Coal Bucket Protest Reaches Day 5

Scoop

4 days ago

Press Release – Climate Liberation Aotearoa
The aerial ropeway, used to transport 1 million tonnes of coal from the mine each year, has been turned off since Monday.
Coal Bucket Protester – 'I want to be able to look my grandkids in the eye and tell them I did everything I could'
Climate Liberation Aotearoa supporters Rach and Tāmati continue their occupation of the Stockton mine coal buckets, disrupting operations at Aotearoa's biggest coal mine for a 5th day straight. The aerial ropeway, used to transport 1 million tonnes of coal from the mine each year, has been turned off since Monday.
'Why am I here? I am a grandmother to four. When they are old enough to understand, and they ask me what I did about climate change – I want to be able to look them in the eye and tell them I did everything I was able to do to stop the climate catastrophe', said Rach.
Yesterday the coal bucket occupants were visited by a helicopter which hovered close for a few minutes before leaving. It is unknown to protesters who commissioned the helicopter and for what purpose.
Meanwhile Bathurst Resources has been trucking coal from the mine to the railyard to keep operations and international coal exports going. While the two protesters suspended in the coal buckets at Stockton mine continued to draw attention to the IEA's calls to end fossil fuel exploration [1] just yesterday the government repealed the Oil and Gas exploration ban that was put in place by the Labour, Greens, NZ First government in 2018. A further notable amendment made to the Crown Minerals Amendment Act is the reduction of existing decommissioning requirements which could result in further taxpayer liabilities for oil spill clean-ups.
'Has everyone forgotten it's a climate emergency?' Asked Climate Liberation Aotearoa spokesperson Rosemary Penwarden.
'Or are we going to let the likes of climate denier Shane Jones dictate our future?'
'This week Turkey experienced 50 degrees Celsius, the hottest temperature ever recorded there.
'We are on a trajectory to reach 4 degrees of global heating above pre-industrial levels in our children's lifetimes. Let me help these words sink in – we are facing human extinction, and this coalition government is bowing down to the coal, oil and gas lobbies to get us there faster.
'It is up to people like Rach and Tāmati, and all of us, to fight for our very survival with every scrap of courage we have. We need to transform the way we manage our politics and economy so that these disastrous projects are stopped right here.
'Our choice is simple – do we want a future for our kids? Or more short term profit for the greedy corporations and their coalition government enablers?'
Today Rach released an opinion piece explaining why she is taking this action, you can access it here: https://climateliberationaotearoa.org/why-im-in-coal-bucket/