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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. More »

Tags: activism, coal, greenpeace, Ofcom

Censorship or sense? Well, sense actually

Well, that was interesting. My post on the limits to debate on cimate change has generated 40-odd comments so far (modest in the grand scheme, but detailed, and most of which has been useful and instuctive: couple of interesing sites in Devil’s Kitchen and QuestionThat). There were a few personal attacks here and here (and here) and a few more on-topic responses, such as from Sans Pretence.

I’ve actually spent much of the day writing the paper that helped stimulate the blog post, assessing the influence of online on public perceptions of climate change. So to all those who have commented, and provided further links and thoughts, thanks. More »

Tags: censorship, climate change, GGWS, Ofcom, regulation

C4 Mykura’s half-right contradiction on climate change

Hamish Mykura, Channel 4’s head of documentaries, has published his reply to Monbiot’s claim that Channel 4 has harmed action against climate change.

Mykura’s central tenet is that the vehemence of people such as Monbiot do more harm to the ’cause’ of global warming than a dissenting documentary that is seen by 2.7m viewers. In Mykura’s words:

It is arguable that it is not the Great Global Warming Swindle that has bred public scepticism, but the desire of some environmentalists – evidenced by the identikit complaints orchestrated against the film – to stamp out dissenting voices. This intolerance undermines confidence in the rightness of the cause.

This one’s going to get some comments alright. Maybe aiming for the 1,500 that accumulated under the New Scientist Lynas/White debate at the beginning of the year. Some early comments on the CIF site under Mykura’s article:

• Pretendingtocare: ‘2 more articles like this and we’ll have balance’
• TheLoonyfromCatford: ‘Impact? well it sure got a lot of US right-wing bloggers talking’
• Commander Keen: Hamish, you are a (quoting Durkin) ‘big daft cock’

And isn’t that fulfilling all the promises of new media? More »

Tags: Channel 4, climate change, GGWS, Mykura, Ofcom