Re-Posted from The OverThinker

If you were to ask me how I feel right now, the answer would be: hungry.

And I expect that to last a while.

I am now a little over twelve hours and six cups of tea into a hunger strike for the cause of averting climate catastrophe. I am looking forward to a good night’s sleep, but am not sure how restful it will be, being that I’m in a shop-front in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley – an area of the city famed for its nightlife – and it is Friday night.

Today’s events included a media stunt outside Aurizon HQ in Brisbane’s CBD under the watchful eye of clearly uneasy and over-staffed security, with activists “stealing” a carbon bomb from the company that is set to bail out plans to mine the Galilee Basin and double Australia’s CO2 emissions. Plenty of media interest was piqued by the message that we will allow the ignition of this “carbon bomb” only over our dead bodies. The Guardian, The Brisbane Times, Central Queensland News, and New Matilda, among others, all ran positive stories on the campaign.

carbon-bomb

A trip to the footy capped off the day nicely with two scheduled banner drops resulting in activists being kicked out of the grounds for having “unauthorised banners” (not sure the process required in getting one’s banner “authorised”…). The terrorist squad were deployed in order to quiz activists as to their intentions in attending the game between Brisbane’s Broncos, and Newcastle’s Knights, who just happen to be sponsored by Aurizon, the target of the protests.

The heavy-handed response raises questions as to how environmentalists are going to be dealt with in future. Bringing out the terrorist squad is an escalation of police tactics in dealing with peaceful protesters, and signals a warning of things to come. I fear we are going to see a more extensive application of the term “terrorism” to environmental activism in general, and not just the extreme actions of a small minority who arguably go too far (at least as far as public opinion is concerned). This demonization of environmentalists is likely to go further than many expect, with a level of persecution that will scare most people away from any related activism, thus ensuring the continuation of the status quo. One way of avoiding this might be to get a good view of the whole chessboard, and plan a few steps further in advance, as the opposition is clearly doing. This will mean, of course, that a substantial PR campaign is needed in order to retain neutrality in public perception.

Perhaps that will be something to ponder through my pangs tomorrow, as I anticipate some less-than satisfactory tea-drinking and looming food-obsession…

For a clearer run-down on why I’m hunger striking check out this article.

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