A British jury has cleared six Greenpeace activists of causing
criminal damage when they vandalized a power plant last year in
a protest over global warming, based on the defense attorneys’
argument that the protesters were trying to prevent even worse
damage from climate change. Yesterday’s verdict is expected to
embarrass the government and lead to more direct action protests
against energy companies [The Guardian]. Last October, the
Greenpeace protesters scaled the smokestacks of a coal-fired
power plant as a publicity stunt to protest the United Kingdom’s
continued reliance on coal-fired power plants, which emit large
amounts of the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.
The protesters were halfway through painting a slogan on the
side of one smokestack (“Gordon, bin it,” a British way of
asking Prime Minister Gordon Brown to chuck coal), when the
police served the activists an injunction by helicopter and
forced them to stop. They were charged with causing more than
$50,000 in damages based on