Big Business Pollutes By John C. Massam

     I support the Environmental Protection Authority for trying to make huge polluters, such as mining and oil-extracting companies, take steps to partly neutralise their greenhouse gas emissions into the world's atmosphere. The Chamber of Minerals and Energy and Woodside, a huge mining company, were quoted on Friday as saying that making these big polluters plant trees and take other steps, would risk tens of billions of dollars and many jobs. Ameliorating their own pollution seems fair to me.  But while Australia exports millions of tonnes of coal and huge amounts of gas, will anyone ask someone, somewhere, to neutralise the greenhouse gas pollution as these burn? Political leaders ought to take the complaints of the extractive industries with a grain of salt.  The Big End of Town does not care a bit about atmospheric pollution, or jobs either.  Would they be automating if they cared about Australians' jobs? It was sad to see a publication criticising the EPA, and saying that the Authority was a group of pen-pushers.