The judge recognised the “sincerity” and “laudable motives” of the protesters, and handed down lenient sentences of 2 year conditional discharges and £310 court costs.

Congratulations on having the courage to break the law to pursue your beliefs (though of course you are completely and utterly deluded).

But surely you’d get more publicity if the judge would play the game and lock a few of you up?

The headline to this article was really promising, but it didnt deliver. Climate change is a complex issue, so is the legal system, but the legal system isnt going to provide the solution. The writer gives the impression that he thinks it will.

Stopping a plane from taking off is more likely to get dozens of holidaymakers irate than garner sympathy for the cause , imho. So individual acts have to be better targeted to disrupt the business world without alienating the public. The public, let’s face it are being lied to by the media about climate change so there is little point in gaining publicity for the cause through civil disobedience. The public wont quite understand as long as they are given a skewed view of the science .

There is certainly a place for civil disobedience but I dont think activists in the UK have got there yet. Tim DeChristopher is way ahead of the field on this. His act only harmed business , it didnt ruin the day of anybody except the guilty. He saved land from the developer. And he stood up for himself in court. Hat Tip to Tim DeChristopher.

We are all reliant on the industry that is choking us. Whilst your desire to deploy the necessity argument in court is admirable it’s likely to cause problems for you because the counter argument that a power station produces power that we all use is likely to be equal to it and hence trump the necessity argument, all things being equal.

“But whether or not we succeeded in stopping emissions on the day, there is also the ‘dynamic’ element – that blockading a plane can also gain coverage of an issue and contribute to a shift in behaviour and policy which avoids millions of tonnes of CO2 in the future.”

You don’t know that will be the effect, it is equally likely that the opposite is the case- people get so disgusted by egotistical protesters who think that they have the right to break thge law and bully the public into doing what they want that they become hostile to legitimate steps to curb climate change.

Think I agree with Hengist on this. While direct action is important – it works better directed at businesses and the government than at consumers. We need public opinion on our side, not to alienate it…

…blockading a plane can also gain coverage of an issue and contribute to a shift in behaviour and policy which avoids millions of tonnes of CO2 in the future…

That it can (as a theoretical possibility) doesn’t mean it can (as in pragmatic likelihood). Any reason to believe the latter?

2. Hengist McStone:

> Stopping a plane from taking off is more likely to get dozens of holidaymakers irate than garner sympathy for the cause , imho.

I don’t think that’s a clear-cut certainty. One of the ‘successes’ of the deniers is to make it seem they aas though they are much prevalent than they really are:

* UK: 83% view climate change as a current or imminent threat. Deniers represent fringe position and mainly comprised of old, male conservatives. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/31/public-belief-climate-change

The hysterical, ranting and abuse from the deniers in forums across the internet are clearly swelled by sockpuppets – either cranks operating on their own, or ‘HBGary’-style espionage backed by millions of $$$ from the fossil billionaires.

There’s plenty of evidence that the public support action – including civil disobedience – in order to address climate change.

However, fair point: stopping a plane-load of holidaymakers should probably be near the bottom of the priority list for action.

Can I just reccomend this video, Tim DeChristopher talking about NVCD in the context of climate. He is the main man right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sqHYem6zqM&feature=feedlik

I too am very much put off by the likes of Plane Stupid.
It would seem that they only appeal to a very narrow demographic.
Blocking motorways would be a logical follow up direct action. As would trying to disrupt Formula One and Nascar motor racing events. Even protesting outside where they’re filming Top Gear. Why not?
It’s not the science that puts me off Plane Stupid, it’s the way the message is put across.

Groups like Plane Stupid have never been interested in courting public opinion ..theyve said so in a number of interviews ( one i remember specifically was in the Observer ) …they pull publicity stunts ..then cry to the Government to ” do something ” ….as if Government should react to the shrill cries of a handful of middle class “activists” as opposed to the will of the majority of the voting public ….in that sense these groups are elitist in nature and anti democratic in practice …

The classic horns of a dilemma here. To be fair to the proposition, I am not entirely sure that the ‘irate holiday makers’ (HM @2) are the target audience of this type of protest. If these people are not on his side by now, they are never going to be. I have said before that I personally doubt that the numbers are going to be influenced much by trying to ‘persuade’ deniers of the merits of the science after twenty years of the science being in the public domain, then one more attempt is not going move that person or that planeload.

To be brutally honest, and yes, I am well aware of the controversy here, when it comes down to it, I have to admit that there are certain people in some circumstances that I am not too bothered if they are ‘inconvenienced’. I am not necessarily suggesting that a group of people going to the Costa Brava are those type of people, but I personally do not shiver at the thought of people who are too ignorant to understand a given issue are brought into a dispute via ‘direct action’. If we can ‘inconvenience’ thousands of disabled people and patrons of a local library for something they have not done, then do a couple of yuppies on a stag weekend deserve to be able to walk away from any dispute? Anyway, as I said above, the numbers are now pretty static. I just hope that we have a ‘critical mass’ to change direction. If we do not, then we, as a population, are fucked, and trying to get the ‘irate holiday maker’ on that flight to come onside is a complete waste of time. If they are going to be put off from joining ‘our’ side by the actions of ‘plane stupid’ then no amount of peer-reviewed science is going to convince them. If we cannot win without him, then we cannot win at all. If he hates us AFTER this event, he hated us before it and we need not worry about further antagonising him. So, if the ‘holiday maker’ becomes an ‘irate holiday maker’, then so fucking what? He was never on our side and never will be.

However, having said all that, I have to admit that although I can well understand the frustration for people like ‘plane stupid’, I am not sure that they have the correct tactics here. Climate Change cannot and will not be stopped by piecemeal protests. Stopping an individual flight will have a certain kudos attached to it, it is a futile act. What is needed is long term Government action, stopping the odd plane is not going to change that.

However, at least you are attempting to do something, so well done.

Blocking motorways would be a logical follow up direct action. As would trying to disrupt Formula One and Nascar motor racing events. Even protesting outside where they’re filming Top Gear. Why not?

yeah! good on you! Block al of them except flights to berlin in the first week of April

Just don’t disrupt any of Sunny’s many trips!

Foolish me, I thought LC was concerned with democratic politics. These people are not democrats; they have a an agenda, a personal point of view which they would like to force upon the rest of us without the trouble of persuading people, by force of argument and testing it in an election. Your site Sunny, do what you want, but don’t then pretend you stand for democratic values. I hope as many as possible of these people end up in prison.

Si @ 13

These people are not democrats; they have a an agenda, a personal point of view which they would like to force upon the rest of us without the trouble of persuading people, by force of argument and testing it in an election.

Yeah, why is that different for any other political group in society? The ConDems haven’t bothered to ‘persuade’ us of anything either, they merely ‘persuaded’ a small minority of of us. They have not attempted to convince disabled people that they are not really disabled, all they have done is employ people who tell them they are not disabled, irrespective of the medical evidence.

#14

So if the BNP or EDL (start to) break the law to get their point across will you support them.

If you cannot see the difference then there’s nothing that I can say will persuade you.

@ 14

“Yeah, why is that different for any other political group in society? The ConDems haven’t bothered to ‘persuade’ us of anything either, they merely ‘persuaded’ a small minority of of us. They have not attempted to convince disabled people that they are not really disabled, all they have done is employ people who tell them they are not disabled, irrespective of the medical evidence.”

So? Democracy doesn’t mean making everyone happy. Don’t get me wrong, I hate what the Tories are doing, but you can’t compare them to law-breakers just because they didn’t get 100% of the vote.

Si @ 15

I am not sure the BNP and EDL are your best poster boys for the point you are trying to make, given that both groups openly flout the law without consequence. If the EDL or BNP breaks the law to get their point across then the laws of the Country should stop them if they are doing damage or causing violence. I am quite happy to see them judged on the merits of their case on its own terms.

We have seen plenty of ‘demonstrations’ where the Right use strong-arm tactics, again without much in the way of consequence. It is only when the ‘Left’ use ‘non violent, direct action’ that the Law gets involved. I cannot remember (though I may stand corrected on this) a single fuel protester being jailed or even prosecuted for their actions. Nor do I remember the groups involved having their funds sequestrated either, despite the appropriate laws being left on the Statute book post the miner’s strike. Nor did the farmers suffer for their disruption either when they blockaded milk depots.

Once I see these people in the dock and the Tory vermin backing prosecution to the fullest extent of the Law, you may have a point.

CG @ 16

I am not. What I am pointing out is that when people use this type of direct action, people like ‘Si’ pull out the old ‘you need to ‘persuade’ these to your point of view’, fair enough’, but the Tories have hardly ‘persuaded’ anyone of the need to withdraw benefits from the blind. The made no attempt ‘persuade’ the hundreds of thousands of blind people of the need to make the changes, they simply use the ‘legal’ authority to do so.

The have the ‘legal’ right to do so, but does that give them the ‘moral’ right to do so?

Let us say, for example, that ‘a direct action group’ (plane stupid for example) have twenty percent of the public supporting their actions (A number purely pulled out of the air), does that make them any less ‘moral’ than an action taken by a Government with a similar support? You can argue that they latter has the legal ability to impose it’s will on the eighty per cent of us that did not vote for them, but is that ‘morally’ any different from stopping a flight from taking off? Of course, the airline (or whoever), being a large business has the law on its side, when is it any different? Does that mean they have the ‘moral high ground’, just because they have ‘persuaded’ a majority in the House of Commons? If so, then why do we need to introduce a ‘they need to persuade people’ dimension into the debate?

Jim,

We have seen plenty of ‘demonstrations’ where the Right use strong-arm tactics, again without much in the way of consequence. It is only when the ‘Left’ use ‘non violent, direct action’ that the Law gets involved

untrue.

sorry, that was in reference to: “I cannot remember (though I may stand corrected on this) a single fuel protester being jailed or even prosecuted for their actions.”

not the comment I quoted.

UKL @ 18/19

Fair enough, but those are minor traffic offences, nothing too serious. No-one is going to jail for any off this. Given the whole gamut of potential offences used against, say, the miners, including the complete sequestration of union funds, the vast majority of those protesters got away Scott free. Like I said before, once I see the Right demanding prosecution of illegal picketers, laws that the Tories specifically introduced against this very thing, I might concede they have a point.

@ #6 Blue Rock and #10 Jim

I think we should all remeber that the vast majority of people are non-aligned, they don’t hold strong views and are persuadable by circumstances as much as argument. There is a massive moral case for not putting more CO2 into the atmosphere, but that case is not made by stopping a plane from taking off not least because such an action will have collateral effects which are vastly more immediate than AGW . Stop them building the airport in the first place , yes.

Making the massive moral case I refer to above isnt easy it requires being smart not stupid.

So we need to address the middle ground who are playing the role of observer in the debate. But the debate is polarized, and usually those who express a view are pretty entrenched. I find the AGW debate fascinating because the world’s greatest minds are working on it. It is a conundrum. Im not suggesting I have the solution , but I can see that appearing as an extremist will not get your arguments listened to. Tim DeChristopher has found a way of short circuiting that problem because he put himself on the line , but nobody has been inconvenienced by him. Remember it’s all very well shouting carbon emissions are bad, but our way of life depends on them, we are all addicted to this thing. I wish I could find a way of living without giving my money to oil companies, because I resent funding climate change denial.
That is all.