SUS TAINABLE ENER G Y
region with toxic chemicals, including uranium, at twenty times the safe limit for drinking water.
EXTRACTION VERSUS HUMANITY Governments in Australia and overseas are often considered to be too closely aligned with fossil fuel interests, in turn leading to several documented cases of murky collusion and outright corruption. Political donations are part of this picture. In developing nations, it is common
for villagers to be forced off their land for energy and extraction projects, with no compensation. When they are angry and courageous enough to protest, fatal shootings have occurred in such countries as Indonesia, China, Peru, and Burma. Sometimes, however, somebody
makes a stand. In the highlands of Peru, Máxima Acuña lives on the site of a fifty per cent US-owned gold and copper mine, and is blocking its development by refusing to move. This stance won her the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize. At one point she had her house demolished, and has experienced a campaign of violence, harassment and intimidation at the hands of corporate security guards working hand-in-hand with the Peruvian police. Very welcome recent news is that the
International Criminal Court is adding a new category of crimes linked to environmental destruction, especially illegal exploitation of natural resources and unlawful dispossession of land.
BLOCKADIA In the extreme energy era, far greater swathes of the planet are now at risk than before, including large tracts of rural Australia. Many bush dwellers have deep-rooted connections with the land, and it takes a lot, namely the prospect of their home territory being trashed, to turn conservative voters into activists. Yet, this process has been underway for a while. Breaking the stereotype of the unemployed protestor, participants in fossil fuel protests are typically local people from all walks of life. American author Naomi Klein’s
groundbreaking book This Changes Everything promotes the challenging
16 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
Environmental harm comes with the territory when developing or running fossil fuel projects.
message that climate change is on a collision course with the economy, and brought the term ‘blockadia’ to a mass audience. Blockadia is defined as a ‘roving transnational conflict zone that is cropping up with increasing frequency and intensity’, with community members on one side and rapacious extractive industries on the other, frequently fossil fuel mining and its associated infrastructure. Blockadia is no linguistic invention
of Klein’s; the term had been coined a year earlier in connection with protests against the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas, necessary for bitumen from the Canadian tar sands to be transported to refineries in the US Gulf Coast area. Against all expectations, President Obama rejected the project in 2015, linking this stance to action on tackling climate change. Fuel from the tar sands has a lifecycle carbon intensity 23 percent higher than from regular crude. Protest action often involves public
meetings, marches, vigils, information sharing, legal challenges, and, if all else fails, non-violent civil disobedience. Protesters put themselves in harm’s way by locking onto equipment as a means of preventing it from being used, making themselves vulnerable to dangerous or aggressive treatment. It requires some courage, especially when suspended off the ground in a tree-sit or tripod. At other times, a row of people block
an entrance by linking clips attached to the wrist underneath metal arm tubes
that can only be dismantled with an angle grinder. The experience of being locked on necessitates spending a lot of time doing nothing, perhaps providing plenty of time to reflect on why such lengths have needed to be taken.
LOCKING ON IN AUSTRALIA AND BEYOND In May 2016, many coordinated direct actions and protests around the issue of climate change were held globally, involving at least 30,000 participants. Newcastle, the world’s largest coal export port, was targeted by about 1,500 activists, who blocked coal movements by sailing kayaks in the harbour and locking onto a bridge. Of these, a total of 66 people were arrested. Close to Lismore, development of the
coal seam gas (CSG) industry by gas driller Metgasco was halted in 2014 at the village of Bentley as a result of the strength of a blockade that ran for three months. Ready to be taken by surprise, community members were permanently locked onto the entrance night and day. Thousands of supporters arrived in the early hours of the morning to boost numbers when a surprise police raid was most likely. A plan to spend millions of dollars on using about 850 police to violently break the blockade turned into a logistical nightmare when local businesses declined to feed and accommodate them, and shortly afterwards gas
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80