Professor Cliff Hooker of Newcastle University has recently produced a study that is expected to have a major influence in shaping the national debate about sustainability. Prepared for the Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development (CRCCSD), the report argues that the most vital aspect of sustainability is to preserve the ability to adapt to change.

“Some people define sustainability as reducing the environmental impact of what we do,” Hooker said. “Others define it as preserving natural capital for our future benefit. However, the most important thing to preserve is our – and the environment’s – capacity to adapt. If you can’t adapt, ultimately nothing else is preservable.”

Hooker argued that life on earth is driven by its ability to adapt to change, no matter how great. This resilience is at the heart of future survival for humanity and all other forms of life.

He said coal provides the Australian economy and society with enormous resilience – as well as the wealth and resources necessary to protect the resilience of the natural world.

“Coal is the most productive chemical on earth. It is at the heart of an enormous industrial web, producing not only energy but also manufactured products, fertilizers for food production, plastics and even, potentially, transport fuels. It has a myriad uses, with a myriad more small industries hanging off them. Other sources of energy are far less versatile.

“If you took coal out of the equation at all rapidly, you would cripple Australia’s economic resilience – our ability to cope with other challenges, including climate change and problems such as salinity.

“Today we are just starting to appreciate that sustainability is about resilience. That the key to our prospering in the longer term is to keep our options open, both economically and environmentally.”

Australia's Mining Monthly