It is, of course, a brave and important thing to do. As I have written here before, the act of removing fossil fuels from the ground is a key step in the process that leads to them being burned, and greenhouse gas emissions being released. It is, broadly in Australian culture, politics and media, treated as if it a wholly neutral act – a passive facilitation between supply and demand. “They’d simply get their coal elsewhere if we didn’t do it”, is the primary catch-cry.
The ‘drug dealer’s defence’ pretends there is only a one-way relationship between supply and demand. But, of course, plentiful supply leads to lower costs, which increases consumption of the product. In this case, coal is the primary driver of the greatest threat ever faced by our species, and a direct threat to the lived experiences of these teenagers.