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Reviews

John Hewson –
economist, and former federal leader of the Liberal Party:

'To economists, the answer is relatively straightforward, put a market price on carbon, make the polluters pay, in the context of meaningful targets, and all the rest will flow…But our politicians driven by the big polluters and others who would claim to be 'worse off', and wanting to be seen to be 'doing something', step in to 'fix it'. Game On! Enter Guy Pearse with the courage to address some of the grubbiness of this process, but offering a realistic assessment of where we are, and of how we need to, and can, go forward from the mire of today. His contributions to the necessary debate are most significant. I sincerely hope that Guy is read widely…'

David Karoly –
eminent Australian climate scientist & IPCC Lead Author

'I am sure that Quarry Vision will receive more than its fair share of cricitism as being the biased and narrow view of a disgruntled former spin doctor. It presents an alarming picture of the role that lobby groups for the coal and mining industries in Australia may be playing in influencing the climate change policies of successive federal governments…Quarry vision is preventing what is needed. Current coal-fired power stations have no future in Australia. They must either be closed down and replaced by alternative energy sources, or converted to effective carbon capture and storage solutions within the next decade…Unfortunately, quarry vision has been leading us in exactly the wrong direction!'

Patrice Newell –
acclaimed author, and environmental campaigner

'Guy Pearse's Quarterly Essay builds on his massive and important High & Dry…Now we see how powerful that (carbon) lobby remains in the era of Rudd and Wong. Pearse is a first class researcher, dogged and courageous. He unearths facts like a miner following a seam. In the case of Quarry Vion he quarries a vast number of cited sources. And the revelations pile up identifying the miscreants. We lean that X and Y and Z left the ministry to get jobs in the mining industry, with Z scoring a well-paid directorship of mining company A)…'

Melissa Fyfe –
political reporter with The Sunday Age

'(Quarry Vision) is a must-read for people concerned about climate change because it explains the two key problems with Kevin Rudd's emissions trading scheme. First, the multi-billion-dollar compensation package is likely to see the major polluters pay for only one in five tonnes of carbon they release (we pay for the rest). Second: it won't transform the economy because polluters can buy cheap permits in developing countries instead of reducing their emissions at home. But the essay is most interesting because Pearse, once a speech writer for former environment minister Robert Hill and lobbyist for BHP Billiton, explains how Rudd's election hardly troubled the polluters' sophisticated lobbying effort. And this was the real story behind Rudd's disappointing climate targets and flawed emissions trading scheme. At the time, political journalists said it was smart politics. It wasn't. Rudd simply could not resist the carbon lobby.'

Kenneth Davidson –
columnist in The Age

'The (Rudd Government's) carbon scheme is not simply weak. It is fraudulent. In his new Quarterly Essay: Quarry Vision, Coal, Climate Change and the End of the Resources Boom, Guy Pearse shows that Australia's biggest emitters will be able to meet their targets by buying emission permits from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea in return for promises by these countries to reduce the rate of deforestation. There is no limit on the use of foreign permits. According to Pearse, "Australia could make almost all of its "deep cuts" by paying other countries to make them".'

Simon Butler –
reviewer in the Green Left Weekly

'The more some things change, the more the Australian government's close relationship with the toxic coal industry seems to stay the same… Pearse's 2007 book High and Dry exposed the role of fossil-fuel industry lobbyists in influencing — and sometimes even writing — climate change policy under the Howard government. One lobbyist even boasted to Pearse in an interview that the lobbyists liked to call themselves the "greenhouse mafia". (In Quarry Vision) he shows how the greenhouse mafia still holds huge sway with the Rudd government…Pearse is scathing of the Rudd government's eagerness to bow down before Australia's biggest polluters.'

Brian Toohey –
author and journalist

'Guy Pearse makes a forceful case for Australia doing more to nullify the greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal to make electricity or help smelt steel. Given the huge scale of the global emissions from coal, it is tempting to argue, as Pearse does, that Australia has a moral obligation to phase out the export of coal…As Pearse notes, biochar (made from organic material in the absence of oxygen) is a potential substitute for coal in steel smelting…'

Robert Merkel –
academic and blogger

'Pearse, in his Quarterly Essay and in his other writings has done much to chronicle the damage (the carbon lobby) and their supporters around the world have done. Its sabotage of any action beyond window dressing has left us in a dire situation… Pearse is withering on Australia's intended use of cheap carbon credits from developing countries to avoid taking any action of its own.'