Tag: Just Stop OIL

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Posted on by urbanramblings19687496

In Colin Welland’s 1989 adapatation of Andre Brink’s novel A Dry White Season, the barrister played by Marlon Brando comments “Justice and law, Mr. Du Toit, are often just… well they’re, I suppose they can be described as distant cousins. And here in South Africa, well, they’re simply not on speaking terms at all.”

Judge Christopher Hehir, in his conduct of the case against the Just Stop Oil defendants, Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, and Cressida Gethin, who he has just sent down for 4 to 5 years in prison for “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance”, has done his best to make people realise just how true that is of the UK too.

His summing up is almost beyond satire in its sophisticated mulishness. Talking of the breakdown of the climactic conditions needed for human civilisation to survive, this bewigged buffoon said, “I acknowledge that at least some of the concerns are shared by many, but the plain fact is that each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic”.

Lets break that down. “some of the concerns are shared by many”. The issue is not “concern” at climate breakdown it is the FACT of climate breakdown. This is not in serious dispute. Even the outgoing government’s “Impartiality guidance” for teachers noted that climate denial is not serious science and should not be taught.

Parliament has voted that we are in a “climate emergency”. This does not seem to have got through to Mr Justice Hehir.

So, this is not about opinions. Nor is it about how “many” people share them. It is a matter of UK law that the government has to decarbonise society by 2050. The last government’s plans to meet this target have been ruled inadequate by the UK High Court TWICE in the last two years. The consequences of a failure to meet this target will be considerably more severe than the £750,000 worth of disruption that the M25 protest is estimated to have caused. Would the Judge think it reasonably therefore to bang up Rishi Sunak, Claire Countinho, and the “Net Zero Scrutiny Group” (now happily depleted by the democratic process) for “conspiring” to put the UK well off course for reaching them, as they did in the more salubrious surroundings of the Cabinet Office, and probably on a few zoom calls as well?

It is also a matter of International legal obligation under the Paris Agreement that countries are working together to make this work. Except that the course taken by the last government clearly, in the judgement of the Climate Change Committee – the cross Party body set up to hold government to account for its actions, “signalled a slowing of pace and reversed or delayed key policies” which put the UKs progress below the curve.

In the context of an emergency that has not not been treated as an emergency, in which a lackadaisaical business as usual laziness was passed off as “pragmatism”, any “concerned campaigner” might reasonably conclude that more serious action was needed to make it plain that this is not OK, that the majority opinion, that wants more action on climate not less, should be heard. A “fanatic”, on the other hand, is someone who holds a view unreasonably and in the face of evidence to the contrary. The “plain fact” is that there is no evidence to the contrary in the case of climate breakdown. We can feel and see it happening around us. The consequences of failing to act to limit the damage will be catastrophic. Providing the protection of the law to, for example, banks that finance climate wrecking fossil fuel investments and making an example of people who, for example, take a demonstrative hammer to one of their windows, with punitive multi year sentences for a bit of cracked plate glass shows the same sense of proportion that, 220 years back, hanged Luddites for smashing stocking frames.

A keen advocate of crushing dissent on climate or Palestine by criminalising it has been the last government’s “Security Adviser”, Lord Walney, or plain old John Woodcock MP as he used to be. An acid test for whether the new government will continue down this path will be whether Walney retains his role and continues to be given credence. He should be sacked.

A basic principle of common law is that, for it to retain consent, it has to be seen to be “reasonable” to “the average man (or woman) on the Clapham onmibus”. The lengths to which the judge in this case went to silence the defendents in court, ruling that defendents were not allowed to speak to the jury about why they had done what they did, underlines his fear that the judgement of their 12 peers would be that this was a reasonable and proportionate response to the scale of the crisis and the paucity of action taken to address it. Defendents allowed to put this kind of public interest defence, however unpopular many of the JSO actions have been, have tended to be aquitted by Juries in the last few years. Can’t have that. Where will it all end?

When a judge orders the arrest of people standing outside the court holding placards affirming the rights of juries to hear the whole truth, for contempt of court, it is clear that the legal process as an arbiter of justice is being held in contempt by such a judge; which invites popular scorn for “the rule of law”, “Fundamental British Value” or not.

Mae West put it rather well in 1927.

Judge: “Miss West, are you trying to show contempt for this court?”

Mae West: “On the contrary, your Honor, I was doin’ my best to conceal it.”

Majority say Government not doing enough to tackle climate change

Posted on by urbanramblings19687496

Just as Nigel Farage tries to diss Just Stop Oil demonstrators as out of touch and cossetted upper class “brats” with names like Indigo and Jocasta – this from a man called Nigel – a survey from Savanta Comres shows majority support for faster, deeper action to head off the climate emergency.

Overall, only one in four voters think the government is doing enough. Three in five say that it is not doing enough.

Majorities of all age groups think not enough is being done. The younger the age group, the more strongly this is felt. Just over half of over 65s rising to over 7 out of ten of 18-24 year olds.

Even among Conservative supporters, nearly half want more action and this becomes overwhelming among supporters of other Parties. Farage and his denialist head bangers are the unrepresentative minority.

As there are such strong majorities, and some of the actions needed, like stopping new oil and gas exploration, unblocking Onshore Wind farms and launching an immediate insulation programme are so easy and obvious, the question that has to be posed is; why isn’t this happening? Who is the government representing if it isn’t the majority? And, given that their failure to act on the scale and at the speed needed is causing widespread anxiety and fear, especially among young people who see the future approaching with a sense of menace and trepidation, doesn’t the term “eco-terrorist” apply more to them than to young people trying to jolt them out of their complacency?

At the sign of the suicidal ostrich.

Posted on by urbanramblings19687496
“Misery to motorists” (and others) last summer, caused by unmitigated climate breakdown, partly caused by motorists.

Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed’s call for injunctions against Just Stop Oil protestors, “Motorists were already being hammered by prices at the pump, and now millions can’t even access fuel. The Conservatives need to stop standing idly by and put an end to this disruption that is causing misery for motorists” is posed by the Party leadership as “where the voters are” and “a commonsense position. Our position on climate change is strong and this doesn’t change the fact we think it’s the most pressing issue facing the planet, but we’re recognising you don’t solve it by annoying workers.”

If climate change “is the most pressing issue facing the planet”, that should have been flagged up as “the most pressing issue” in Reed’s comments; along with recognition that what Just Stop Oil is doing is a desperate response to an emergency that the government is not addressing. Especially in the week following the IPCC report described as “frankly terrifying” by former UN climate secretary Christiana Figueres. As one expert put it “It’s not about taking our foot off the accelerator anymore—it’s about slamming on the brakes”. Motorists take note. Jamie Reed take note. As Tyneside Mayor Jamie Driscoll noted, “these protests should not be necessary”. The government should not even be fantasising about opening new oil and gas fields, as doing so puts us in even greater danger, but they are actually going ahead and doing it.

Instead of condemning them for that, and talking up Labour’s alternative, Reed lets them off the hook, turns all his fire on the protestors, outflanking the government in authoritarianism; and thereby reinforcing Priti Patel’s narrative that the argument about climate is between the mass of people on the one side – who just want to get on with their lives – and a “criminal”, “woke minority” on the other; who are self indulgently warning that if we carry on with our lives in the way we currently are, there will be no livable planet sooner than we think.

This is taken further in “light news” programmes like Good Morning Britain, where campaigners are routinely ganged up on by the two presenters – who say things like “we don’t want to keep talking about the facts” and “this is a complicated issue. Just Stop Oil is a simplistic slogan, a bit Vicky Pollard” – reinforced by right wing headbangers who call them “fascists” and “terrorists”.

This is a bit beyond the parallel that a lot of commentators have drawn with Don’t Look Up. The presenters in the film are trivial minded and ignorant, incapable of taking on board the scale of the disaster that’s coming. On GMB, they claim to be aware and worried, but not enough to take any action themselves – perhaps by devoting sections of their programme to exploring this “complicated” issue in a way that mobilises people to act on it and requires political leaders to set up systems to enable that. Instead they are actively and cynically trying to undermine the need for rapid changes; and replace discussion on how to do it with belittling ad hominin attacks designed to make the most active and concerned people look mad. And, seriously…Vicky Pollard? If anyone is saying “Yeah, but No, but Yeah, but No” its a government that is expanding offshore wind while going for new oil and gas at the same time.

The logo for programmes like this should be a suicidal ostrich.

Reed and the Party leadership might think this good electoral politics, but the dynamic of comments like that is to take us away from dealing with climate change, towards just locking up and shutting up the people who are most motivated and concerned about saving all our futures. A disagreement on tactics with Just Stop Oil, that the targets for their actions should be those most responsible for causing the crisis, is a second order disagreement. “Workers” should not only not be being “annoyed”, but its the job of everyone who takes climate breakdown seriously – whether that’s JSO or the Labour Party – to mobilise them as active participants and leaders in the transition to a green society.