An Australian woman who blocked a central Sydney route to protest against climate change had all charges dismissed after the court was told about her climate anxiety.
Mali Cooper, 22, was charged with disrupting traffic and obstructing drivers or pedestrians for locking her neck to her car on the Sydney Harbour Tunnel during peak hour traffic in June.
She faced up to two years in prison and $22,000 in fines under the New South Wales’ new laws designed in to punish protesters who disrupt roads, public transport and infrastructure facilities.
But Magistrate Jeff Linden in Lismore Local Court on Tuesday dropped all the charges against Cooper under the Mental Health Act, section 14. The law allows a defendant with mental health or cognitive impairment to avoid a criminal record. Climate Change-Induced Mental Health Problem
The climate activist’s lawyer, Mark Davis, told The Daily Telegraph that he had provided medical evidence to the court to prove that Cooper suffered from the psychological impact of predictions about climate change. The concerns developed into PTSD after Cooper’s hometown Lismore was ravaged by flooding earlier this year.
The 22-year-old, who won the title of Young Environmentalist of the Year by the Bob Brown Foundation in September, will receive mental health treatment from a psychologist for six months.
“We are very relieved that the court calmly considered all of the facts in this case, including the psychological impact of climate change upon young people like Mali,” Davis said in a statement.
“Seeing [Cooper’s] hometown of Lismore destroyed twice in the months preceding [Cooper’s] action induced a trauma in [her] that was a decisive factor in today’s decision.”
Radical climate activist group Blockade Australia, the group behind the 22-year-old, shared Cooper’s statement on Twitter on Tuesday. “I have watched the town I love be decimated by a climate disaster. I have witnessed community step up and take care of each other in place of our Gov,” the statement read.
“If we stand together and resist through direct action, we have the best chance of turning this destruction around.”
While some scientists and voices in the media have blamed the floods on climate change, the extent to which climate change causes variations in La Niña climate conditions that caused the record flooding is still being observed by researchers.
According to NOAA, “scientists currently have low confidence in their ability to predict exactly how a warmer world affect the ENSO [El Niño Southern Oscillation].” Many do agree with the prediction that, “Global warming is likely to affect the impacts related to El Niño and La Niña, including extreme weather events.”
Marxist Tactics Deployed
Blockade Australia has been under fire for its protesters’ actions, such as putting their own bodies on the line by hanging from cranes in front of freight trains.
Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the group demanded to change the name of Australia, saying Australia represents a “colonial and extractive” system designed to “oppress and exploit.” On its
website, Blockade Australia also called for “centralised, sustained and disruptive action to force the urgent broad-scale change necessary for survival.”
Eric Louw, a former professor in political communication, said the group deployed a combination of “terrorist strategies,” “classic Marxist speak,” “Green eco-warrior activism” and political messaging of Indigenous anti-colonial struggle.
“All Blockade Australia communications makes it clear that they are aligned to an Aboriginal struggle against ’settler Australia,'” he argued
on an op-ed on The Epoch Times on March. 29.
“The newly added bits of Woke narrative say that having stolen the land, the villainous Aussie colonials built an exploitative capitalist state, carried out ecological vandalism, and so created climate change. In this regard, the group repeats the usual noble savage mythology about Aboriginals looking after the land, while Aussie settlers apparently ruined everything.”
AAP contributed to this article
