Greenpeace success shows Ofcom’s weakness

I’ve just listened to Ben Stewart from Greenpeace on the Radio 4 Today programme discussing Greenpeace’s successful defence of their actions: climbing up the Kingsnorth Coal Plant tower to paint ‘Gordon Bin it’ down the site.

How Greenpeace got it right
This from the Greenpeace website: “The defence was that they had ‘lawful excuse’ – because they were acting to protect property around the world “in immediate need of protection” from the impacts of climate change, caused in part by burning coal.”

For example, protecting both the lowlying islands of Tuvalu, as well as the Kent coastline. NASA’s James Hansen testified that Kingsnorth could directly result in the extinction of 400 species due to climate change. The jurors were convinced, and acquitted all six campaigners. Some more background and analysis on lawful excuse. The story has been covered across the media, including:

• the Guardian: the chaos of climate change is now a ‘legal defence’
• front page splash on the Independent

Interesting, from a journalistic point of view, these two stories are from John Vidal and Michael McCarthy, the environment writers for these papers, rather than any court/political specialists. As these papers both make clear, these moments in court turn on the fact that moral conscience and scientific fact can combine into a sound-in-law legal defence. One nice thing, I can’t help feeling slightly smug as to just how wrong Brendan O’Neill got it earlier this week.

Nothing as yet from the Telegraph or Times on this story. In fact, Greenpeace made it into the Times this week, but not on Kingsnorth:

Goodbye Greenpeace
The Government should get on with developing nuclear energy
Greenpeace, alongside fellow-travelling objectors to nuclear energy, has withdrawn from the Government’s consultation process before it has even started. This is no tragedy. The activists believe there is no point joining in the talk-athon because the Government has already made up its mind in favour of the nuclear option. But can Greenpeace accuse the Government, or anyone else, seriously of prejudgment when it is clear that its own policy is fuelled by preconception and prejudice?

This imbalance between left and right wing media is of course predictable. However, it’s important to note that some have also criticized Greenpeace’s PR and activism, for example as laid out in Nick Davies’ book Flat Earth News.

The Guardian is running a vote on the decision, and Tony Juniper has weighed in, with the board below his article full of the bitter comments that is become typical of CIF and, in my opinion, damaging the Guardian’s reputation (but presumably not its ABCe figures).

Howvever, this morning is a success for the organisation and for climate justice. As Ben said on Radio 4 this morning, “I was not surprised that we were successful, no. We had some compelling evidence for the impact of climate change on property, and a jury of our peers were convinced. What was really on trial here was Kingsnorth and coal. Now only government ministers think coal is a good idea.”

I met Ben six or seven years ago through work; even back then he was hugely committed to environmental activism and peaceful direct action, and I remember him heading off on the Rainbow Warrior 2 for six months as part of his role as press officer. That he has worked for so long and so hard in committing to this campaign is a tremendous achievement for his and the others.

And how Ofcom got it wrong…
The success of Greenpeace in court immediately made me think of Ofcom’s decision on the Great Global Warming Swindle (GGWS). A quick recap. When the complaint about C4′s broadcasting of this documentary was put to Ofcom, the complaint was filed under a range of their codes, mainly in the 5s (e.g. 5.4, 5.5, etc) but NOT 2.2., which covers harm and offence done to the public.

In their response, Ofcom responsed under some of the 5s, but not all, switching the complaint against the GGWS to code 2.2; and they decided the programme had not caused harm or offence (PDF). There is some flawed reasoning behind this from Ofcom–there is now an appeal in against this decision. At the time it was heralded as a huge blow for climate campaigners on blogs and some mainstream media sites. (Added: came across this interesting piece on the debate.)

George Monbiot criticized Ofcom (at least twice) on this point of ruling that GGWS did not cause harm. His argument is that disinformation does lead to harm. It has been said before, and will be again, that the disinformation campaigns of people such as Martin Durkin and Exxon executives are comparable to the disinformation campaigns of Big Tobacco. On Sunday, Oreskes and Renouf showed how this tactical campaign to disinform the pubic on climate change leads back over 30 years. People’s attitudes are swayed by the media. The IPCC said this just two weeks ago: that public commitment (PDF) to the scientific fact is required for political action.

The question for Ofcom is: if climate change can be seen as a justifiable defence because in causes harm, where does that leave its case? If causing damage to some property (a coal fired power station) to protect worse damage being done to other property (the Kent coastline) then what damage does disinformation lead to? And can Ofcom rightfully decide that such disinformation is not in their remit to judge, as our communications regulator?

LINKS from Greenpeace: “you can find out more about coal, why we don’t need it to keep the lights on and why the government should be pursuing efficiency, renewables and combined heat and power instead.”

LINKS from those who disagree with the decision:

• Melanie Phillips on the greenwashing of a jury (in the Spectator)
• Question That blog: ‘the law is an ass’

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Tagged as: activism, coal, greenpeace, Ofcom