The future of Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek mine has become a legal issue. The mine’s approval is being challenged in Federal Court; the company’s representatives say if the approval is overturned, they will ask the new Minister for the Environment to “cure the error … and grant a new approval”.

And next Tuesday the “Whitehaven hoaxer”, Jonathan Moylan, will appear before Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court to hear whether his actions to draw attention to the mine were unlawful.

Of late, there has been a series of battles over climate change, culture-jamming and civil disobedience. The Fossil Fuel Resistance has increasingly used tactics and strategies such as hoaxes, impersonation, and identity correction. The courts have been forced to tackle complex legal questions involving civil disobedience and its place in the politics of climate change.