Cleared: Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law
Thursday, 11 September 2008
The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage.
Jurors accepted defence arguments that the six had a "lawful excuse" to damage property at Kingsnorth power station in Kent to prevent even greater damage caused by climate change. The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.
The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain's green agenda and could encourage further direct action.
Kingsnorth was the centre for mass protests by climate camp activists last month. Last year, three protesters managed to paint Gordon Brown's name on the plant's chimney. Their handi-work cost £35,000 to remove.
The plan to build a successor to the power station is likely to be the first of a new generation of coal-fired plants. As coal produces more of the carbon emissions causing climate change than any other fuel, campaigners claim that a new station would be a disastrous setback in the battle against global warming, and send out a negative signal to the rest of the world about how serious Britain really is about tackling the climate threat.
But the proposals, from the energy giant E.ON, are firmly backed by the Business Secretary, John Hutton, and the Energy minister, Malcolm Wicks. Some members of the Cabinet are thought to be unhappy about them, including the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn. Mr Brown is likely to have the final say on the matter later this year.
During the eight-day trial, the world's leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa, who had flown from American to give evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister personally to "take a leadership role" in cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a coal-fired future for Britain. Last December he wrote to Mr Brown with a similar appeal. At the trial, he called for an moratorium on all coal-fired power stations, and his hour-long testimony about the gravity of the climate danger, which painted a bleak picture, was listened to intently by the jury of nine women and three men.
Professor Hansen, who first alerted the world to the global warming threat in June 1988 with testimony to a US senate committee in Washington, and who last year said the earth was in "imminent peril" from the warming atmosphere, asserted that emissions of CO2 from Kings-north would damage property through the effects of the climate change they would help to cause.
He was one of several leading public figures who gave evidence for the defence, including Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Richmond Park and director of the Ecologist magazine, who similarly told the jury that in his opinion, direct action could be justified in the minds of many people if it was intended to prevent larger crimes being committed.
The acquittal was the second time in a decade that the "lawful excuse" defence has been successfully used by Greenpeace activists. In 1999, 28 Greenpeace campaigners led Lord Melchett, who was director at the time, were cleared of criminal damage after trashing an experimental field of GM crops in Norfolk. In each case the damage was not disputed – the point at issue was the motive.
The defendants who scaled the 630ft chimney at Kingsnorth, near Hoo, last year were Huw Williams, 41, from Nottingham; Ben Stewart, 34, from Lyminge, Kent; Kevin Drake, 44, from Westbury, Wiltshire; Will Rose, 29, from London; and Emily Hall, 34, from New Zealand. Tim Hewke, 48, from Ulcombe, Kent, helped organise the protest.
The court heard how, dressed in orange boiler suits and white hard hats bearing the Greenpeace logo, the six-strong group arrived at the site at 6.30am on 8 October. Armed with bags containing abseiling gear, five of them scaled the chimney while Mr Hewke waited below to liaise between the climbers and police.
The climbers had planned to paint "Gordon, bin it" in huge letters on the side of the chimney, but although they succeeded in temporarily shutting the station, they only got as far as painting the word "Gordon" on the chimney before they descended, having been threatened with a High Court injunction. Removing the graffiti cost E.ON £35,000, the court heard.
During the trial the defendants said they had acted lawfully, owing to an honestly held belief that their attempt to stop emissions from Kingsnorth would prevent further damage to properties worldwide caused by global warming. Their aim, they said, was to rein back CO2 emissions and bring urgent pressure to bear on the Government and E.ON to changes policies. They insisted their action had caused the minimum amount of damage necessary to close the plant down and constituted a "proportionate response" to the increasing environmental threat.
Speaking outside court after being cleared yesterday, Mr Stewart said: "This is a huge blow for ministers and their plans for new coal-fired power stations. It wasn't only us in the dock, it was the coal-fired generation as well. After this verdict, the only people left in Britain who think new coal is a good idea are John Hutton and Malcolm Wicks. It's time the Prime Minister stepped in, showed some leadership and embraced the clean energy future for Britain."
He added: "This verdict marks a tipping point for the climate change movement. When a jury of normal people say it is legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then where does that leave Government energy policy? We have the clean technologies at hand to power our economy. It's time we turned to them instead of coal."
Ms Hall said: "The jury heard from the most distinguished climate scientist in the world. How could they ignore his warnings and reject his leading scientific arguments?"
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Comments
1121 Comments
I didn't realise that in order for a physical effect to be acknowledgable, the science behind it had to be both robust and non-junk. So all those who argue like this - why do you all stand firmly on the surface of the planet? Since nobody has the faintest idea what gravity is, it shouldn't exist and you can all float off into space where you belong. Yet it does, and you don't and we suffer as a result.
Posted by Tony Maine | 18.09.08, 00:02 GMT
A few observations about the comments posted by many of the AGW deniers. Firstly, they seem to think that PUTTING EVERYTHING IN UPPERCASE LETTERS WITH LOADS OF EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!!, the net equivalent of shouting, is how to debate a complex issue. It isn't.
And, don't they just love to hurl abuse? The jury are apparently complete idiots, Robert Hansen is a hysteric, a liar, etc, etc, etc, and all environmentalists are people hating pinko-leftie communist loonies etc. This is basically saying "I can't deal with the message so I'll shoot the messenger." How pathetic.
And then there's the old tactic of just coming out with complete lies or gross distortions of the truth; the sunspots "explanation" is a good example of this, trying to claim that global warming is not caused by human activity, but by natural variations in the sun. The fact that the evidence for this is negligible compared to that which shows CO2 causes warming they choose to ignore.
Posted by AJB | 17.09.08, 17:51 GMT
England will be dead as a nation if you continue to let this insane liberalism wash over you. You are not only hamstringing yourselves with by limiting your energy resources; but by giving in, you give power to the radical elements of your society.
Between this problem and your unchecked immigration of radical Muslims, you are facing an existential threat that is so large that you do not even recognize it up close.
England has been a close and dependable ally for my country and I would like to keep it that way, but to continue down this road will not change things for the better.
May God Save the UK,
Forrest Smith
Posted by Forrest | 17.09.08, 15:40 GMT
R James, our plants may love it (which actually isn't true, some will, but all living things need more time to adjust than we're giving them,) but what about all the species that will, and are, dying out because of climate change? Polar bears drowning because of melting ice? Altered weather affecting millions of species' migrations, causing them to die from exhaustion?
There is no denying that it is a natural cyce, however we are speeding it up and and making it far worse than it needs to be.
Direct action is the only way to go. Asking nicely doens't work. Asking nicely doesn't bring our struggle into the general public's eye. Shaming the government and world leaders is the only way to promote change that is so desperately needed.
Posted by Itsourworld | 17.09.08, 12:44 GMT
One more post and then I withdraw for good from this non-debate. For those who didn't know: the multilateral group of expert scientists who make up the IPCC are not in the pay of anyone and offer their services free of charge. It is these people WITHOUT vested interests, largely WITHOUT any financial reward who are over 90% unanimous in stating that AGW IS happening and poses a massive threat to our planet.
Opposed to them is a tiny minority of scientists who dispute AGW or try to play it down. And, guess what? It is THESE scientists who are mostly in the pay of either oil companies or other interest groups to whom AGW is an inconvenient truth.
There is far more dirty money to be made ignoring AGW and letting the energies industry go on calling all the shots than in tackling AGW, which will mean sacrifices for EVERYONE.
Oh and one more thing: I've just read that even Sarah Palin has finally conceded that people are behind GW. So who will those dying sceptics turn to now?
Posted by KS | 17.09.08, 10:23 GMT
These peanuts should be locked up for a number of reasons.
Firstly, they have no right to take the law into their own hands. What next? Can they kill people if they suspect that they are criminals?
Secondly, anthropogenic global warming due to carbon dioxide is an interesting hypothesis, but despite what the media and politicians tell us, that's as far as it goes at this stage. There's no evidence to support the theory, and in fact, as time goes on, it looks less likely to be significant.
Thirdly, a bit more heat or carbon dioxide isn't necessarily bad. It's nothing new - we've had it before and life goes on. In fact plants (our food source) love it.
Some scientists whose research and income depend on it being a reality, will find ways to support the theory. However, more and more scientific experts in meteorology are calling for a more sensible approach to the lack of backup data.
Posted by R James | 17.09.08, 08:48 GMT
I think it's a mistake to always identify churchgoers with AGW deniers. I, for instance, am both a practising Christian and an environmental activist, and there are many people in our church like me. This is the point about religion: it should make demands on you and force you to address issues that matter. Often the American version of Christian religion, however, is based on the Heaven-on-Earth bunkum which says that 'God would never do this to us after all we're God's blessed country.. we killed all them Germans.. we invented freedom and democracy.. we're the good guys etc!' Given the Americans' unparalleled contribution to greenhouse gases, this attitude of theirs is so staggeringly infantile it sometimes defies belief.
The irony is that AGW is so clearly a result of people's greed and contempt for the natural world, you would have thought the biblical message of it would be obvious to anyone.
Posted by KS | 17.09.08, 06:22 GMT
As if "consensus" (by so called scientists and a bunch of leftist politicians) is science . Thousands of real scientists totally disagree with AGW in spite of intimidation and threats by hacks like Hansen and Gore.
Some of the hallmarks of bad science are the unwillingness to debate facts and theories as do AGW hysterics like Hansen who lie about their financial and political goals that neatly dovetail with their junk science.
THE James Hansen who said that lying in science is acceptable to achieve your goals!!!
Posted by RUSH | 17.09.08, 04:46 GMT
Some of these ''arguments' are ridiculous. I mean sharing a scientific discussion with Godsuckers is an oxymoron and they say environmentalists are illogical...Good grief. An invisible man with no evidence of his existence, yet we KNOW temperatures are getting warmer, we're depleting the ozone and replacing it with greenhouse gases...Yeah, science is the one at fault here...
Posted by Chris | 17.09.08, 04:28 GMT
Ric - You can sum up the left by saying that they hate freedom. Freedom for you and me because we might do something that they don't approve of like keeping what we earn or going to church or even thinking for ourselves. Of course freedom for them is another matter. Freedom to impose their will on others and live like kings is essential and must be obtained at all costs.
Just look at Russia with the elites daschas and Kim Jong-mentally-ill and his outrageous life style and his people eating grass to survive.
Posted by bilbo | 17.09.08, 03:54 GMT
1121 Comments