Does Global Warming Justify Breaking The Law?
Just before dawn on Nov. 21 last year, 37-year-old Greg Rolles ascended a tall tripod set up over a railway line.
After descending to the ground he was arrested and charged with three offences: trespassing on a railway, interfering with a railway, and failing to follow police orders. “It says that a person’s not criminally liable if they’re acting in response to a sudden emergency,” Rolles told BuzzFeed News. “My argument was that global warming presents an emergency.”Rolles fought the charges in Bowen Magistrates Court, obtaining expert evidence from Griffith University professor Brendan Mackey that global warming could indeed be considered an extraordinary emergency.
“This is an unprecedented, exceptional and urgent matter requiring immediate action on the part of governments, business and civil society,” he wrote. "I would have to be satisfied that the defendant had no other reasonable and practical alternatives available to him to avoid the effects of climate change except to break the law and suspend himself in a tripod over an active rail line,” Muirhead said.Muirhead offered two alternatives: engage in a lawful protest, or contact his local MP. To Rolles, these are laughably inadequate.
After a spate of similar protests, Aurizon released a statement warning that near-misses on the track can cause long-lasting trauma to drivers.
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