UK Courts: Vandalism for Climate Change Awareness
UK Courts have set a bizarre precedent: It is okay to break the law to prevent climate change.
On September 10, the Maidstone Crown Court found six Greenpeace activists charged with £35,000 worth of criminal damage by vandalizing property at the Kingsnorth coal-fired power plant not guilty under the “lawful excuse” defense. As explained in The Independent’s article on the trial, “lawful excuse” under the Criminal Damage Act of 1971 allows “damage to be caused to to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire.”
Lawful excuse makes sense in situations of indisputable, immediate danger. If a house is burning or a car is on fire or the driver is unconscious, and one has no other option but to damage the property in order to save the owners or stop the fire.
But can anyone seriously believe the threat of global warming is so indisputable, and more importantly, so immediate that these Greenpeace activists had no other option but to paint the smokestacks of the power plant? I can’t even read the first sentence of the The Independent article with a straight face:
“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.”
Even more insulting, NASA scientist Professor James Henson, also the leading scientist on climate change, testified as an expert witness in this trial. Setting aside for now the ethical questions of what a US taxpayer-funded government scientist is doing promoting these absurd verdicts in the UK, I’m happy to know that the threat of global warming is so great that it justifies burning all the jet fuel to fly a US scientist across the Atlantic and back for this trial. I hope the six Greenpeace vandals used low VOC paint for their “work”.
The precedent that’s been set by this verdict is absolutely ridiculous. If the threat of global warming is so great as to supercede the laws of property, anyone can go spray paint his neighbor’s SUV if he deems it too gas-guzzling. Heck, maybe he should just kill his neighbor to prevent him from ever enlarging his carbon footprint with that SUV. At this rate, the court might even find it a public service.
Greenpeace is celebrating with glee over this verdict:
I wonder when someone will vandalize the Greenpeace ship…
Hat tip: Watts Up With That?
Tags: Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, Green, Law, United Kingdom
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