09/12/2019

Three people have stopped work at Adani’s proposed Carmichael rail corridor in central Queensland this morning by immobilising machinery and blocking a gate.

Tom Cotter and Simon Ennew locked themselves to heavy machinery, while Minna Featherstone blocked access to the worksite by locking herself to the gate. A group of 25 supporters gathered nearby, saying the already-evident effects of climate crisis demand the Carmichael mine must not go ahead.

Brisbane-based senior ecologist Tom Cotter says “I’ve gone to these lengths to disrupt the mine’s development because climate change is an extraordinary emergency, and the burning of coal and other fossil fuels is its most significant driver. Huge areas of the country are burning. The bushfires have been described by the Queensland rural fire service as unprecedented. We are in an extinction crisis with one million species globally threatened. This is what scientists have been predicting would happen and will continue to worsen with ongoing industrial burning of coal, oil and gas. The planet is overheating, and the evidence is clear that the only way to stop it is to leave coal reserves like the Galilee Basin in the ground.”

“With the effects of climate crisis obvious all around us, and continued government inaction, ordinary people who are concerned about our future are forced to take actions like this. This year hundreds of Australians have been arrested taking direct action to stop the fossil fuel industry, but this is a necessary and reasonable response to a recklessness that is threatening life on this planet.”