A group of people from Rising Tide Newcastle went to a large indoor shopping mall armed with a fist full of leaflets, two bags full of coal, and a large colourful banner which asked the question “How does buying stuff fuel climate change?” and directing the reader to a website for the answer. While a few of the people headed up to the roof of the building with the banner, the rest of the group walked towards the K-mart in order to swap their bags of coal for some cheap consumer products (thereby cutting out the middle man).

The small group of pranksters was met by a stiff line of about 20 humourless police officers in crowd control mode, and a similar number of security guards. No, they were informed, they would not be entering K-mart today. The pranksters explained what they were doing, and how rampant consumerism was one of the root causes of climate change, and would it be okay please if we just did our little prank of trying to buy products with coal, and then we could all go home? No, replied the humourless authorities, you may not. Not only that, but trying to buy products with coal was one step away from theft, offered one of the police officers. Continue Reading »

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