Essay by Eric Worrall
An extinction Rebellion road block on a major Melbourne access road forced commuters to wait in a queue, or use roads with lots of start / stop traffic lights.
Extinction Rebellion protesters cause traffic chaos as they block Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge at peak-hour
Climate change activists have deployed a large truck to block three lanes of the West Gate Bridge during peak-hour traffic on Tuesday morning.
Amy Roulston Digital Reporter
March 5, 2024 – 8:30AMClimate activists have sparked traffic chaos in Melbourne on Tuesday morning by positioning a large truck on West Gate Bridge during peak-hour.
Three protesters from Extinction Rebellion Victoria stood on top of the truck that was parked perpendicular across three West Gate Bridge lanes, with a large banner draped over the side reading “declare a climate emergency”.
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Three of the five lanes on the bridge were initially closed, before another was forced to shut an hour later, forcing angry commuters to merge into one remaining lane.
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The protestors were later arrested. At least one of the protestors, Deanna Coco, was previously arrested for creating an illegal road block on a major Sydney access road. She was released a year ago after a judge quashed a 15 month jail sentence on the grounds that police falsely claimed Deanna’s protest had blocked an ambulance with its lights flashing.
This time Deanna received a much lighter sentence than the 15 months she successfully appealed in New South Wales, the Victorian magistrate only sentenced her to 21 days for disrupting traffic. Deanna thinks she’s a climate suffragette, she has said so on several occasions. I’m sure the Melbourne magistrate followed the letter of the law, but I suspect Deanna staged the protest in Victoria, because weak anti-road disruption laws in Victoria mean Victoria is a soft target compared to New South Wales, which hardened its road disruption laws in 2022. I suspect Deanna and her friends will be back, targeting Melbourne commuters again, or commuters in another soft target state, either later this year or next year.
It is difficult to estimate how much additional CO2 this protest released, a lot of people probably gave up on the traffic and worked from home that day. But when you take into account all those internal combustion engines idling, 20 miles of start stop traffic either on the alternative routes or squeezing through the bottleneck on the main access road which the XR protest created, I wouldn’t be surprised if the XR protest increased Melbourne commuter CO2 emissions several times over normal levels. Of course, climate protestors triggering the release of lots of additional CO2 is nothing new.
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