Sixteen years ago, on this day, September 26th, 2010,
Climate change activists in Australia associated with Rising Tide attached themselves to equipment inside the world’s largest coal port, in Newcastle, Australia, shutting down its operations, the terminal operator and protesters stated. The protestors stopped operations at all three terminals operated by Port Waratah Coal Services, which typically runs a continuous operation, a company spokesman told the Reuters news agency. “All operations have temporarily stopped,” the spokesman said, after about 50 protesters took action at dawn on Sunday morning. Some attached themselves to loaders and machinery inside the facility, while others demonstrated with banners.[59] News reports stated that two were arrested during the protests.[60]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 390ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was there had been efforts to shut down power stations and coal export ports before (and have been since).
The specific context was this coming just as the Gillard government was taking power, not that that was a factor for the protesters.
What I think we can learn from this is that, as per Mario Savio, people do try to throw their bodies on the gears of the machine, but the machine has sharp teeth and it chews them up and spits them out,
What happened next more valiant protests – and the exports climb, the emissions climb and the concentrations climb.
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On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
September 26, 1950 – Operation Sea-Spray
September 26, 1969 – Death on All Fronts, says Allen Ginsberg
September 26, 1970 – Medical Journal of Australia
September 26, 1989 – Australian Union body tries to add green to red…
September 26, 1998 – Howard decision only to ratify Kyoto if US does leaks.