreaking. And it was also another point of recognising that this issue was directly upon us.

In the area I live in I’ve noticed that rainfall patterns have changed and I live in a great area surrounded by rainforest. I see how that has affected the creeks which are dry and how the germinations from trees die because there's no follow-up rain which is really crazy for a tropical area. And so I can see that the tropics are dying it's disappearing, it's moving away from the place I live and what I enjoy. 

Given all of this, I looked around me at those people who were protesting and essentially in that distress, and in that grief that I was sort of feeling, I decided that I wanted to be part of that group who were protesting and trying to bring about some change.

CR: Do you think this revelation and engagement with climate activism changed the way that you behaved as an individual?

I listened and I looked for the information. I tried to understand anthropogenic climate change better and then, of course, I looked at what I was doing so I could be aware of how we generate our own energy, how much energy we use on an individual basis, and how we can use solar processes or any other renewable energy systems. I’m also using more public transport and I’m riding a bike far more than I used to, or even walking. Just getting in a 3-tonne car and driving down to a coffee shop is crazy. So I explored all those things and enjoyed them at the same time. 

This isn’t about curtailing your life, there's plenty of things that can open up if we can look and review how we use energy. 

CR: The discussions around climate change have become highly politicised in Australia, and often we see that there is a divide set up between miners and activists who are presented as one another’s enemy. Do you ever feel frustrated by this?

After I became more engaged with the climate movement, I listened to conversations and I became more sensitive to what politicians were saying. That made me angry, you know, because I saw politicians being divisive, and using coal miners more for their own outcomes than for the general wellbeing of mine workers. What I saw was politicians saying things like “activists want to end the coal industry overnight”, and you know that's simply not the case. I saw young mine workers becoming particularly anxious because of what those politicians were saying. That was quite annoying for me, so I was glad I was able to have conversations with coal miners directly and say that wasn't the case.

There are about 25 coal mines already producing coal in the Bowen Basin and nobody wants to shut those coal mines down. Those coal mines will see out their normal economic life of perhaps another ten years. Activists and climate campaigners like myself understand that we need to transition and what I’d rather see is that coal miners are part of that conversation. Coal miners deserve better information. They deserve to be able to understand what those timelines are about, where we are today and where we need to be perhaps in five or ten years time.

CR: What would you like to see happen in the future, and what would you encourage others, maybe even your fellow mine workers to do?

An obvious step would be that we would not have any new coal mines, particularly thermal coal mines. You know thermal coal represents 30% of the problem in terms of greenhouse gasses. Every tonne of thermal coal we burn produces two tonnes of carbon dioxide, and so thermal coal represents a significant part of this overall issue so it makes sense not to have any more thermal coal mines.

But you know that’s what I’d really like to see, as a mine worker, as a member of the community, as a person who just loves our natural heritage I’d rather see us all working together than be divided on this issue. That’s ultimately what I really want to see is that we’re all together, working in the one direction and that is to have a renewable energy supply.

One thing that we could really do is just take some time - take a breath - and listen to what would appear to be people who seem to be against our industry, and just listen to what they’re saying. As a person who’s an activist and who wants change I’ve listened to all of those things and indeed what I’ve found is that they were quite reasonable. So I would just encourage any coal miner or any member of the community to take some time and just listen to what people have got to say and see perhaps we would all benefit collectively.