History unfolding when crime became OK for scientists and mainstream politicians: Time to get tough with coal
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I have hardly seen anything about this is the press even though we might see something that might have a central place when future history books are written. In the shadow of the financial crisis (but in a way related to what can also can be seen as criminal on a scale that is hard to understand) we saw a jury in UK, supported by scientists and politicians, clear Greenpeace activists and send the signal to the world that it is criminal to build coal power plants in rich countries.
From the Independent:
“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.”
And the article continue:
“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.”
Will this be an historic event where we saw the tide turning and the understanding of how urgent the climate crisis reached the legal system? Mayve, at least some visionary politicians are moving into the area as well. See what Al Gore said in this CNN article.
PS the picture is from Greenpeace at a demonstration outside Vattenfall in Germany, a state owned company (Swedish) that is world leading in lobbying and PR trying to portray coal as clean and have obstructed sustainable energy development in Sweden and other countries since the 80's. They have a huge PR budget and will hopefully be a main target as the agreement that we need to act now and not hide behind technologies that might never work.
