“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.” (Michael McCarthy, Independent (U.K.), Sept. 11).
6 Comments
If it’s that bad, then ban it.
If not, then vigilantism against it is stupid.
The right to trial by jury in criminal cases is one of the greatest advances of human freedom. Freedom is messy sometimes.
Just because it gets adjudicated doesn’t mean it’s correct. But the fact that these lunatics have managed to convince the public that such behavior is tollerable is simply incredulous.
Good luck trying that crap in the U.S.
I bet security would have been able to rough them up if not shoot them for attacking vital infrastructure. I mean they basically are terrorists.
So, you spend a decade (or more) beating your populace over the head with a massive propaganda campaign, and then you are SHOCKED when at least some of them actually believe you.
The energy companies can be shocked – they’re not the ones doing the propagandizing. The ministers? Not so much.
I’d call them idiots, but it’s really an insufficient term. Oh, and the jury on the case are idiots, too.
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 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.
You think? Encouraging environmental fanatics is dangerous. What’s next, dynamiting coal-fired power stations or just trying energy company executives for crimes against humanity? Oh, wait.
James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.
http://tinyurl.com/4juqq3
By the way, it appears that James Hansen has gone up in prestige.
During the eight-day trial, the world’s leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa,
http://tinyurl.com/63ndlv
And all this time I thought it was Al Gore!