Taking on Adani is not just about climate change. It's taking back power from corporate plutocracy | Sebastian Job

The Adani Group almost seems like a crudely drawn corporate villain. And we should be thankful for the chance to reclaim the fight

• Sebastian Job is honorary associate in the department of anthropology at the University of Sydney

PR problems. That's what Adani's proposed Carmichael coalmine in Queensland's Galilee Basin has been having. Maybe they need a theme song. Here, with a nod to the Man in Black, is a line to get them started: Well we shot a reef in Queensland, just to watch it die.

Those driving the Carmichael mine have had plenty of time to learn the climate change basics. They know coal has the highest carbon dioxide content of all fossil fuels. They know a large majority of climate scientists have identified rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as the major driver of global warming in the modern era. They know that extracting the bulk of existing global fossil fuel reserves is considered, by everyone from doctors to military commanders and the Davos economic elite, to spell calamity for human life on Earth.