Kumi: Grant Howard is a coal miner turned greenie who instead of leaving the mining industry, he stayed put and he managed for a while at least to balance work and advocacy.

Grant: And then one day a colleague who I'd worked with for quite a long time just said, Grant, I heard what you said on the radio and I just want to let you know that you're a hypocrite, and now we'll go back to work.

Kumi: He doesn't mine anymore, but he trains young workers and finds solace in nature. He dropped into the studio during a visit to Sydney. Hey Grant, what it's been like what, 3 years?

Grant: Time flies, doesn't it.

Kumi: You grew up in Woollongong. What was that childhood like?

Grant: It was amazing, and I didn't realise at the time, but you know, you woke up in the morning and you went surfing, you went to school, you went surfing again, and then on the weekends you rode out to the rainforest which was Minamurra. I think it sort of underpins.

Grant: My sort of, um, appreciation of the environment. So if I never had that growing up as a kid, I sort of have consciously wondered, where would have I ended up. Life in some of the suburbs of Wollongong was, was interesting, you know, trouble wasn't far away, but being surrounded by those environments was nurturing. It captured me. And so I think that's what sort of drives me was, is the idea that, you know, I want those environments to be available for other.

Grant: Future generations, they were important to me and I see them as being important to other young

Kumi: people. Did your parents emphasise nature as a big part of life or it was just second nature because that's where you lived?

Grant: No, my parents didn't, so there was sort of this polar thing, you know, there was home and then there was the outside world and I found,

Grant: It was a bit more of an escape for me to be out of the house and in in those environments. And so that's sort of what I mean. I, without those environments, I don't know where I would have ended up. You

Kumi: were 17 when you got a job in the mines. How did that job come about?

Grant: It was around 1980, and so I finished high school and the only thing I knew then, or I remember what was significant was I had to get a job. And so it was a, a difficult time in terms of employment. 1980 was just the start of a recession, I think we'd call it, that sort of dragged on for, I think, over a decade, maybe 15 years or so. I applied to several jobs. I don't think anyone wanted a job in a coal mine then.

Grant: So I had applied for a couple and that just happened to be where I could get a job and I took it.

Kumi: What was the job like at the beginning?

Grant: It was a bit overwhelming, but as a young person, I couldn't process everything that was going on. I do remember my first day in the mine. It was a totally different world. You go underground at, say, Mount Kiera or Mount Kembla. I remember the roller coaster that was one like really old guy was my guide. He took me under his wing.

Grant: And in his mind, it was an exciting, he wanted to show me this new world, but as a young person, I remember getting a really bad headache and feeling nauseous and I thought, oh my God, when is this gonna be over? And when we got back onto the surface, I was sort of relieved. That was my first experience with it. But from then, of course, I adapted and, uh, coal mining underground anyway, essentially is like every day is an adventure. Just don't know what's going to happen.

Grant: Yeah,and it's challenging. You know, mining in any form isn't easy, particularly working to the parameters or the, the, the guidelines and the expectations of the community and all those sorts of things means that it's just a really challenging job for at all levels.

Kumi: There was a spate of coal mines shutdowns during the 1990s. Where did that leave you?

Grant: It left me very anxious about my employment. So for two decades, my memory is having a mortgage, having a young family, and your hold on employment is really tenuous, if that's the right word, you were sort of worried about losing your job every day you went to work thinking, is this the last week?

Grant: Of my job and that has a really grinding sort of an effect on you thinking that your employment's always threatened. You know, there were people leaving, their mind shutting down. I had no plan B. I didn't know what I would do if I lost my job, and it's certainly not a conversation that I wanted to take home to my family as a bloke, so.

Kumi: So you didn't feel like you could talk about it with your family?

Grant: Not at all. It was just a discussion you or you just were never going to have. you just held on to your job as best you could.

News Anchor: There have been dramatic scenes at a mining conference in Sydney. Outside, environmental groups staged a rally while protesters scaled a building to send a clear anti-mining message to the state government. Police were quickly brought in to move the 30 protesters back outside.

Kumi: Grant, you're a coal miner, you're also a greenie. What was the catalyst for turning green? Was there a specific turning point?

Grant: In a way, I think I've always been green. So if I reflect back as a kid, you know, I was always in awe of our environment. I grew up in Wollongong, so I have those memories of growing up in the most amazing place, which was Wollongong. In terms of a specific moment when I decided to apply myself to environmental issues, which of course is the climate issue, it was 2018 when I heard on an international news bulletin that the atmospheric level had reached of carbon dioxide had reached or was reaching 420 parts per million. And I found that it was a really profound moment. I was quite shocked by that.

Grant: Because my understanding of things was that the atmospheric level was 300 parts per million. I thought it hadn't changed. And so as a coal miner, I was indoctrinated to know to understand that level of carbon dioxide. We test for it every day, we monitor it, it's part of our job. So when I'd heard that figure, it was a really defining moment.

Kumi: Talk us through that figure. What do those numbers actually mean? How did you interpret them?

Grant: It becomes a bit complicated because in human terms, in physiological terms, 300 parts per million to us is not much. So in terms of physiological.

Grant: CO2 is only an issue if it reaches 1%, which is quite high in relative terms, but in terms of environmental impacts, 420 million marks a 50% increase on the natural level. So CO2 and other greenhouse gases are like trace gases, and so in very small amounts they make really big changes.

Kumi: How long into your career as a minor were you when you had this epiphany in 2018?

Grant: Yeah, a long way. So for decades.

Grant: I had naively gone along thinking that the world's fine, everything's great. I started in the industry in 1981. I was 17 years old. I learnt about climate impacts when I was at school, and I took a job up in the mining industry thinking that the government would manage this. I can go work in the industry and of course if something significant happens, then the government's there to look after us and we'll change and we'll manage the issue. So and and all that along the way I would talk to engineers and I'd ask them, why do you flare gas?

Grant: And they'd give me the answer. Grant, we flare gas because it burns and that gets rid of the methane. It produces CO2, which is less of an impact on the environment, so

Grant: Those conversations were 30 years ago. So along the way, I'm sort of checking in to see that we, we're managing it, we're aware of it. And then I sort of like everybody, fell asleep on the issue. And sure enough, in 2018, I became aware that it was in fact approaching 420 parts per million.

Kumi: You decided to sort of tell others how you felt about it. What was it like in the workplace?

Grant: It was terrifying because you're a coal miner. I'd been doing that for 40 years. I wouldn't be.

Grant: Alive today if it wasn't for them, I crystally clear remember the moments when they were there to coach me or stop me from doing something which would have had perhaps fatal consequences. So I understand my obligation to mine workers, and I could see in social media, and I wasn't aware of it. Like, I thought, well, we now are aware that CO2 has reached these levels that it'll be just a common thing. But then I'd look at social media and I'd realise that there's all this ridicule and diatribe and division.

Grant: And that was really another moment when I think when I was sort of, oh no, no guys, this is not like this, this is actually,

Grant: A serious issue that as coal miners we need to be more aware of it and understand what's actually happening.

Kumi: When you say you were terrified, was it the environmental terror that you felt, or was it literally in the workplace you felt like you were basically on your own in terms of your views?

Grant: It was the idea of being alone. It was the idea of holding a view or an opinion which was different to other people and that they wouldn't be happy.

Grant: If they interpreted me as a person who was going against their interests, so that's what I was, and it was sort of the idea of being socially isolated was the sort of the thing that I was afraid of.

Kumi: Did you ever fear for your safety, I guess?

Grant: I didn't fear for my safety. Look, I coal miners generally just a great group of people, very family orientated, but they can also be reactive and so.

Grant: And I understood that I'd been a mine worker who had sort of lived through or been employed through the 1980s when you couldn't get a job as a coal miner or anywhere, so I understood what unemployment was or what that anxiety was like. And so here I was a person who was being perhaps potentially being interpreted as a person who wanted to shut down the industry as they'd say or as they interpret. And so that sort of ended up being the challenge was how do I

Grant: Communicate this issue that in fact it's about a transition. It's something that's going to happen anyway. Whether we understand it or not, as coal miners, we don't have control over the market. It's better that we understand this issue and so we are able to make decisions for our family or that they can make decisions for their families that's best for them.

Kumi: There was an incident in the workplace with another minor you looked up to. What happened there?

Grant: Yeah, it sort of really took me by surprise. So I sort of tend to work every day, sort of anxious that I was upsetting people and I didn't want to do that. And then I found that sort of a balance, perhaps, and then one day.

Grant: A colleague who I'd worked with for quite a long time and indeed I looked up to, you know, he was a smart guy. He was a well-mannered guy. He was, you know, just a nice bloke. And I went to work on my first day on my roster and he sort of saw me and he made a deliberate move to come over and talk to me and just out of the blue, he just said, Grant, I heard what you said on the radio and I just want to let you know that you're a hypocrite.

Grant: And now we'll go back to work. And it sort of, sort of shook me. It was, it was sort of a weird thing. He then offered his hand, like, shake on it, and I sort of thought, well, I don't agree with the label. And so I sort of reluctantly shook his hand because I just wanted to get on with things anyway. You're at work, you're not there to argue with people. But it sort of never left me. And so I had to dig deeper.

Grant: And to reconcile this and just by chance I sort of struck on the idea of doing an internet search on, say, Anglo Americans climate policy.

Grant: And oh my goodness, what a great day that was, because Anglo-American, like every global resource company who have got significant fossil fuel assets, all recognise the Paris Agreement. They all recognise the idea that we have to aim for 1.5 degrees of warming and not go past that. And so rather than trying to defend my position, I just had to simply offer them.

Grant: The Anglo-American climate policy and by the way, here's the BHP climate policy, and in that I said, hey, look, you might want to know about these policies that your employer is holding because from what I read, I'm sort of totally in line with these aspirations, these goals. The implied message being that if you're not in line with them, then perhaps you need to have a look at your sort of position in this whole arrangement.

Kumi: Can you understand how some people, including that co-worker, might consider you hypocritical?

Grant: Yeah, I could, and certainly for a long time I walked in their shoes. I, I could understand that, but it was a simplification of something that's just more complicated. And in life generally, that we get so much information that we tend to simply,

Grant: things for the purpose of convenience because we've got so much to deal with and I sort of understood where he was coming from. I was sort of profoundly moved because I respected him. I looked up to him. Yeah, he's a person I'd go to for advice. That's what sort of captured me was I, of all people, you just simplify this to this point. And, and also been so forward.

Grant: Because normally people wouldn't be as forward. They'd sort of attack you through social media or or something else, but, um, that sort of made me sort of dig a bit deeper and I had, it was an issue, there's something that I had to resolve in a constructive way.

Kumi: Did you ever think of quitting the mining industry?

Grant: I really questioned, as other people did, you shouldn't be here, hand your jobbing. You need to give your superannuation back.

Grant: All these sort of things were levelled at me and of course my first thoughts when I recognised our circumstances before I went back to work on a roster or a shift, was part of an industry that's contributing to this in wholesale terms, I'm part of it.

Grant: And so I had to reconcile that and it wasn't easy because I had bills. It was a job, and I really struggled to reconcile that it went on for quite a while. I looked back and it was really one of the most difficult things in my life I've had to reconcile was maintaining a job in the coal industry and of course, understanding that we had to transition.

Kumi: How long was that period?

Grant: It sort of went on about, I reckon about 12 months, and I never got to the bottom of it myself. I got help from some other people that happened to be around, and so I must have expressed my, my circumstances and, and.

Grant: They sort of said, you know, just because you're a coal miner doesn't mean to say you can't be concerned about the environment. And they were just a couple of short, simple words which started me to process things better. And from that, so I just, I just was able to process them better, and then I sort of carried it on to say that we're all equally responsible, you know, we all, we all drive cars, we all use electricity, so I'm as responsible in the coal industry as an airline pilot is.

Grant: And that's where I eventually got to was that we're all equally responsible and it's something we all have to work on together and we'll only get through these circumstances by working together.

Kumi: Did your activism, if that's what you want to call it, and that period of reconciling, working in the mines and being an environmentalist, did that impact your family, your friends, your friendship circles?

Grant: Yeah, because a lot of my friends or acquaintances are in the industry, and so I never knew how they would interpret my circumstances. I was always anxious that they would be critical of that. But look, when I was at work, other coal miners,

Grant: would come up to me and tap me on the shoulder and say, Gran, I heard you on the radio and look, I agree with you. So it's not just me that recognises the transitions required. There's other people in the industry like that. The good news is that the relationships that I value the most, of course, they understood and at worst, we just never talked about it. We had coffee and just never went near that conversation and at best, I was able to explain the circumstances and the need to change.

News Anchor: Hundreds of protesters have taken to the water to form a floating blockade in the world's largest coal port.

Kumi: You now live in Queensland, but you're in Sydney at the moment as part of the rising tide protest. What are you hoping to achieve?

Grant: I've sort of chosen to be a part of it just so that I can say, so as an example of the mine workers to say that we don't have to be divided as a community. So look, I'm a coal miner, I'm there to communicate the issue to the broader community, which is simply what.

Grant: A protest or one of those events is like, it's simply to communicate to the community and the government that as a community we need to change. That's why I participate as a mine worker, a person who's been in the coal industry for 40 years to say that it's a thing we need to do together, and they too can recognise that change.

Kumi: When you're doing that, do you think of the next generations coming after you and the planet that you're going to leave behind?

Grant: What I've become profoundly aware of is the idea that we need to be good ancestors. I think it's in our DNA. It's if you dig a bit deeper, you realise that we have a responsibility to make a future that's survivable. That's the sort of circumstance we're in. So I was inspired by people I met, people older than me who had no other reason.

Grant: To be involved in a protest other than to leave a world that's for future generations, and I saw that in them and I now recognise that that's really what we're campaigning for.

Kumi: What is life like now? Are you still working in the mines?

Grant: So I still do work in the mining industry. I train young mine workers. My last job underground was about 10 months ago with a group of guys in central Queensland, and so I left that to get some hip surgery. That's turned out really well and

Grant: I've sort of sent out a few resumes, but I'd sort of hear crickets, and I accept that. I, in a way, I appreciate that people have been really patient with me and tolerated me for so long. In a way, I sort of accept that that's where it's at, and I'm 61. This is the path that's chosen for me, or so be it.

Kumi: So you feel like you're potentially on a bit of a blacklist.

Grant: It's really hard to say, but when you sort of hand out 10 resumes and the only thing you get back is it's like silence, like not even email it comes back, you've sort of got to question that. But at the end of the day, look, I qualify that to say that I understand. I, I, I don't go to work to cause trouble, so look, that's, it is what it is. It's where, that's where it's at, I guess.

Kumi: From working in that industry since you were 17, that's your whole life. How much of your identity is tied to that industry and everything that you've done in your time?

Grant: Yeah, it's, it's a sort of a sobering time, so I have to, to reconcile that. You don't realise that, but over time, you know, your job.

Grant: You don't realise how much it underpins your self-esteem and your sense of self and your identity and who you are. And if you went to a barbecue, if you don't know anyone, they sort of say, well, what do you do for work? And it's sort of the first question that people go to. So, so sure enough, in these moments, I've had to try and uncouple that from who I am. And as an older person, I suppose I'm a bit better able to try and

Grant: Slow that head talk down and just try to put other things in place to say that that has been my life. When I was a part of it, I tried really hard at work. I did the job as best I could. I did everything my employer wanted to. I wasn't perfect, and I spent the last 20 years primarily focused on employee safety, looking after people and getting them to look after themselves and each other. So I've done what I was supposed to do to a to a large extent, but yeah, you've, you've got to sort of uncouple that a bit and find other things to lean on.

Grant: To lean on what

Kumi: What other things have you found?

Grant: Well, being part of the protest movement, if we're going to call it that, is, is being new and challenging and helped me to dig a bit deeper into who I am and what I'm about and what we really want for this country and what we want for the next generation. And, and that's really a, a probably a good thing. So there's that and of course, my hobby, which I discovered late in life, which is, um, pulling out weeds and planting trees. Thank goodness for that.

Kumi: In terms of planting trees, how is your rainforest now?

Grant: Yeah, it's, it's, it's not a good news story. The environment generally on all sorts of fronts is being challenged. So it's just difficult to articulate the changes that are happening in what was a fairly predictable environment, you know, rain. I'm, I'm living in a tropics, so it's supposed to rain, and now it doesn't rain.

Grant: You know, you don't get rain until maybe late January, early February, and it should be raining in December, it should rain every year and it doesn't. You talk to other farmers in the area and.

Grant: And they recognise the changes. You see the, the place is drying out. So it's, it's difficult, but of course, you recognise that, you reconcile it, and then you move on to despair. You need to get past that and, and then realise it's about saving what we can. It's part of our sort of who we are. If we recognise an issue, if we've made a mistake, then the next we move on to that and say, well, how do we fix it? What do we do to minimise it? And I guess that's where I'm at at the moment.

Kumi: Grant, it's been so lovely to see you again. Thank you so much for taking the time to drop in.

Grant: No worries, thanks, Kumi.