PROTESTERS have today urged an Australian material management and plant hire company to learn from the country’s devastating fire season last summer, and reconsider their decision to help Adani build a “climate-wrecking coal mine”.
A group of Adani protesters chanted outside Lantrak’s Maroochydore office this morning in a bid to stop the business’s plan to transport vital ballast, engineered to support railway sleepers underneath rail lines, to Adani’s controversial thermal coal railway in the Galilee Basin.
Spokesman for Galilee Blockade Greg Neave said COVID-19 had given proof that only good things came to those who listened to science and took action.
“The long-term issue is the fact that burning fossil fuels and coal, being the worst of those producing carbon dioxide, is the major driving force of the bushfires we saw all up and down the east coast recently; there’s coral bleaching of the Barrier Reef, rising temps, melting ice caps,” Mr Neave said.
“The science around this now is irrefutable and people who can’t see that obviously don’t listen to the science.
“As we’ve seen from the COVID-19 experience, if you listen to the science and act on that science, you make progress.
“The progress is clearly documented that the countries who have acted on their scientists and health professionals’ advice have had the best results of fighting the effects of the COVID-19 – this is the same.”
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Protester Rob Taylor said the short-term monetary gain from the coal mine did not compare with the consequences of global warming.
“I’m hoping it brings some sense to Lantrak, they have to realise that short-term profit is not the game, what we are on about is long-term sustainability for the earth,” Mr Taylor said.
“If we continue down this path we are going to see more disasters like we saw earlier on in the year with the Australian bushfires.
“We are not a small amount of people talking about a minority issue, this is something that is going to affect everybody in Australia and around the world because the more coal mining that happens the worse global warming will be.
“No new coal, that’s what we need.”
Even though the Lantrak office was closed, protesters weren’t deterred, instead choosing to be hopeful their message would still be heard.
“It’s one of many protests just to try and stop Adani, we are trying every angle we can and putting pressure on wherever we can,” Adani protester Frances Harper said.
“It’s for the future of our children, for the future of our planet, for the future of all flora and fauna.”
The main protest banner, painted by local artist Katharine Nix, stated “Lantrak don’t build Adani’s climate-wrecking coal mine” against a background of bushfire devastation, while another banner featured the critically endangered black-throated finch impacted by the mine.
Lantrak has been contacted for a response.
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