Former Australian senator Andrew Bartlett joins 6 other hunger strikers against Aurizon. Source: Generation Alpha on Facebook, 2013 Aurizon coal is moving forward on plans to begin coal mining in the Galilee Basin of Australia, but activists are sending a clear message to the fossil fuel giant: Over our dead bodies. On Friday August 30th, seven brave activists started a public hunger strike in Brisbane against Aurizon. At the time of publication, they have been on strike for 16 hours. Friday morning, the activists and their supporters from Generation Alpha staged the delivery of a ‘ carbon bomb ‘ to the Aurizon headquarters in Brisbane. These activists are putting their bodies on the line as an act of resistance, showing the critical need to stop Aurizon from devastating Queensland , the Great Barrier Reef , and the global climate. They need support from people around the world to spread word of their strike and participate with them in creative acts of non-violent direct action. Support the hunger strike now! The following statement is from Kari McGregor , former university teacher and current manager of Sustainability Showcase, written in the hours before the strike began. She says, “I?m fasting for nothing less than our future.” I am 16 hours away from beginning a hunger strike with former Senator Andrew Bartlett, Generation Alpha founder Ben Pennings, and a small group of committed climate activists . The strike will be public, taking place in a Fortitude Valley shopfront in Brisbane. The strike officially starts on the morning of Friday 30th August, and will include creative actions and events. The strike is protesting the imminent development of the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland for coal mining, and calling for sensible negotiation. This is desperately important because: - Burning the coal mined will emit 705 million tonnes of extra carbon pollution a year. That?s bigger than the entire fossil fuel emissions of Australia, the UK or Canada. - It is the largest coal complex in the world, one of the few projects we have to stop to avoid runaway climate change. - The projects involve dredging the Great Barrier Reef for a coal shipping lane. Yes that’s right, dredging the reef. The company we’re strategically targeting, Aurizon, has been ignoring the pleas and representations of groups like Greenpeace, Get Up, Avaaz, Friends of The Earth and the Australian Conservation Foundation. And they’re about to make the final decision on what is the crucial piece of the development and financial puzzle. Politicians of all stripes are letting this happen. And our government has no history of stopping major resource projects, even ones as insane as this. Aurizon used to be called QR National and are still partly owned by the Queensland government. Their CEO earned 6.11 million dollars last year while sacking 1000 workers. They are about to buy into the project, enabling the debt-ridden Indian company GVK to ‘develop’ the first 3 mines. We plan to stop them by convincing them that enough Australians are willing to cost them time and money through political action. To do what it takes to save the reef, stop the path to climate chaos. I appeal to you to find out more, follow our progress, and perhaps also commit to online or physical action at www.OverOurDeadBodies.net . I will be blogging about our experiences via my website, which you can check out here . Please also check out [the latest] New Matilda – you’ll find an article I’ve written about the strike , its background, and what’s at stake. Please share it widely. Please pass this information onto your networks if you feel it is appropriate. We can succeed where governments have failed.’
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