On Thursday I faced court with the likelihood of a criminal conviction. It's a daunting prospect. I'm an electrical engineer and executive manager at a multinational energy company, so this is unlikely to be good for my career.
But let me explain why I'm here.
In late November I spent most of a Saturday night dressed in warm layers, bobbing in the breeze in a kayak at the mouth of the Hunter River, outside the Port of Newcastle. We were in shifts of 50 people, staying close to home-made pontoons that were semi-visible through the darkness.
Early in the night we held together and did the quiz from the NY Times. In the early hours of the morning we paddled or sat mostly in silence, contemplating the darkness and awaiting the turning of the sky and the coming of the dawn.
From one of the pontoons someone was offering cups of tea and pikelets cooked on their portable stove. In less than a day, I would be arrested.
I'd travelled from Brisbane to Newcastle to take part in the Rising Tide blockade of Newcastle coal port, along with more than 3000 others. We brought kayaks, surfboards, inflatables, or just ourselves, and together we closed the largest coal port in the world for 32 hours, preventing the shipping of over half a million tonnes of coal.
In the late afternoon on Sunday, 109 of us remained on the water after 4pm - the "approved" protest time - to maintain the blockade of the channel. I was rowing a dinghy with 97-year-old minister Alan Stuart and his son, Chris. Two hours later, as the wind whipped up the swell and made it hard to stay together, we were arrested, hoisted onto police boats and charged with "unreasonable interference" for refusing to leave.
Was our protest unreasonable?
I was taught about the greenhouse effect, global warming and solar power in primary school, and decided at school that I wanted to work in renewables - the only feasible way to remove our reliance on coal and gas.
By the time the Garnaut Review was published in 2008, examining the impact of climate change on Australia's economy, I'd completed engineering and science degrees and had spent the first five years of my career working in the nascent wind industry.
I read that review cover-to-cover and it concluded with a statement from the eminent economist that the failure of our generation to act on climate change would lead to consequences that would haunt humanity until the end of time.
That sentence is seared into my brain. I think of it every January, when it's announced that the previous year was again the hottest year on record. Every year, when data shows that fossil fuel emissions again reached a record high. Ross Garnaut is now 77, and global temperatures for the past six months have already been at or above 1.5 degrees of warming. I think we can conclusively say that his generation has failed to act on climate change.
I've dedicated 20 years - my entire career to date - to shifting our electricity system to renewables, but without more government support this effort seems futile. Renewables investment in Australia has now fallen below one-tenth of the pace required for us to meet our decarbonisation targets.
NSW has approved one single wind farm in the past 2.5 years.
Meanwhile, Australia is the world's third largest fossil fuel exporter and our governments continue to approve new coal and gas projects and provide fossil fuel corporations tens of billions of dollars in subsidies.
As the burning of fossil fuels truly begins to haunt humanity with floods, fires, and ecosystem collapse, the blockade's demands to cancel all new fossil fuel projects and increase fossil fuel export taxes to fund renewable energy projects seem moderate. Fossil fuel corporations must be held responsible for the climate crisis. Urgently.
My father is a retired magistrate and worries that a conviction could ruin my life. But if governments won't act in the public interest then the people need to demand it. Are we criminals for acting on the biggest issue that humanity has ever faced?
I say no.
Joe's Hallenstein's case was dealt with on Thursday. He received a conditional release order without conviction and an 18-month good behaviour bond
