Coal Court: Did Greenpeace Help Planet By Defacing U.K. Coal Plant?

Does the threat of future harm from climate change offer legal cover to environmental activists to damage property in the here and now?

That’s the can of worms opened up by a British court case involving a half dozen Greenpeace protesters who defaced a coal plant, causing more than $50,000 in damage, but who were acquitted because they said they were acting to prevent even bigger damage from a warming planet. It was the first time climate change was used as a “legitimate defense” in a British court case, the Guardian says.
Greenpeace targeted the Kingsnorth coal-fired power plant because coal plants produce more emissions of greenhouse gases than other kinds of power; Kingsnorth alone produces more emissions than many poor countries, the protesters say. The campaign is part of a wider battle in Britain over the future of coal, as the country’s medium-term needs for electricity collide with environmental concerns like greenhouse-gas emissions.

The court heard testimony from U.S. climate-change scientist James Hansen, an outspoken opponent of traditional coal, who warned that adding more coal-fired plants would just bring the planet closer to catastrophic “tipping points.” He told the court that “Coal, specifically prompt phase-out of coal emissions, is the one critical element in solution of the global warming problem, in preservation of a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed.” He later asked if “the right people are on trial.”

Wall Street Journal