Certainly, the model on offer is enchanting. The Upper Lusatian biosphere in the former East Germany, about 150km from Berlin, comprises a huge area of lakes, ponds, heathlands and wetlands, some of which are flooded former mines. Although part of it is a strict designated UNESCO reserve, the biosphere also includes 58 villages where locals are encouraged in sustainable food production ranging from bee-keeping and fish-farming to fine restaurants and high-end providores. Illustration: Simon Letch Credit: Loading Lusatia, like the Upper Hunter, was ravaged for decades by the ugly despoliation of coal mining. The two areas also have similar annual rainfall. This matters for rain-filled lakes. And indeed, since their creation, these lakes have increased Lusatia's rainfall by 10 per cent, by a simple process of local precipitation. There are also key differences. One is climate. Lusatia’s average summer high is 25 degrees and its rainfall is increasing. In the Upper Hunter it’s more like 30 degrees, getting hotter and drier all the time. Large watery expanses mean evaporation. So they should be shaded, planted intensively or built underground. (Planting is preferred, since it sequesters carbon and is pretty. That matters.)

The other difference is ancientness of cultivation. Lusatia’s 2000-odd hectares of ex-mines sit within 30,000 hectares of what was once marshland, cultivated since the 7th century with productive fishing ponds, heath farming and other eco-sensitive food generation. This evolving human-nature collaboration, seeking a balance between ecology and economy, embodies a distinctively German (or perhaps north European) capacity – evident for example in the housing and energy sectors – to engage its intelligentsia in making good things happen. I know. There’s little proof that NSW gives a damn about intelligence, no pun intended. We treat our intelligentsia like lepers. Although NSW is more than twice Germany’s area, Germany has 16 UNESCO-designated biospheres and we have one, Kosciuszko. There were two, but after our disgraceful maltreatment of the Barkindji (Darling River) it was de-listed last year – just as Germany closed its last black-coalmine. Could this summer’s appalling fires reverse our sloppy attitude to all things environmental? If so, are mine-lakes the way to go? Can they drought-proof the state? Does it somehow justify coal? First, we’d need to be confident about water quality. We’re familiar with the toxicity of coal mines and their waste. Greg Story insists that mine-collected water can be “purified to drinking-water standards over a period of three years” and, although this is hard to ascertain, the Lusatian lakes do offer precedent. Or do they? It is said that the Lusatian mine-turned-lakes help supply Berliners – who are notoriously picky - with drinking water. But local experts say this is a myth. “On the contrary,” says Professor Karl Fischer of work done by Professor Peter Droege, of the Leichtenstein Institute for Strategic Development, “the Lusatia mining lakes are acidic, iron-oxide tainted deadpools threatening the Spree and ground water. And they are evaporating. Berlin gets all its drinking water from groundwater wells.”

Loading Plus, Germans are famously good at bringing smart eco-mindedness to bear when needed. Take, for example, Germany’s pledge to go 100 per cent renewable by 2050. Or its phasing out of black-coal mining without sacking a single miner – and its intention to do likewise with brown coal by 2038 to meet its Paris commitments (compare with our abject failure even to try). But here’s the thing. Water is not just about water. It’s about food – specifically, growing food. Even with “multiple Sydney Harbours” stored in old mine pits, broadscale irrigation of grass is not going to be a thing. Food needs rain falling on soil, and soil replete with carbon to hold that rain. This means trees, which means, in turn, abandoning industrial farming and recalibrating our minds from agribusiness to agro-ecology. According to Landline, some 30 per cent of Australian farming is in foreign ownership, and according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 95 per cent of this is in just 45 holdings, all above 100,000 hectares. That’s huge. It means the number of farms is decreasing and corporate ownership – especially by vast pension funds – is growing.

Loading We should be moving the other way. A 2011 UN report found that small farms and agro-ecological methods “outperform the use of chemical fertilisers in boosting food production” and that to feed 9 billion people in 2050 we urgently need to adopt these most efficient methods – which also, as it happens, maximise rainfall and minimise carbon. And of course there’s this. Rain running into old mine pits is rain not going to the river. City run-off might head to sea, but country rain hydrates soil and feeds rivers. What we need is more rain, period. So yes, plant the lakes, beautify them. But don’t think these flooded pits give coal some kind of retrospective redemption. Better than planting anew is not clear-felling in in the first place. And better than filling holes with water is not mining coal, henceforth. At all.