Cleared: Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law

[Desertdog]

We better elect people, especially judges in areas where they are elected, that have more common sense, then they may select prosecuters with common sense.

Cleared: Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

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.

Continued at;
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/cleared-jury-decides-that-threat-of-global-warming-justifies-breaking-the-law-925561.html

[Manedwolf]

So what if a gang of green insane sorts attack and destroy your lawnmower, tractor, or car because it's polluting?

How about your outside woodburning boiler?

A nuclear plant?

What the HELL?

[Gewehr98]

To interrupt this screed...

1.  It's the UK, for Chrissakes.

2.  The majority of us "green" types here in the Colonies don't resort to violence to get their ideas across.

I now return you to your regular OMGWTF thread. 

I just hopped in between sorting out my recycling streams for pickup later this week, then I'm off to fill up my truck with biofuel.

I'm helping my dad put new brushes in his wind-driven generator tomorrow.  That's good, because with the heavy overcast and storms this weekend, both his and my solar electrical systems aren't generating many kilowatts.

(Remember your APS audience, IOW) 

[Sergeant Bob]

I guess it would be alright to go up to a smoker and smack them then?

[Manedwolf]

2.  The majority of us "green" types here in the Colonies don't resort to violence to get their ideas across.

This is true.

Some of them just keep filing lawsuits until new energy projects can no longer stand and have to fold.

Like the Clamshell people did, bankrupting PSNH with lawsuits so badly that they could no longer afford to finish Seabrook Nuclear's second reactor beyond its shell. The single reactor went online years after it was supposed to because of the constant lawsuits.

I have no problem with people wanting to do their own thing to be "green", whatever that means now. They can knock themselves out. Can sit around in a cruelty-free recycled parka all winter instead of using the heat if it makes them happy.

But when they try to tell ME to make those same choices through force or lawsuit, or outright destroy property, they can go to the special hell. Especially the anti-human crowd.

Little recycling is fine. Doesn't hurt anyone, makes the US more materials independent. But green cult is frightening.

[wmenorr67]

2.  The majority of us "green" types here in the Colonies don't resort to violence to get their ideas across.

Guess you have never heard of Greenpeace, ELF or ALF.

[MicroBalrog]

2.  The majority of us "green" types here in the Colonies don't resort to violence to get their ideas across.

Guess you have never heard of Greenpeace, ELF or ALF.

These are not in the majority.

[Ben]

These are not in the majority.

No, but they're the dumbasses that damaged the power plant, among other property damage they do worldwide. Not to mention the stunts they pull that put lives at risk (unfortunately never their own).

[Gewehr98]

Ok, folks, let's repeat this for the sake of clarification, shall we?

There's "green", and then there's "Green".

I'm very much "green", and have been since the early 1970s, when the Arab Oil Embargo showed us how vulnerable we Americans were to reductions in the imported petroleum supply. 

Suffice it to say, I have solar energy powering part of my home, I drive a biofuel truck, I compost my table scraps for my vegetable garden, we separate all our recyclables for curbside pickup, and I'm looking at supplementing the photovoltaic power with a small wind turbine.  I'm not big on the whole "Carbon Footprint" charade, but I do indeed try to minimize my impact on my environment.  I own several acres of standing oak forest, and for the fireplace in the den, I usually take only the standing dead trees or the fallen ones.  Come deer hunting time, I also minimize my damage to the little ecosystem that provides me with venison.  That doesn't mean I'm out there burning down Hummer dealerships, or racing rubber Zodiacs in front of whaling ship harpoon guns, or splashing women wearing fur coats with blood. 

I grew up in Aldo Leopold's stomping grounds, and my parents instilled a strong sense of conservationism in myself and my sister.  We are probably more self-sufficient than others of our generation, but it doesn't mean we're eco-terrorists because of that, and I strongly resent the implication that to be "green" you have to be out there on the fringe.  That just stinks on ice. 

[K Frame]

"These are not in the majority."

The Nazis were never the majority party in Germany, either, and yet they managed to do a tremendous amount of damage.

[Gewehr98]

And it's Irwin for the Godwin trophy!   

[MicroBalrog]

There was a time when environmentalism meant concern for preserving the natural resources of this Earth, so that we humans get to enjoy them in the future - don't pollute the air your children will breathe, don't kill all the deer or your children won't be able to hunt, and so forth.

But today there appears to be a wacky group of people that has taken concern for nature and made it into a value in and of itself - so they, for example, want to revert parts of the world that have been green for centuries into desert because 'that's their natural state'.

I have all the respect in the world for the first group of people, and none at all for the second.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Gewehr, I gotta tell you, I agree 100% with you.  Unfortunately, the problem is that while the type of "green" you identify with is admirable, and even worth duplicating, the screaming nutjob "Greens" out there are the ones causing problems.  I am all for conservation.  It's a great ideal, and my wife and I are doing what little we can (living in an apartment kinda precludes us from installing solar panels or wind turbines) to reduce our energy usage and waste.

The problem is people like those in the story, or the eco-terrorists here in the Pacific NW (Tre Arrow, aka Michael Scarpetti, who set fire to several dozen logging trucks is the first to come to mind) that make the whole "green" ideal seem a little less, well, ideal.

[The Annoyed Man]

As a little (g) green individual. I applaud Gw98's approach to environmental conservation. But as has been said it is the big (G) enviroterrorists that have peed in the punch bowl. For a pretty good read on just how this could end up try "Fallen Angels" available as a free E download at Baen books.

http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm

Jim

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

How does burning down a power plant lessen the environmental impact?  By any reasonable assessment, it would make global warming worse, not better!

Other plants will now have to increase their electrical generation to pick up the slack.  Those other plants will run above their normal capacity, which probably makes them less efficient and more polluting than they would be otherwise.

The burnt, damaged materials will be carted off and dumped in a landfill. 

New building materials have to be produced, diminishing the supply of resources such as steel, copper, wood, plastics, etc.

New generating equipment will have to be manufactured.  That requires still more resources.  And the manufacturing process consumes energy and produces still more pollution.

Gaia would be much happier if the the eco-whackos had simply conserved the existing power plant.

[K Frame]

I was refering to Ben's comment, Gew.

The statement is true.

The Nazis never held a majority of the seats in the Reichstag. That didn't stop them from seizing power and... well, you know the rest.

It's a salient point. You don't have to be the majority, in fact you can be a very small minority, and still do tremendous damage, or good, depending on your point of view.

Just as, American separatists were never the majority in the Colonies during the Revolution, and yet they managed to turn the British Empire upside down.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Mike makes a good point.  A determined and motivated minority often matters much more than an apathetic majority.

This burned-down power plant is a prime example.  Most greenies don't commit arson.  But a minority of them do, and when this minority acts there are very significant consequences.  The practical result is that the violent minority matters more than the peaceable majority.

[The Annoyed Man]

Meh. It will all work out when the Umma takes control of the British parliament. When the jihadis are in power they won't be so tolerant of such behavior.

Jim